Fear,Commercialism,Reform,and Antebellum Tourism to New York City

Abstract

Tourism to New York grew after the 1820s, during a period of incredible growth in the size of the city and its attendant problems. As the contrast between the glittering commercialism of Broadway and the rapidly worsening Five Points neighborhood increased, tourists became both witnesses to and subjects of the city’s best and worst aspects. A key role was played by Charles Dickens, whose 1842 visit to the city helped create a national sense of both the best and worst it had, and as the 1850s turned, the popular literature began presenting tourists as the inevitable victims of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhood. Tourism now became an engine fueling both the forces wanting to reform Five Points and as some of its best customers, and by the end of the decade, the nation’s image of New York had been set in the mind of Americans, creating preconceptions that continue to this day.