Cold war consumer diplomacy and movie-induced Roman holidays

Abstract

In the 1950s the US government encouraged American vacation travel to western Europe as a means of bolstering European economies and fighting the cold war through consumer diplomacy.Astrong dollar and new airline classification systems with reduced fares made European tourism accessible for the middle class for the first time, which resulted in record numbers of Americans enjoying European holidays. This essay demonstrates how American motion pictures became part of a cluster of inducements for such travel during the 1950s and early 1960s as a weakened Hollywood film industry found financial reward in producing movies in Europe. Concentrating on the figure of the single woman traveler to Rome, five films released between 1953 and 1961 with female protagonists are analyzed to illustrate how popular culture contributed to the rhetoric of Roman holidays as the site of cultural enrichment and consumer diplomacy for American women.