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Session description
European resorts and ports 1700-2000
Abstract:
The aim of this main session is to bring together two historical genres – the history of the seaside resort and the history of the port - that though buoyant and important in themselves, are rarely explored as interrelated phenomena. Consequently, though resorts and ports frequently occupy the same physical location, their history tends to be contained in parallel rather than converging discourses. It is intended that the session should be as inventive and open-ended as possible. We wish to encourage as wide a range of contributions, about as wide a variety of locations as is concordant with the overall proposal. We would expect the balance between the resort and port functions to vary considerably over time and place. Under the term ‘port’ we include not only marine trading functions, but the whole commercial and industrial life of a coastal town, and under ‘resort’ not only the seasonal seaside holiday business, but also the broader residential, service and cultural sectors that attracted a visitor and residential population. There were coastal towns which remained exclusively ports and others which developed from the beginning exclusively as resorts. These in themselves would qualify for discussion in the session to determine the factors that led them to retain a single economic identity. However, in many, perhaps the majority of coastal towns the two functions would be present to some degree. Even in the most focused resort there may be a fishing industry and some water borne trade, if only to supply the material needs of the visitors, and – in some locations – to generate an image of primitiveness and authenticity. Themes to be explored include not only economic ones – for example, the extent to which resort and port functions competed with or complemented each other - but also issues such as environment and health, planning, civic identity, image, identity, and governance and public order. Resorts and ports both possessed a fluid demography, attracting considerable flows of people of often very different social and ethnic backgrounds. It is expected that the impact of this in terms of social and cultural conflict, assimilation and control, and insider/outsider relations, will form an important area of discussion for the session. Contributions on individual towns are welcome. However, studies which embrace several towns and/or regions/nations would help develop a valuable comparative dimension.
Session conveners:
- Peter Borsay
- Steve Poole
Session type: Main
Classification: EM/M - Early Modern to Modern
Communications
Development of ‘resort’ and ‘port’ functions in a Mediterranean city: Famagusta in the second half of 20th century
Author(s): Uluca Tumer, Ege
From Port to Resort: The Changing Profile of Small English Ports from 1830 to 1914
Author(s): Doe, Helen
From the temple of Hygeia to the sordid devotees of Pluto. The Hotwell and Bristol: resort and port in the eighteenth century.
Author(s): Hussey, David
Gijón. De la ville portuaire et industrielle des Asturies à la ville touristique et culturelle de l’arc atlantique européen, du XIXe siècle à aujourd’hui
Author(s): SAUPIN, Guy
In Dreamland: the historic seaside amusement park revisited
Author(s): Wood, Jason
Marketing the 'Bracing' Sea Air: health and Welsh seaside resorts, 1800-1900
Author(s): Roberts, Owen
Port and resort in symbiosis and conflict: Whitby, England, in the nineteenth and twentieth century
Author(s): Walton, John
Ports, Resorts and Recreational Space: the seashore, dock-building and the urban parks movement in a British coastal town
Author(s): Miskell, Louise
The "Naked City" of Cap d'Agde: Fishing Port Turned Nudist Resort
Author(s): Harp, Stephen
The First Seaside Resorts 1730-1769
Author(s): Brodie, Allan
The Seaside Watering-Places of Wales
Author(s): Borsay, Peter
The beach as port and resort
Author(s): Gray, Fred