Will Mackintosh 
Associate Professor of History and American Studies | University of Mary Washington
Fredericksburg, VA, UNITED STATES
Dr. Mackintosh is an expert in early American history, nineteenth century history, & the history of tourism.
Biography
Growing up in the Rust Belt, Will Mackintosh sought answers from the past in order to understand and explain the fading world around him. “My roots on the banks of the Erie Canal have profoundly shaped my professional interests, both chronologically and thematically,” said Mackintosh, who earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Swarthmore College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.
Mackintosh’s book Selling the Sights: The Invention of the Tourist in American Culture, was inspired by his high school summer job as a waiter on a dinner cruise boat touring a lake lined with Gilded-Age mansions. “It just got me really interested in the way people spent their leisure time in the nineteenth century,” he said in an interview on the With Good Reason public radio show. He is also the editor of “The Panorama: Expansive Views from The Journal of the Early Republic.”
An expert on American criminal history, Mackintosh has researched the Loomis Gang, a highly organized group of horse thieves that operated out of central New York state for much of the 1800s. “Although clearly a criminal organization, the gang used many of the pioneering organization techniques of nineteenth century big business, including dividing territory, monitoring and manipulating local markets, and investing heavily in the control of local and statewide politicians in order to influence public policy,” Mackintosh said.
At UMW, Mackintosh teaches courses on early American history, the American Revolution and Early Republic, American history to 1865, gender history, urban history, history of the book, history of capitalism, and the history of crime and punishment in the U.S.
Areas of Expertise (6)
Cultural History of Capitalism
History of Travel and Tourism
Nineteenth Century History
Early American History
Cultural and Intellectual History
History of Leisure
Accomplishments (5)
Bright Fellowship, Bright Institute at Knox College
2018 - 2021
Supplemental Faculty Development Grants, University of Mary Washington
2011 - 2016 and 2018 - 2019
Jepson Fellowship, University of Mary Washington
2015 - 2016
Summer Faculty Research Grant, University of Mary Washington
2015
Helen and John S. Best Fellowship, American Geographical Society Library
2013
Education (3)
University of Michigan: Ph.D., History 2009
University of Michigan: M.A., History 2004
Swarthmore College: B.A., History 2000
Affiliations (2)
- “The Panorama,” digital supplement to The Journal of the Early Republic : Founding Editor
- Papers of James Monroe Project Advisory Board : Member
Links (1)
Media Appearances (6)
Tourism Industry
WHRV 89.5; WAMU-FM Radio; With Good Reason online
2021-08-09
Tourism Industry
Selling the Sights
With Good Reason, Radio IQ 88.3 online
2019-08-24
Titled after Will Mackintosh’s book, Selling the Sights: The Invention of the Tourist in American Culture, the show chronicles the origin and evolution of the concept of tourism, explores the ways it’s used today to develop rural communities, and more.
UMW Hosts Eighteenth Century Conference
EagleEye UMW Faculty/Staff Newsletter online
2016-11-17
The 47th Annual Conference of the East-Central American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies met at UMW on Oct. 27-29. Will Mackintosh served on the Program Committee.
Mackintosh Presents at History Workshop in Wales
EagleEye UMW Faculty/Staff Newsletter online
2014-10-07
Will Mackintosh, assistant professor of history, recently presented new work on the nineteenth century print culture of geographical knowledge at a small workshop entitled “Travel in the Marketplace” at the University of Bangor in Bangor, Wales.
Mackintosh Presents at Symposium on American Culture
EagleEye UMW Faculty/Staff Newsletter online
2014-04-10
On April 5, Will Mackintosh presented a paper entitled “Traveling Gender Identities in the Nineteenth Century” at the Graham Letters and Culture Symposium in Illinois.
Will Mackintosh Completes Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee
EagleEye UMW Faculty/Staff Newsletter online
2013-07-01
Will Mackintosh has just completed a residential research fellowship at the American Geographical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, where he was working with their collection of nineteenth-century American tourist guidebooks. This fellowship was part of his ongoing research project on the origins of domestic tourism in the early United States.
Event Appearances (5)
Selling the Sights: The Invention of the Tourist in American Culture
Newport Symposium - 2019 Newport, USA
New England Travel Entrepreneurs and the Commodification of Leisure Experiences, 1820-1860
Deerfield-Wellesley Symposium - 2019 Deerfield, USA
Manitous at the Springs: Imagined Indians and Elite Tourism in the Long Nineteenth Century
American Studies Association Annual Meeting - 2018 Atlanta, USA
Painesque Publishing: How Historians Write Politics, Then and Now
Revolutionary Texts in a Digital Age: Thomas Paine’s Publishing Networks, Past and Present - 2018 New Rochelle, USA
Red Jacket Bathed Here: Inventing Native American Origins for Leisure in the Early Republic
Reading, Writing, and World-Making in Nineteenth-Century America - 2016 Ann Arbor, USA
Articles (4)
Selling the Sights: The Invention of the Tourist in American Culture
NYU Press2019 In the early nineteenth century, thanks to a booming transportation industry, Americans began to journey away from home simply for the sake of traveling, giving rise to a new cultural phenomenon —the tourist.
The Prehistory of the American Tourist Guidebook
Book History2018 In 1822, a local printer in the small town of Saratoga Springs, New York, compiled and printed off a cheap, slim volume, almost a pamphlet, to which he gave the rather grand title The Fashionable Tour: or, A Trip to the Springs, Niagara, Quebeck, and Boston, in the Summer of 1821.
Mechanical Aesthetics: Picturesque Tourism and the Transportation Revolution in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania History2014 In the 1830s, Pennsylvania's Main Line of Public Works was at the cutting edge of the transportation revolution. Travelers embraced the speed and convenience of the line, but struggled to articulate the aesthetic experience of new forms of travel.
"Ticketed Through": The Commodification of Travel in the Nineteenth Century
Journal of the Early Republic2012
