“All Aboard for Europe!”: American Youth Travel to Europe Between the World Wars

Abstract

Using the travel writing of six Americans in their teens who went to Europe between WWI and WWII, this article argues that broader trends of mass tourism, such as travel’s extension beyond European elite and inclusion of women, intersected with Americans’ preoccupation with youth and youth culture in the interwar years. First, an examination of publications aimed at middle-class Americans demonstrates that contemporaries saw travel as a way to mitigate anxieties about youth, nationalism, and internationalism. Then, a close reading of the youths’ writing reveals that as young American women growing up in a period in which anxieties about youth and young women’s sexuality were high, their gender and age were crucial to how they made sense of their social and political experiences abroad.

Keywords

• Youth
• Gender
• Travel
• Tourism
• Internationalism
• Gioventù
• genere
• viaggio
• turismo
• internazionalismo