Planned Serendipity: American Travelers and the Transatlantic Voyage in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

Abstract: Mark Rennella, Whitney Walton, "Planned Serendipity: American Travelers and the Transatlantic Voyage in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries"

From 1870 through 1940 numbers of American travelers to Europe increased as the transatlantic voyage became cheaper, safer, and shorter. For many historians of travel this period represents its transformation from an original and individualistic experience of a tiny elite to a more mundane element of capitalist exploitation and mass consumption among middle-class masses. However, writings by two generations of Americans--intellectual elites and university students--reveal that the transatlantic voyage throughout this transformative period offered travelers the opportunity to engage in a constructive questioning and self-examination of previously unquestioned beliefs and habits. Despite their diverse class and regional backgrounds, and their many different goals for transatlantic travel, these American voyagers across the Atlantic shared a sense of wonder, dislocation, excitement, and anticipation during the week or weeks they spent at sea. This study argues that the transatlantic voyage presented new imaginative and creative possibilities for American travelers, and led to a broader appreciation of nationalism and internationalism.