American amusement parks and leisure culture in the 1890s

American Amusement Parks in the 1890s

Amusement Parks in America in the 1890s

In the years just before the dawn of the 20th Century, America was going through dramatic cultural, social, political and economic changes. The Industrial Revolution was reshaping the way Americans worked and played; an emerging "mass culture" was creating a "cultural upheaval" - as mentioned in the John F. Kasson book, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century. This upheaval was driven in part by technological innovations (affordable books, magazines, photographs, lithographs, the invention of the telephone, phonograph) in communication, which opened the door to a new way of living - for a new generation of Americans it was a distinct departure from "genteel respectability" (Kasson, 6). This paper offers a close look at how U.S. families were learning to enjoy their leisure time in the 1890s, leisureliness being a luxury that citizens of the early and mid-19th Century, for the most part, were not able to experience. In this paper, the amusement parks of the late 19th Century will be reviewed - as to what they offered and how people responded to them - and also, the paper will cover the events of the times, important people of the times, as a way to put American leisure experiences into historical context.

Putting the 1890s into Historical Perspective

Meanwhile, as the "genteel middle-class cultural order" was crumbling (Kasson, 6) in the 1890s, there were fascinating developments and inventions which hastened dramatic cultural change in America (Bowling Green, 2000). In 1891: Thomas Edison invented the first motion picture camera; James Naismith invented basketball; Whitcomb L. Judson patented the zipper. In 1892: the first gasoline-powered auto was built by Frank and Charles Duryea (followed by Henry Ford's first car in 1893); The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was published (Arthur Conan Doyle); Carnegie Hall opened its doors. In 1893: Alexander Graham Bell's patent on the telephone expires, opening the door for other phones; Frank Lloyd Wright designs his first home. In 1894: the Income Tax becomes law; muckraking journalists expose corporate corruption. In 1895: Sears Roebuck launches mail order catalog business; Woodville Latham launches Panoptikan, a moving picture projector; Coney Island opens up. In 1896: James B. Connolly wins hop, skip, and jump event, 1st U.S. Olympic champion in 1500 years at revival of games in Athens; Koster and Bial's NYC music hall holds first public exhibition of moving pictures; "The Yellow Kid" is published (first comic strip) by New York World. In 1897: 1st subway opens in Boston; William James publishes collections of essays (the varieties of religious experience). In 1898: battleship Maine blown up in Havana harbor, followed by sensational newspaper accounts ("yellow journalism"), which inflame anti-Spain sentiment and lead to U.S. taking Cuba and the Philippines from Spain. In 1899:

John Dewey begins revolution in education with publication of the school and society; Edwin Markham publishes "man with a hoe," which becomes the most popular poem in American history to that point; economist Thornstein Veblen publishes the theory of the leisure class.

Paragon Park, Boston

During the late nineteenth century, a number of resort areas developed in the Boston area, providing fun and recreation for its residents. In fact, in the late 1800s, Nantasket, or Hull, was considered the premier resort in New England; it bragged of being the "largest summer hotel in the nation." Nantasket featured rides (merry-go-rounds), modest roller coasters, and other attractions. Also, elegant amusement parks were developed at Revere, Norumbega and Nantasket Beach. At one point, there were more than a dozen wooden carved carousels in the Boston metropolitan area, all within ferry or trolley distance. However, the advent of the automobile allowed Bostonians easy driving to Cape Cod and northern New England; hence, one by one, merry-go-rounds faded from the scene.

Revere Beach Reservation, Boston

While the automobile took the luster away from amusement parks in the city of Boston, the railroad - the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad - became the largest single factor in the development and growth of Revere Beach Reservation, five miles north of Boston. In 1895, the Massachusetts legislature ordered the "taking" of nearly three miles of private seacoast land on what is now Revere Beach Reservation. It featured the "Cyclone Roller Coaster," the "Hippodrome Rough Riders" (a "magnificent electric carousel, an old-fashioned merry-go-round" which filled a building nearly 80 feet square, the "Fun House," and "Derby Racers" (roller coasters).

Atlantic City

Along the boardwalk in Atlantic City, in 1899, popular amusement piers began popping up. Visitors enjoyed walking out over the Atlantic Ocean on these long piers. The more popular piers were named "Million Dollar," "Steel," "Iron"; people from Philadelphia, New York, and other booming urban environments flocked to Atlantic City. Some exhibits were called "Diving Horse," and "Dr. Couney's Premature Infant Exhibit." One major amusement was the regularly held marathon dance contests, held out on the piers.

Ponce de Leon Park, Piedmont Park - Atlanta

Ponce de Leon Park was built in 1888, just three years after Coney Island was completed. It featured a Ferris wheel, swinging rides in little cars hanging from a tall steel structure, carnival side shows. Piedmont Park was designed by George Forsyth Johnson in 1887 when he did the landscaping for the grounds for the 1887 Piedmont Exposition. Originally there was a racetrack and amusement activities in the park, then it was redesigned the park in 1895 for the Cotton States and International Exposition, creating the park lake.

Forest Park Highlands - St. Louis

Started as a beer garden, and then an amusement park, Forest Park Highlands first opened as the Highlands Cottage Restaurant in 1896. To attract a wider audience, they installed a horse-drawn merry-go-round. The St. Louis Republic newspaper, of May 23, 1897, carries a small notice stating that Forest Park Highlands ("the finest and largest open-air enterprise in the West") featured "10 new and novel features including a scenic railway." One of the best parts of the park was that admission to the grounds was free. However, on the stage of Col. John D. Hopkins' Vaudeville Theater one could enjoy the comedy of Marie Dressler for just 10 cents in the gallery, 20 cents in the balcony, or 30 cents downstairs.

Coney Island History

New York's Central Park provided a plethora of activities for big city folks in the Big Apple in 1858 - horseback riding, boating in the summer, skating in the winter, and amusements for tiny children. Frederick Law Olmsted developed the park, and he could not possibly have forecast that by 1871, ten million people a year (and 30,000 a day) would be utilizing the huge park's attractions. But following the extraordinarily successful World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago (there were 21,480, 141 paid admissions), city planners and architects from the New York area - and elsewhere - were inspired to duplicate Chicago's excitement and enjoyment in their cities, going well beyond the attractions in Central Park. The "midway" at the Chicago exposition featured a huge sideshow - including theaters, shops, restaurants, and exhibits - which proved somewhat more popular than the free cultural exhibits, and gave creative ideas about amusement parks to innovative developers.

Well before the Chicago exposition, indeed, in 1829, Coney Island had already begun its celebrated era, as restaurants, bathhouses, taverns and a small side-wheel steamboat were built. Coney Island was 9 miles from Manhattan, and offered seaside seclusion and refreshment to New Yorkers weary from the hot city's energy. The Manhattan Beach hotel was built on Coney Island in 1877, followed by the Oriental Hotel in 1880; New Yorkers could hop on the train (Prospect Park & Coney Island Railroad) for 35 cents, and be at Coney Island in less than an hour.

Among the more creative hotels built on Coney Island was The Elephant, "an immense sculpture made out of wood and covered with tin, with spiral staircases in its hind legs, a diorama and a cigar store in its front legs, a shopping mall and guest rooms in its body, and an observatory in its head" (Kasson, 33). And not to be outdone in sheer size by an elephant, developers put up massive structures for the surge of masses of people arriving. For example, The Sea Beach Palace at Coney Island (built in 1897) was said to be able to serve 15,000 people at a time, and could sleep up to 10,000 guests on any given night. And The West Brighton Hotel claimed it could serve 8,000 people daily. The Ocean Pavilion (built by Charles Feltman in 1874) boasted that it was the largest building on Coney Island, with 20,000 guest rooms, a ballroom where 3,000 dancers could frolic at a time, and a piazza where 5,000 onlookers could gather at a time. Big? Forget big; Coney Island was proudly, boastfully becoming a place of colossal size and dimension. But of all the hotels mentioned, the West Brighton was the most lavish and popular: in 1878, a warm Sunday could bring 60,000 to Coney Island, and of those, 50,000 would cool their heels at the West Brighton. And what exactly were the attractions at Coney Island (featuring Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach)? Were there ladies of the night? According to Kasson (p. 34), there were indeed "whores." Plus, there were "innumerable saloons, variety shows, bands, shooting galleries, sideshows, catchpenny games, food vendors, crayon portraitists, photographers, fortune tellers, as well as con men, whores, and thugs of old." The title "Sodom by the Sea" became a popular reference for Coney Island. Meantime, the three main enclosed amusement parks within Coney Island were Steeplechase, Luna Park, and Dreamland, and each had features freely borrowed from the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Steeplechase Park, most successful of the three, opened in 1897; its developer, George Tilyou described the appeal of his park to a reporter thusly: "What attracts the crowd is the wearied mind's demand for relief in unconsidered muscular action. We Americans want either to be thrilled or amused, and we are ready to pay well for either sensation," he continued. Rather than feature games of competition, Steeplechase offered games of "theatricality and of vertigo, which encouraged participants to shed self-consciousness and surrender to a spirit of reckless, exuberant play" (p. 59).

And while Coney Island was becoming a destination of choice for many New Yorkers and visitors to New York, it also was the subject of an emerging sexual freedom, captured in numerous photographs - some of which are featured in Kasson's book. "Coney Island thus offered strikingly visible expression of major shifts in sexual mores traditionally associated with the 1920s, but beginning to take place..." (p. 38) in 1895. On the cover of his book, the "naughtiness of violating customary proprieties" is on display. "Five young women raise the hems of their bathing dresses and thrust out their buttocks as they grin coquettishly toward the viewer" (p. 47), Kasson writes, albeit, by today's sexual freedom on television and in the movies, that photo is quite tame.

Conclusion

Upon noting that the "tawdriness" of Coney Island has now been replaced by Walt Disney's "sanitized" theme parks across America, and Europe, Kasson asks: "What, then, was ultimately the function of Coney Island and the type of amusement it presented?" (p. 106) He answers his own question by saying Coney Island - and amusement parks using the same kind of theme - symbolized the demise of the genteel culture and the emergence of the mass culture. And, he adds, Coney Island wasn't a "subversive" development as feared by many conservatives, but rather, a "cultural accommodation to the developing urban-industrial society in a tighter integration of work and leisure than ever before." One wonders, with today's mass culture seemingly glued to television "reality shows" like "Millionaire" and "American Idol" - is this today's version of Coney Island?

What does it say about Americans who come home from work on stress-drenched, clogged freeways, microwave their evening meal, settle back in front of a huge screen TV to watch live Iraqi war pictures (small camera embedded in tanks), courtesy of the Pentagon and CBS / CNN / NBC / ABC / FOX, and following their ration of "news" updates, are entertained by recycled "Dating Game" reality shows? No doubt, the Coney Island and amusement park eras of the 1890s reflected more innocent times. But were they better, healthier social times? Most likely the answer, as Bob Dylan wrote, will be "Blowing in the Wind" for untold years from now.