Tammy Gordon

Area(s) of Expertise

My research is in public history, which is the study of facilitating public dialogue about historical matters, of preserving historical resources, and of the application of historical knowledge to contemporary problem-solving. More specifically, I explore the construction of historical memory through mass culture and tourism, focusing on the ways tourists created meaning about the past through travel and host communities’ responses to the demands of the tourist economy. This research centers on the period between 1870 and 1945, when innovations in transportation allowed for a growth of tourism and tourist infrastructure. Tourism has had – and continues to have — major environmental, economic, and political impacts, and historical information about it needs to have a stronger role in the creation of policy related to tourism.