From Wilderness to Vacationland – Maine’s Tourist Industry

In this course, we will examine the social, cultural and economic forces that contributed to the (re)invention of Maine as a tourist destination between the 1830s and the eve of World War Two, when the state’s license plates began displaying the catchy nickname “Vacationland.” During this period, folks “from away” were not just the target consumers for Maine’s tourist industry. Prominent non-Mainers—including artists, travel writers, journalists, publishers, land speculators, railroad executives, commercial investors, hoteliers, and architects—also helped to build and market that industry to fellow non-Mainers and Mainers alike.

Recommended Texts: Bachelder, Peter Dow, Vacationland: A History of the Maine Tourism Industry, Breakwater Press, 2022, ISBN 979-8985391701, and Brown, Dona, Inventing New England: Regional Tourism in the Nineteenth Century, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, 978-1560984733. NOTE: Both books are out of print. You may purchase the Bachelder book directly through Midcoast Senior College for $33.75. It will be available at the office for purchase. The office is open Monday – Friday, 9 am to 3 pm. Please bring a check written out to Midcoast Senior College in the amount of $33.75 (cash and credit card cannot be accepted). The Brown book may be located through online second-hand text sellers. I welcome volunteers willing to summarize and comment on any of these readings during a scheduled class meeting.

Mark Lincicome first heard the phrase “from away” when he left Seattle to attend Bowdoin College in 1971. After retiring from a career as a professor of Japanese and Asian history at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts, he and his wife now call West Bath home. Eager to share his interest in the history of his adopted state—with native Mainers and non-Mainers alike—he serves on the board of the West Bath Historical Society and volunteers at the Maine Maritime Museum.