After my recent interview on the John Batchelor Show on WABC-AM in New York aired, I got an fascinating email from a listener on Long Island, custom furniture maker Rob Kron, who was intrigued by what he was finding out about Fred but also perplexed. His daughter, it turned out, is taking a college course on the American West and tourism, and one of the required texts, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West by Hal Rothman, in Rob’s words “demonizes Mr. Harvey, capitalism and America itself!” He said he was “very concerned that the education young people across the country are receiving is at times revisionist, and undermines and distorts their love, pride and appreciation of their country.”

Rob wanted to know, “Do you find that you are now criticized by left wing professors or others for offering your more positive perspective of this time period? I believe that we as people and as a nation can and should always strive to learn from the past so that we can improve our efforts when they have the potential of impacting others negatively. However, I believe that demonizing the American entrepreneurial spirit, and the innate desire to explore, tour and expand one’s boundaries to increase one’s knowledge of the greater world is actually an indictment of the human spirit…which is naive, ridiculous and ultimately very destructive.”

I wrote back: “I try, as much as possible, to explain during the narrative in my book the objections–from various people along the way–to what the Fred Harvey company did in the Southwest, which has a deeply embedded love/hate relationship with tourism and the railroads that brought tourism. In general, the people who criticized Harvey in the west were often businessmen who were upset that the Harvey company was more powerful than they, had the power of the trains behind it, and did business better–and, ultimately, put some of them out of business. I think their points of view are interesting and worthy of discussion, and perhaps professors who have been assigning those books will also begin assigning mine, because I had access to a lot more material than all previous books on Harvey and tourism. Once fully informed, they can make their own decisions.”

Rob ordered the book, checked out this blog, and then emailed me back with good news. His daughter has decided to write her final paper for the class–for which students get to select their own source material–on Appetite for America. Can’t wait to read it!

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