A history of vacationing in the Queen City of the Appalachians
This is an online event. Please register at:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrce2pqz8vH9RS1egDAcvKOq3Fs58DRYIw
In the thick of summer, when we’re all traveling or daydreaming about travel, we’re also coming out in public and noticing that there are suddenly a lot more hotels in downtown Knoxville, and more in the works. Has Knoxville somehow become a vacation destination? And was it always?
Jack Neely will talk about the history of Knoxville as a tourist attraction, going all the way back to the 1790s, when some French nobles, anxious to save their heads from the guillotine, stopped at Knoxville on their Grand Tour of America, the era of Civil War tourism of the late 19th century–and what awed Sartre and Corbusier when they visited in the 1940s. We’ve got pictures of all that, too, including postcards. Then we’ll try to figure out who’s filling all those hotels today, and whether our history has something to do with it. We may even mention the 40th anniversary of a certain World’s Fair one more time.
This project is supported in part by the Arts & Culture Alliance, the City of Knoxville, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
