1998 Albert B. Corey Prize from the Canadian Historical Association

When Oscar Wilde visited Niagara Falls in 1882, he declared that the Falls must be the “earliest if not the keenest disappointment in American married life.”  Wilde was neither the first nor the last to notice the peculiar relationship between heterosexuality, the honeymoon, and Niagara Falls. The Second Greatest Disappointment charts the growth of Niagara as a tourist destination from the 1850s to the present, and shows how it acquired its reputation as the “Honeymoon Capital of the World.” Tourist industry records, as well as interviews with people employed Niagara’s hotels and attractions, provide an insider’s perspective on the marketing of this cultural landmark. 

 Karen Dubinsky also traces the history of the honeymoon, placing in context of changes in the public culture of heterosexuality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. So when Cary Grant declared to Grace Kelly in the 1955 film To Catch a Thief, “What you need is ten minutes with a good man at Niagara Falls,” everyone knew he was not referring to sight-seeing.

The Second Greatest Disappointment uses travelers’ drawings, advertisements, and guidebook photographs to tell an engaging story about an old North American landmark.