Fun Factories: Inventing American Amusement Parks

Abstract

During the nineteenth century American entrepreneurs, engineers and inventors combined to transform the European pleasure garden into an increasingly industrialized Fun Factory, filled with mechanical 'rides' which drew upon modern life to entertain the masses of working class thrill seekers delivered from urban centres by equally modern forms of transportation. Play was created by combining the capacity of amusement parks to produce fun with the (often young) homosocial crowd's desire, as consumers, to partake of the intimacy and commodified risk on offer. Underpinning both the production and consumption of play were the many mechanical rides provided, some modified from much older European forms, such as the carousel and Ferris wheel, and others, like the bumper cars, modified versions of emerging and exciting technologies drawn from everyday life. The result was what some observers called an 'industrial saturnalia'. Show more