The Economic Impact of Lighthouses

We all know that lighthouses were built to prevent shipwrecks and save lives, but few of us have stopped to realize the economic impact of a lighthouse. Today, the impact of a lighthouse is strictly tourism, but when lighthouses were first built, they impacted the local economy through construction and later through increased traffic. A study of the economic impact that lighthouses had on the colonial and early American cities is what I intend to research for my PhD dissertation in maritime history. I am sure after I get started, my topic will expand beyond lighthouses and probably focus more on port infrastructure, but we will see how that works out. I start graduate school in the fall and my PhD will take roughly 5 - 6 years. After that, my dissertation will be reworked and published as a book (as required by most universities to obtain tenure as a professor).

I am interested in hearing thoughts on this topic and whether it would be of interest to anyone outside of the discipline of history.