Making the Past Present

If you were a middle- or upper-class traveler in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, you would almost certainly know the name Baedeker. Perhaps you had traveled with Baedeker yourself, or knew someone who had. Or maybe you hoped to travel with Baedeker someday. But who – or what – was Baedeker? 

While Baedeker is no longer a household name today, our historical traveler would know that Baedeker is the name of a German guidebook company, founded by Karl Baedeker in 1827. Baedeker guidebooks were incredibly popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, because of their detailed maps, descriptions of cities and noteworthy tourist sights, and comprehensive information about travel routes and accommodation. Each Baedeker guide also provided historical and cultural information about the featured country (or countries). It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that Baedeker guidebooks set the standard for modern guidebooks. They were the Lonely Planet or Rick Steves guides of their day.

Published in English as well as German, Baedeker guides became the go-to reference for nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British travelers. Indeed, these travelers depended on their Baedeker guides so much that E. M. Forster spoofed them in his 1908 novel A Room with a View. Near the beginning of the novel, Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman traveling in Italy, is persuaded by Miss Lavish, a novelist, to abandon her trusted Baedeker guide and explore the Santa Croce neighborhood of Florence in search of the “real Italy.” Lucy and Miss Lavish don’t necessarily find the “real Italy” – they get lost without the help of Lucy’s Baedeker and wander around back alleys for hours before finally making it back to the Basilica of Santa Croce.

Lucy … at once opened the Baedeker, to see where Santa Croce was. [Miss Lavish said] “Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true Italy – he does not even dream of it.”

E. M. Forster, A Room with a View (1908)

Traveling with Baedeker

I’m very intrigued by these old guidebooks, especially the opportunities they present for “seeing” into the past. As a result, in this post (and, perhaps, others), I’m going to explore the world of Baedeker, uncovering what Baedeker guides from the late 1800s and early 1900s recommended seeing and doing in a variety of places, as well as how these places have changed over the past hundred years or more.

This series is made possible by the Readux project at the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship (Emory University), which has made available over 100 digitized Baedeker guidebooks.

Baedeker in the United States

To begin with, I thought I’d explore what Baedeker guides recommend seeing in my own part of the world: East Tennessee. Baedeker’s 1904 guide to the U.S. (The United States with an Excursion into Mexico: A Handbook for Travellers) devotes around 4 pages to East Tennessee (not bad, considering that this area was very rural and poor at the time).

Most travel in the United States in the early 1900s was done by train. As such, the Baedeker guide features East Tennessee as part of a train journey from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans via Chattanooga, Tennessee. An intrepid traveler could stop off in various towns in East Tennessee along the way in order to break up their journey, After all, Baedeker estimated that traveling from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans would take nearly 35 hours if done in one go.

After leaving Washington, D.C. and passing through Lynchburg and Roanoke, our intrepid traveler would reach Bristol, a city directly on the border between Virginia and Tennessee. Today, Bristol is known as the birthplace of country music (the place where the famous Carter Family recorded their first songs) and the home of the Bristol Motor Speedway. In 1904, Baedeker described Bristol as “an industrial city and tobacco market.” After Bristol, Baedeker noted, “the scenery continues picturesque.”

The next city on the railroad after Bristol was Johnson City, my hometown. Baedeker did not have too much to say about Johnson City, only mentioning that it was the location of a “new Soldiers’ Home.” The Soldiers’ Home (full name: Mountain Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers) opened in 1904, the same year this guidebook was published. The site is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also the location of the Mountain Home National Cemetery. Today, Mountain Home is still a veteran’s hospital, the James H. Quillen VA Medical Center.

Baedeker does mention a possible side trip from Johnson City. Our intrepid traveler could take a narrow-gauge railway, called the “Cranberry Steam Winder” by Baedeker and the “Tweetsie Railroad” by locals, from Johnson City, through the Doe River Valley, and up to Roan Mountain. At Roan Mountain, our traveler could not only admire the “extensive” views, but also enjoy some hospitality at the Cloudland Hotel, located on top of the mountain. Travelers today unfortunately cannot recreate this trip, as the Cloudland Hotel no longer exists (it was abandoned in 1910), and the Tweetsie Railroad stopped operating in the 1950s. However, visitors to Johnson City can walk on the Tweetsie Trail, a rails-to-trails project, which converted the old Tweetsie Railroad into a walking and biking trail that runs from Johnson City to the neighboring town of Elizabethton.

From Johnson City, Baedeker directed travelers to take the railroad towards Knoxville. Along the way, the guidebook noted, travelers would pass through Greeneville (misspelled Greenville in the guide), the home of President Andrew Johnson, today a National Historic Site. Eventually, our intrepid traveler would reach Knoxville, the “chief city” of East Tennessee, located on bluffs above the Tennessee River. Then, as now, one of the places of interest in Knoxville was the University of Tennessee (my alma mater).

From Knoxville, our intrepid traveler could continue to Chattanooga and points south, having seen a bit of what East Tennessee had to offer. The region has certainly changed since 1904, and it’s well worth a visit for the mountain scenery, local heritage, and friendly people.