All American Transformation

Reader; All American Experience, Amusing the Million, Coney Island Frolics:

What I noticed while reading these last three sources was the way that Coney seemed to strip away all identifying characteristics of the people who attended the parks. Thats not to say that they became mindless automatons, but rather that their individual culture and social class seemed to dissipate in lieu of the festivities of the park.

In the All American Adventure, Lilly Daché says, "'What would Mam say, if she knew that I smiled at a strange young man I never saw before. This is what she warned me about, No nice girl would ever think of doing such an unladylike thing'" (2). We see that the park takes Lilly out of her natural comfort zone and rigid social code to enjoy the freedom of the amusement. Her previous culture is stripped away in favor a relaxed society loosely bound by the search of entertainment.

Likewise Thompson comments, "People are just boys and girls grown tall. Elaborated child's play is what they want on a holiday. Sliding down cellar doors and the make-believes of youngsters are the most effective amusements for grown ups" (6). For Thompson's case, the adults suspend their airs of maturity and become children once more. Yet another level of their identity stripped away.

Finally Fox makes note, "If it were not for the men who accompany them it would he impossible to recognize them as the same persons who but a little while ago entered those diminutive rooms" (1). The woman who go to Coney to bath strip away the makeup and the fashion of the time to become nearly different people. They shed the entrapment of their old lives and culture for the freedom offered at Coney.

So then, is this freedom from prior culture and status a good or a bad thing (to put it rather elementary)? How should we view this trait of Coney Island in a historical perspective? And what does it show us about the changing nature of American culture?

Abstracting the Real for Real Enjoyment

Amusing the Millions 55-112:

The section that most stood out to me in reading the last parts of Kasson's work was a small segment on pages 72 and 73. Kasson writes, "Coney abstracted features from larger society and presented them in an intensified, fantastic forms. Instruments of production and efficiency were transformed into objects of amusement, and life around them lifted from the dull routine to exhilarating pageantry" (73). With this statement he also includes two pictures with the captions, "Miners descending for work" and, "Thrill seekers descending for pleasure" respectively.

I thought this was an interesting take on the forms of entertainment that Coney Island produced. Kasson seems to be arguing that Coney's attractions serve as fantastic microcosms for the society at large. The owners of the parks seemed to be taking aspects of the working class, such as the miner's track and transforming them into amusing rides. So something that an individual would be loath to go out outside of the parks now become prime attractions.

In the same way, the recreated natural disasters at Luna Park mirror the tragedies of the past, but do so in a perverted, re-imagined, romanticized way. The attractions turned past catastrophes into the entertainment of the day. In respect, this could also be the source of America's fascination with disaster films today.

So my question is for what reason were these rides such draws to people? They could have experienced similar things in the working world and yet now they pay good money to do the same thing in a different setting. And why were recreated disasters such a big hit? Does it relate somehow to the society as a whole, or to human nature?