A lively and wide-ranging work on the history of the North American honeymoon, and, of necessity, the tourist industry at Niagara Falls. Dubinsky charts the growth of Niagara Falls as a tourist destination from the 1850s to the 1960s and explains how it acquired its reputation as the "Honeymoon Capital of the World." Ultimately, the author asks: Of all the ways to promote a waterfall, why honeymoons? Winner of the 2000 Albert B. Corey prize from the Canadian Historical Association and the American Historical Association for the best book in Canadian-American history.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"From grand wedding tours to heart-shaped beds, Dubinsky insightfully traces the role of the honeymoon in the history of heterosexuality. In the process she reveals how 'natural' attractions-whether waterfalls or love-are indeed produced in social, cultural, and historical contexts. An informative and entertaining tour." -- Kathy Peiss, University of Massachusetts, author of Hope in a Jar: the Making of America's Beauty Culture
"Karen Dubinsky traces the history of Niagara Falls as a rendezvous for the most 'heterosocial' vacations of all-the honeymoon..." -- The Women's Review of Books
"The Falls at Niagara presents a timeless picture: water meets gravity. Karen Dubinsky has made a fascinating study of the constantly changing frame that surrounds this immutable scene. Dubinsky illuminates the rhetoric of the Falls as a classic boast of the white man's superiority over nature, non-Anglo Saxons, and the little missus. Believe it or not, I read the whole book!(Call Ripley's!)" - -- Sheila Gostick, stand-up comedian
"Thoughtful, illuminating, and witty... By showing how the honeymoon, like tourism, became an item of mass consumption, this fascinating book offers striking new perspectives on the history of marriage, heterosexuality, and consumption in the twentieth century." -- George Chauncey, University of Chicago, author of Gay New York
"Karen Dubinsky traces the history of Niagara Falls as a rendezvous for the most 'heterosocial' vacations of all-the honeymoon..." -- The Women's Review of Books
"The Falls at Niagara presents a timeless picture: water meets gravity. Karen Dubinsky has made a fascinating study of the constantly changing frame that surrounds this immutable scene. Dubinsky illuminates the rhetoric of the Falls as a classic boast of the white man's superiority over nature, non-Anglo Saxons, and the little missus. Believe it or not, I read the whole book!(Call Ripley's!)" - -- Sheila Gostick, stand-up comedian
"Thoughtful, illuminating, and witty... By showing how the honeymoon, like tourism, became an item of mass consumption, this fascinating book offers striking new perspectives on the history of marriage, heterosexuality, and consumption in the twentieth century." -- George Chauncey, University of Chicago, author of Gay New York
From the Back Cover
In this provocative history, Karen Dubinsky addresses a deceptively simple question: of all the ways to promote a waterfall as a tourist destination, why honeymoons?
For two centuries Niagara Falls has attracted tourists from around the World. After a visit in 1882 Oscar Wilde sardonically declared that the Falls must be the second greatest disappointment in American married life. Wilde was responding to the peculiar relationship, already well established in his day, between heterosexuality, the honeymoon, and the Falls. Dubinsky explores what it was like not just to visit the Falls but to live and work behind the mists of such celebrity. From Victorian marriage manuals to Marilyn Monroe(and the movie Niagara) she treats the Falls not only as a metaphor and icon, but also as a real place, populated by real people who helped to shape its cultural meaning.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
My first greatest disappointment!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooners, Heterosexuality, and the Tourist Industry at Niagara Falls (Paperback)
This book is a waste of money. Very disappointing!
1 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
i need info,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooners, Heterosexuality, and the Tourist Industry at Niagara Falls (Paperback)
Hello, if anybody knows how I can contact Karen Dubinsky please Email me at Dubenskij@hotmail.com Her surname is a derivationof my own, I am desperately looking for members of my wider family to help me find out more about the family before they were expelled from Russia in the early part of this centuary. I am deeply interested as my Great Grandparents died when my grandfather was young and he lost contact with the other family members.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Dodge's Log Lodges. When I was growing up this phrase was a kind of magical incantation for my parents and us, their children. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
honeymoon certificate, honeymoon promotion, postwar travel boom, postwar honeymoon, tourist entrepreneurs, private honeymoon, marital experts, tourist promoters, parks campaign, tourist history, honeymoon resort, wedding tour, preservation campaign, sex experts, tourist homes, imaginary geography, hack drivers, tourist gaze, honeymooning couple, tourist boom, honeymoon destination, tourist industry, honeymoon hotel, tourist promotion Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Niagara Falls, New York, World War, General Brock, Niagara Parks Commission, United States, Table Rock, North America, Queen Victoria Park, Maid of the Mist, Shredded Wheat, Clifton Hill, Foxhead Inn, Northern Ontario, Rainbow Room, Frederick Olmsted, Isabella Bird, Saturday Night, Dodge's Log Lodges, First World, Isabel March, New World, Nova Scotia, Oscar Wilde, Royal Commission New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Dodge's Log Lodges. When I was growing up this phrase was a kind of magical incantation for my parents and us, their children. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
honeymoon certificate, honeymoon promotion, postwar travel boom, postwar honeymoon, tourist entrepreneurs, private honeymoon, marital experts, tourist promoters, parks campaign, tourist history, honeymoon resort, wedding tour, preservation campaign, sex experts, tourist homes, imaginary geography, hack drivers, tourist gaze, honeymooning couple, tourist boom, honeymoon destination, tourist industry, honeymoon hotel, tourist promotion Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Niagara Falls, New York, World War, General Brock, Niagara Parks Commission, United States, Table Rock, North America, Queen Victoria Park, Maid of the Mist, Shredded Wheat, Clifton Hill, Foxhead Inn, Northern Ontario, Rainbow Room, Frederick Olmsted, Isabella Bird, Saturday Night, Dodge's Log Lodges, First World, Isabel March, New World, Nova Scotia, Oscar Wilde, Royal Commission New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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8
books
cite this book:
See all 8 books citing this book
- The Englishwoman in America by Isabella Lucy Bird on 7 pages
- The Englishwoman In America by Isabella L. Bird on 7 pages
- Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation by Mary Louise Pratt on 5 pages
- The Tourist Gaze (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society) by John Urry on 4 pages
- Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory by Chris Rojek in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
See all 100 books this book cites
- Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women's History by Veronica Strong-Boag on page 204, and Back Matter
- A Companion to Gender History (Blackwell Companions to World History) by Teresa A. Meade on page 509, and Back Matter
- Here Comes the Bride: Women, Weddings, and the Marriage Mystique by Jaclyn Geller in Back Matter
- Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities (Routledge Research in Gender and History) by Antoinette Burton in Front Matter
- Writing Indian Nations: Native Intellectuals and the Politics of Historiography, 1827-1863 by Maureen Konkle in Back Matter
See all 8 books citing this book
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