The Ottoman Empire and the American flag: patriotic travel before the age of package tours, 1830–1870

Abstract

This article examines US flag display practices among American tourists in the Ottoman Empire between 1835 and 1870. These practices emerged from the intersection of the domestic American market for depictions of citizens abroad, Ottoman regulation on foreign nationals in the Empire that required flag display on boats and camps, and the energy of Ottoman travel industry workers who helped American visitors’ extend flag display to other colloquial touristic uses. American consumers accepted patriotic flag display as a central part of travel routines in the Middle East in order to ascribe patriotic meaning to their vacations. It was the first articulation of the idea that travel was an American activity through which citizens might serve themselves and the state by representing their nation abroad as consumers. American uses of the national banner in the Empire demonstrated that, a full century earlier than previous research has indicated, leisure travel became a patriotic practice for many Americans, and that tourism and nationalism were mutually reinforcing phenomena.