Amusements Made to Save Man: The History of Moral Amusement Rides

Introduction

LaMarcus Adna Thompson invented the Switchback (or Scenic) Railway in order to save man from degradation by drink, prostitution, and immoral entertainments (Mangels, 1952). He believed that—answering a call made to him from God—roller coasters would save man. If man had roller coasters, he would have no need for houses of ill repute, and so—in less than a decade—patents for up-stop wheels, brakes, track, lift hills and enhanced trains quickly changed Thompson’s invention into a modern thrill ride. Thompson’s rides took guests on an adventure—tracks were surrounded by murals and scenes meant to duplicate scenery from other parts of the world. They were meant to educate. In short, his rides were rhetorical. They argued that an educated populace was one that sought to experience the Western world, that bodily delights were best experienced in controlled circumstances, and that amusements could be—beyond all else—moral.

This paper will trace the result of this early invention to present day. What does it mean that amusement parks have been meant, since their inception, to present Western moral values to the world, and to do so in such an embodied way that the argument is sometimes invisible? What does it mean that Eastern themes, such as rounded roofing, pagodas, and ornamentation were only added to buildings in Coney Island by Fred Thompson because it made them seem “child-like” and “depraved” (Register, 2001, loc. 1425). The ride inventions that followed the scenic railway enabled old mills, dark rides, carousels, and others to be quickly added to parks, transforming pleasure gardens and picnic grounds to amusement parks. The earliest parks were not subtle in their depictions of Western morality. Dreamland, one of the three major parks at Coney Island that stood during the first decade of the 1900s, had a spectacular called Creation, which Biblically told the story of Genesis from the creation of the Earth to the story of Adam and Eve (Sullivan, 2015). Dreamland also featured Hell Gate, a ride in which the guest rode in a boat that was sucked into a whirlpool and pulled under and into the center of the Earth, where they would witness subterranean horrors and might just find Hades. Even carousel horses featured the richly attired saddles and regalia of warhorses of the past (including those of the Crusades) instead of racing attire of thoroughbreds from the same time period (a notable exception being the horses that ran along the tracks of Steeplechase Park and that vied for a winning position at Church and Prior’s Racing Derby).

However, the morality created in and exported by early amusement parks was not just Christian. It was, by means of culture and segregation, white. Though amusement parks in Japan and Denmark predated Coney Island by hundreds of years, it was the surge of technological advancement of the Industrial Revolution followed by the world’s fairs meant to display new technologies (including rides) and teach about world cultures that drove Luna Park, Dreamland, and Steeplechase to be not only the model for American amusement parks, but also amusement parks worldwide. Amusement parks were segregated, meant for white guests, and guests of color were only there as attractions—and there was a time when neatly every city in America with a population of over a few thousand had its own amusement park or pleasure garden, and copies of these parks spread across national boundaries and oceans as well. This was the beginning of American supremacy in amusements. They defined a genre, but it was not a genre that was well-planned beyond one of spectacle. It was assumed that what sold and was successful was good, even to the extent of “What appears is good; what is good appears” (Debord, 2009, loc. 409). By World War II, amusement parks that looked very much like the ones in America existed on nearly every continent (Mohun, 2013).

By the 1940s and 50s, amusement parks had fallen away from their earlier lofty goals, largely because two World Wars’ worth of rationing and the Great Depression meant that many simply could not afford maintenance. Hundreds closed, unable to update. Teenagers were seen as untrustworthy, and frequented parks. Despite their earlier goal of uplifting mankind, roller coasters and parks closed and were seen as unsafe and immoral. It did not help that desegregation efforts centered around parks and swimming pools.