Currents of Progress, Toy Store for Tourists: Nineteenth-Century Mexican Liberals View Niagara Falls

Abstract

This essay addresses the depiction of Niagara Falls in selected travelogues by nineteenth-century Mexican liberal intellectuals.
It demonstrates how these texts present Niagara as an ambivalent symbol of US progress, on the one hand, and of the commodification of the site's nature for the growing tourist industry, on the other. Visiting Niagara mainly on the US American side and as part of a journey through the United States, Mexican travelers present the cataract unanimously as a US American symbol with potential relevance for Mexico. To contextualize this depiction, the article outlines key aspects of the period’s Niagara writing in general and of Mexican visitors’ views of the United States before turning to its six case studies of Mexican liberal intellectuals’ travelogues from the 1830s through the 1890s.