# Famous Foreigners who took extended tours of the U.S.A. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 12, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004 "2009-12-12T18:42:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/21 "2009-12-13T09:41:56Z")
Matthew Arnold made a coast-to-coast speaking tour, much like Wilde’s. I actually wrote an article on this topic–I’ll see if I can turn it up. Now, I can just barely remember Arnold and Clemenceau. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/22 "2009-12-14T02:37:56Z")
Churchill did tour the U.S. in the 1920s, and was injured when he was hit by a cab in NYC. He also visited some Civil War battlefields, at one of which his guide was an old Confederate veteran. Not what you’re looking for, but Golda Meir grew up in Milwaukee, IIRC, and Benazir Bhutto went to college here. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/23 "2009-12-14T11:10:19Z")
Kruschev (sp?) in the 50s. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/24 "2009-12-14T12:43:02Z")
[Robert Louis Stevenson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson) took the train across America in 1879, falling ill on the way and eventually staying in California for about a decade. He also returned a few years later for another couple of years before sailing for the South Pacific and his eventual death in Samoa. He wrote _The Amateur Emigrant_ and _The Silverado Squatters_ about some of his experiences in the USA. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/25 "2009-12-14T14:14:20Z")
Ho Chi Minh. From Wiki: > [@](#): > > In 1912, again working as the cook’s helper on a ship, Cung traveled to the United States. From 1912 to 1913, he lived in New York (Harlem) and Boston, where he worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel. He worked in menial jobs and later claimed to have worked for a wealthy family in Brooklyn between 1917 and 1918, and during this time he may have heard Marcus Garvey speak in Harlem. It is believed that while in the United States he made contact with Korean nationalists, an experience that developed his political outlook. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/26 "2009-12-14T15:22:52Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > Rudyard Kipling and his family spent several years in Vermont during the early 1890s - in fact, their eldest children were born there. Apparently spent a summer or part of a summer in DC too as he joined Theodore Roosevelt’s circle for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/27 "2009-12-14T15:37:03Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I have an odd research interest in history, that being “snapshots” of America at particular times and places as seen through the eyes of foreign celebrities, particularly those who took extended tours of the nation. That’s kind of the point of this book (have you read it?): [Star-Spangled Eden: 19th Century America Through the Eyes of Dickens, Wilde, Frances Trollope, Frank Harris and Other British Travelers](http://www.amazon.com/Star-Spangled-Eden-Century-Trollope-Travelers/dp/0786707348/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260804878&sr=1-4) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/28 "2009-12-14T17:15:58Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Apparently spent a summer or part of a summer in DC too as he joined Theodore Roosevelt’s circle for a while. Kipling’s house in Dummerston, Vt. still stands. I’ve visited it but didn’t spend the night, as you can: [http://www.landmarktrustusa.org/naulakha/index.html](http://www.landmarktrustusa.org/naulakha/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/29 "2009-12-14T20:01:22Z")
Humbert Humbert, fictionally. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/30 "2009-12-14T21:22:46Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > That’s kind of the point of this book (have you read it?): > [Star-Spangled Eden: 19th Century America Through the Eyes of Dickens, Wilde, Frances Trollope, Frank Harris and Other British Travelers](http://www.amazon.com/Star-Spangled-Eden-Century-Trollope-Travelers/dp/0786707348/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260804878&sr=1-4) No, but just wishlisted it. Thanks. Richard Burton’s another great one (mentioned above). I’ve read the transcripts of his meeting with Brigham Young (who actually was very interested in the man) and Burton’s later depictions of polygamy in Arabia v. Salt Lake City. (Generally he thought the Mormons had taken the most sordid custom in the [then] modern world and made it dull:D, though it’s worth remembering that the fact Smith and Young and many of the other early Mormons were from working class hand-to-mouth northeastern farm families and that the early years of Deseret were marked by drought and poverty played a big part in the personality of the church; there wasn’t a lot of marble and silk and jeweled anklets to go around so the women were more likely to be found behind a plow than eating bon-bons and hummingbird tongue.) ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/31 "2009-12-14T21:28:36Z")
Does Stephen Fry count? His [In America](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry_in_America)special on the Beeb was pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/32 "2009-12-14T22:34:47Z")
> [@yanceylebeef](#): > > Does Stephen Fry count? His [In America](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry_in_America)special on the Beeb was pretty good. A bit recent, but I love Fry. (AND he made a great Wilde.) I also like Louis Theoroux’s shows set in America; anybody who can maintain relative objectivity while living with the Phelps family for a few days is worthy of admiration. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/33 "2009-12-14T23:11:00Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I won’t go into as much detail on Wilde- I’ll just say that in 1882 he spent most of a year touring the U.S. several times giving lectures on of all things interior design/decoration/English art as the key spokesman of the Aesthetics movement and as the inspiration for the character of Bunthorne a super popular Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, _Patience_. (G&S’s agent actually sponsored his tour which was to cross pollenate that operetta in America; the operetta produced publicity for Wilde and he returned the compliment.) I wouldn’t characterize the partnership between Wilde and Richard D’Oyly Carte quite in those terms. Carte, the hardworking impresario who managed to keep W. S. Gilbert & A. S. Sullivan on fairly cooperative terms for an astonishing number of years, feared that American audiences would not be sufficiently familiar with the Aesthetic Movement, and that the skewering satire of the movement, central to the plot of _Patience_, would be lost on them. Carte therefore subsidized Wilde’s Grand Tour of America so that the theater-going audience, once exposed to the _enfant terrible_’s highflown eccentricities, would be better able to get the jokes. Wilde was no fool, and knew quite well that he’d been set up to be the object of future ridicule. It was, however, an opportunity for self-promotion that he simply couldn’t resist. And he may be thought of as revenged, as _Patience_ is largely forgotten (outside of G&S circles, of course) and Wilde’s tour remains a touchstone of popular culture from the era. ---
**Author:** ![Petek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/petek/32/1590_2.png) [@Petek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petek)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/34 "2009-12-15T00:53:14Z")
The complete text of Richard F. Burton’s book about his travel in the U.S., _The City of the Saints_, is available online [here](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AFK4700). ---
**Author:** ![ErinPuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dbc845/32.png) [@ErinPuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErinPuff)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/35 "2009-12-15T01:27:59Z")
Darius Milhaud (French composer, 1892-1974) moved to California in 1940 because of the Nazis, but before that, he came to the US at least twice for concert tours. I’m currently desperately trying to finish a paper on his engagement with black music and cultures (it was due last week, it’s twice as long as it needs to be but still somehow not done, I’m going to lose my mind entirely in about thirty seconds), so all I can remember is that on the first trip (1922) he became obsessed with jazz in Harlem and had an awkward experience with segregation when he tried to take a black fan out to lunch, and on the second (1926) he went to a service at a black church in Birmingham, Alabama and was almost refused entry to a theatre in New Orleans because he was white (once he and his wife explained to the manager that they were French, he let them watch the show from his office). As far as I know, both tours were at least a few months long. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/36 "2009-12-15T01:57:59Z")
> [@yanceylebeef](#): > > Does Stephen Fry count? His [In America](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry_in_America)special on the Beeb was pretty good. I got the very distinct impression from the show that he wasn’t enjoying himself all that much, actually- which is a shame because I’m a big fan of Mr. Fry’s work and generally found the show to be very entertaining otherwise. I’ll second Louis Theroux’ work (I particularly enjoyed “Killadelphia”), although sometimes I think he does perhaps force his points a bit too bluntly. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/37 "2009-12-15T14:01:03Z")
In 1832, [Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuweid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Maximilian_of_Wied-Neuwied), traveled the Great Plains region, including a trip up the Missouri River; two years later, he traveled the entire length of the Ohio and Erie Canal, recording his experiences in a journal. In 1840 he published a book about his travels. He is not as famous as the OP may wish but, because he was so well educated, and a prominent naturalist, his work is very valuable today, especially to those of us who live near the canal and are interested in its preservation. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/38 "2009-12-15T14:11:46Z")
I haven’t seen the Stephen Fry series. What, in a nutshell, was his take on the USA? Wilde’s visit to America gave us one of his most famous _bon mots_. When asked by a U.S. Customs official if he had anything to declare, Wilde allegedly replied, “Only my genius!” ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/39 "2009-12-15T15:06:33Z")
Sigmund Freud come to mind at once. (I have oft wondered about his thoughts on American culture.) ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004/40 "2009-12-15T16:02:45Z")
The future Edward VII, as a boy of 18 or thereabouts in 1860, toured the U.S. and Canada. There’s a poem about it, published in 1861: _[The Prince’s visit: a humorous description of the tour of His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, through the United States of America](http://www.archive.org/details/princesvisitahu01cordgoog)_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-foreigners-who-took-extended-tours-of-the-u-s-a/521004.md?page=3)