| At the turn of the twentieth century, factories across multiple industries and geographic regions embraced tourism as a means of advertising and creating good public relations. Visitors enjoyed these factory tours as a behind-the-scenes peek into mechanized production. Although private tours of company facilities had long been available for dignitaries or potential investors, by the end of the nineteenth century active sites of production began offering regularly scheduled tours to the general public. Industrial tours proved to be widely popular, and curious visitors flocked to all types of factories to see how things were made.;What did tourists see and how did they react? Why did companies offer tours of their facilities? This dissertation begins to answer these questions using multiple case studies across three industries that were grounded in assembly line methods.;Tourists viewed kitchens of food processing facilities that trumpeted their compliance with the Pure Food and Drug Act, as shown with Schlitz, National Biscuit Shredded Wheat, and Heinz. Visitors to the mail order centers of Larkin Industries and Sears Roebuck saw orders flow through the fulfillment system from start to finish. In Motor City, and across the country, hundreds of thousands of automobile enthusiasts toured Ford and its competitors, as well as associated industries, such as Firestone tires.;Factory tours reflect broad industrial and demographic changes in the United States, such as shifts from an agricultural to an industrial economy, rural to urban population centers, homemade to purchased goods, anonymous commodities to brand marketing, and local to nationwide product availability. By showing factory tours from a variety of industries, this dissertation becomes a single reference at the intersection of the production and consumption of goods.;Industrial tourism is an interdisciplinary topic. Although grounded in the literature and methodologies of the history of technology, this research contributes to the fields of business history, women's history, tourism studies, and material and visual culture studies. Tourists themselves can also benefit from this dissertation. By recognizing how companies may be sanitizing their image, educated tourists are able to see how companies manipulate buying habits through experiential marketing. |
