‘Moral Renovation and Intellectual Exaltation’: Thomas Cook's Tourism as Practical Education

Abstract

Tourism has long had significant educational potential from the enlightenment of the Grand Tour to contemporary high-school and university tours to Europe and beyond. The development of mass, conducted tourism as a form of education for middle-class women and the working classes is less well understood. Based on primary research at the Thomas Cook archives, this paper examines how Cook attempted to harness the educational potential of travel by transforming it into a commercial product that the average consumer could afford. Tourism not only needed to be affordable, but also comfortable and safe given the relative inexperience these groups had travelling. Cook's critics lambasted the educational qualities of his tours and the ability of his tourists to truly appreciate what they were witnessing and experiencing. However, this criticism was often based on elitist attitudes about who could travel and the ability of the ‘lower sorts’ to comprehend it all. Cook's mission was to transform travel into tourism making it accessible to the middle and working classes but at the same time retaining its promise of enlightenment.

Keywords:

• Thomas Cook
• history
• tourism
• education
• class
• subjectivation

Notes

The Temperance movement's purpose was to reduce alcohol consumption in the 19th century. Some sections of the movement advocated for moderation in consumption whereas others argued, and were successful in the USA, for total prohibition.

I realise the problems with the term subjectivation but would argue that it encapsulates the duality that Michel Foucault argues was inherent to governance – both subjectification (as in being subjected to) and subjectivity (as in agency). Miller and Rose (1997) use the term ‘mobilisation’ of consumers or subjects but I feel subjectivation best captures the dynamism of governance. Foucault (1997, 2000, 2003) uses subjectivation to refer to those modes in society by which people are made into subjects. Subjectivation is used in French to convey this process of regulation and agency.

All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the Excursionist – Cook's magazine. It included trip itineraries, fares, lists of hotels and Cook's offices, testimonial letters, accounts of tours, advertisements for products catering to tourists and Cook's editorial commentary.

It should be mentioned, however, that Thomas Cook often operated trips at a financial loss, much to the annoyance of his son and eventual successor John Mason Cook. For Thomas, the moral profit of a trip was worth more than the financial.