"See America First": Re-Envisioning Nation and Region through Western Tourism

All Aboard! Travel Films, Railroads, and the North American West, 1897–1910

“…21 By this time, the efficacy of western Canada's tourism and settlement campaign had become even more pressing due to the "See America First" movement, which advocated domestic tourism to the US West. Railroad promoters and boosters initially conceived of the campaign in 1906 as a way to divert tourists from the eastern United States away from European tours and towards travel to the trans-Mississippi West by positioning western tourism as an expression of national citizenship and republicanism (Shaffer 1996). In its railroad tourism promotion, the CPR thus endeavored to lure tourists across the 49th parallel or to traverse the Atlantic Ocean while railroads offering travel to the western United States attempted to keep travelers within their national borders.…”

Promotional Imagery of Glacier National Park*

“…For Hill, Glacier epitomized the American West and highlighted the region's striking differences from the urban East (Shaffer 1994). Glacier would be a sanctuary where overworked Americans could revive their spirits and sample the amenities of western living in a pristine, natural setting.…”

“…Nowhere was Hill's zeal more apparent than in the ambitious and calculated advertising initiative that became an integral part of his Glacier Park investments and a central thrust in the Great Northern's larger "See America First" campaign (Runte 1990,33-38;Shaffer 1994 with his promotional agent, Hoke Smith, drew up an elaborate, multimedia advertising campaign to bring the new park into the home and imagination of every American. Hill and Smith agreed on the need for a highly visual advertising effort.…”

“…Popular fiction, landscape paintings and sketches, travelers' accounts, newspaper articles, and promotional materials defined the regional character of the American West for an ever larger and always curious national population (Smith 1950; Etulain 1982; Trenton and Hassrick 1983;Athearn 1986;Fifer 1988;Kinsey 1992; Wyckoff and Nash 1994). After 1870 the tourism industry increasingly defined popular images of the West as part of an initiative to convince middle-and upper-class Americans to consume the region's natural and cultural wonders (Athearn 1986,131-159;Fifer 1988;Shaffer 1994). With the completion of the first transcontinental rail line in 1869, railroad companies became ever more important participants in these marketing efforts (Hyde 1990;Pomeroy 1990;Runte 1990; Orsi, Runte, and Smith-Baranzini 1993;Shaffer 1994Shaffer ,1996Wilson 1997).…”

“…After 1870 the tourism industry increasingly defined popular images of the West as part of an initiative to convince middle-and upper-class Americans to consume the region's natural and cultural wonders (Athearn 1986,131-159;Fifer 1988;Shaffer 1994). With the completion of the first transcontinental rail line in 1869, railroad companies became ever more important participants in these marketing efforts (Hyde 1990;Pomeroy 1990;Runte 1990; Orsi, Runte, and Smith-Baranzini 1993;Shaffer 1994Shaffer ,1996Wilson 1997). In this paper we examine the promotional imagery used by the Great Northern Railway to encourage travel to northern Montana's Glacier National Park (Historical Research Associates 1980,64-102 ;Hyde 1990,53-146,281-295;Schene 1990;Lambert 1996).…”