Studies in Popular Culture
2 total works
Today, many people take the idea of holidays for granted and regard the provision of paid time off as a right. This book argues that popular tourism has its roots in collective organisation and charts the development of the working class holiday over two centuries. Starting with the cult of St. Monday, the problem of absenteeism of northern textile workers during Wakes Week, and culminating in the cheap foreign package holiday of the late 20th century, this study recounts how short, unpaid and often unauthorised periods of leave from work became organised and legitimised through legislation, culminating with the Holidays with Pay Act of 1938. Moreover, this study finds that it was through collective activity by workers - through savings clubs, friendly societies and union activity - that the working class were originally able to take holidays, and it was as a result of collective bargaining and campaigning that paid holidays were eventually secured for all.
This fascinating study will be of use to students and scholars of social history, travel and tourism and labour studies.
Healthy living in the Alps examines the relationship between the search for relief from respiratory diseases, such as tuberculosis, in high alpine resorts and the development in the same places of winter sports tourism.
The first winter visitors to the Swiss Alps began to arrive in the 1860s and were encouraged to take outdoor exercise as part of their cure regime. They also had healthy visitors and companions who sought recreation while the invalids were resting as part of the sanatoria routine. Demonstrating that this is not just part of the history of Switzerland but of Britain too, biographical backgrounds of British visitors to the resorts give depth and context to a history of health and winter sports tourism by looking at the kind of people who would spend months of the year in the Alps. A discussion of the application of modern technologies creates an overall view of the growth of health and sports tourism in Switzerland