People have traveled for millennia. But tourism, or travel for recreation, is a relatively new idea. Early nineteenth-century observers coined the word “sightseeing” to capture the growing popularity of traveling to destinations and touring recognized “sights.”
Modern tourism emerged in Richmond after the Civil War. Guidebooks by city boosters instructed visitors about what to see–and what was worth seeing. Postcards offered a way to share the experience with family and friends back home.
Today, these artifacts of tourism–postcards, guidebooks, and promotional videos–demonstrate how Richmond has showcased itself to the world. They remind us of the power of who gets to tell Richmond’s history. Some stories and sights are highly visible. Others have been hidden or ignored.
Why visit Richmond? Amidst centuries of change, Richmond has cultivated its image as a city of history, a city of leisure, and a city of commerce.
Though a city known for selling its historic past, Richmond has also been home to industry giants such as Reynolds Metals, Phillip Morris, and Capital One. Richmond is remembered for being a cigarette industry town, which is captured in the postcards displayed of laborers and the Philip Morris and Liggett & Myers buildings. Richmond fights to assume a persona of opportunity and mobility. The postcards … Continue reading City of Commerce
Richmond has long promoted itself as a cultural destination of the South, beckoning visitors with a variety of leisure opportunities. The postcards displayed here are images of Richmond throughout the years encompassing visitors’ journeys. We see cards from luxurious hotels like the Jefferson and the John Marshall. Images of the Lubin and Bijou theaters, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Mosque (now the … Continue reading City of Leisure
Richmond is the city of Monument Avenue and Jackson Ward, the Lost Cause and the Civil Rights struggle. It is, in short, a city with many histories. Richmonders have often presented their city as a place where visitors can travel back into the past. The “Old Virginia capitol of Richmond…offers you escape, not only in miles but in time!,” declared a city guidebook of 1947. … Continue reading City of History
