In Search of the Golden West: The Tourist in Western America

by Earl Pomeroy

Book by Pomeroy, Earl

Genres: History, Westerns, Nonfiction

233 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1990

Reviews

[calvin]

finishing this on a flight to Utah was kinda awesome

[Jessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at american tourism written in 1957. The language is sometimes awkward in comparison to how we speak today but still wonderful to read. Explores how travel changed from something that only the wealthy and the elite did to a rise of automobilers in the 1920s and 30s. In the early days of tourism in the American West, the men (and very few women) who came out didn't always know what to expect. Their palates weren't as jaded. Even the people who brought themselves out in the 20s and 30s had a sense of adventure, the trip was still new. But then, the shift to when all of the general masses to go to the park.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written early in the 20th century, Earl Pomeroy's entertaining little history book packed a wallop despite its often irreverent tone. Careers have been made, or destroyed, on the way he linked the American West, nationalism, tourism, and the Grand Tour. If it seems quaint now, it's because the ideas have been relentlessly rehashed. Any environmental historian should read this first--no navel gazing or deconstruction here, just a historian who sees the irony and beauty of our tourist culture at the same time. For everyone else, especially fiction writers, it's a terrific picture of the way things were out West.