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Everyone knows
about merry-go-rounds. Depending
on ones philosophical outlook, the carousel is
viewed as a symbol of futility,
frivolity, childish innocence, or fantasied excitement and
beauty. The evocative qualities
of the merry-go-round make it a
favorite theme for artists,
writers, advertisers and song writers. Yet for all the imagery and
nostalgia connected with
the carousel, it is rarely the subject
of any serious consideration or
study. The carousel deserves attention for itself, as a piece of
history, as an industry,
as an art form, and as a popular expression of creative genius. If
there is any point of focus
at which all these aspects of
carouseliana converge,
it is in the onetime amusement capital of the world,
Coney Island.
Carousels had a long and colorful development before they reached
Coney Island, of course. The
notion of swirling in a dizzying circle was probably well
established before people gave up swinging on vines for
transportation and pleasure. Amusement
machines constructed for a
similar purpose have been
documented since Byzantine
times. The name "carousel" and the association with horses
derives from exercises in
horsemanship among twelfth-century
Arabs. These contests were
called carosello (little
wars) by Italian crusaders who adopted the games
when they returned to
Europe.
Lavishly caparisoned
horses in French
ceremonial tournaments or carrousels of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries set the
style for the imaginative trappings of more recent
wooden horses. The contest of
spearing rings with a
lance from horseback during such tournaments survived
until recent times as the struggle to catch the
merry-go-round brass ring, now
almost eliminated by
liability-conscious insurance underwriters. Sophisticated
circular rides with carved wooden mounts were
devised to train children
of the nobility in the arts of
the tournament. These machines
were copied for popular
amusement toward the end of the seventeenth
century.
England took an early lead in the mechanical development
of the carousel. In 1673 Raphael Folyarte
applied for
a patent for "A new and rare invencon
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knowne by the name of the royalle carousell
or tournament,
being framed and contrived with such engines
as will not only
afford great pleasure to us and our
nobility in the
sight thereof, but sufficient instruction
to all such
ingenious young gentlemen as desire to
learne the arte
of perfect horsemanshipp with all the
usual practices and exercises thereof..."
By 1870 Frederick Savage of
King's Lynn had designed a portable center-mounted steam engine
which made possible
the large, heavily ornamented roundabouts that
still travel the
circuit of English fairs. In 1885
Savage developed
the system of geared overhead
cranks which
imparted up and down motion to the
horses. Savage's
"Galloping Horses" roundabouts became
so popular he soon had three hundred men at work filling orders.
English roundabouts invariably
turn in a
clockwise direction to allow riders to mount
properly from the
left side of the horse. The counterclockwise rotation prevalent in
other countries
accommodates the
right-handed lancer jousting with
the ring.
American
entrepreneurs lagged behind the major
countries of
Europe in the commercial development
of the carousel. Yet it was in America,
and most especially in
Coney
Island, that the carousel came of
age, developing a
range of styles and a standard of
beauty far
surpassing the stereotyped, static designs
of the Old World. Through some kind of
reverse chauvinism and
misdirected press-agentry American
folklore credits
Germany with
ultimate status in
carousel
manufacture. Many of the finest American
carousels are
passed off as "masterpieces hand-carved
in Germany." This
misunderstanding, too, gathered
momentum in Coney
Island.
The first carousels in America were impromptu
affairs put
together in the early 1800's by carpenters
and wheelwrights
for the entertainment of their
neighbors. They
usually consisted of an implanted
centerpole and a
limited number of revolving sweeps
carrying seats or
benches suspended from chains.
More imaginative
craftsmen provided crude horses
improvised from
sections of logs. Motive power came
from a horse or
mule walking inboard of the seats. |
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Smaller devices
were turned by hand. These earliest
American
merry-go-rounds were usually called "flying
horses."
The first firm to manufacture carousels
in any quantity was established
about 1865 by Gustave
Dentzel, who had helped his father build carousels
in his native
Germany.
Dentzel's machines soon
sported an
extensive menagerie of exotic beasts,
including lions,
tigers, giraffes, camels, ostriches,
bears, goats, pigs, cats, rabbits, and
the mythical hippocampus: half horse, half dolphin. The strong
European flavor of these mixed
animals, coupled with Dentzel's Germanic name and the
location of his factory in
Germantown (a section of Philadelphia) may have founded the
mythology of the "German
carousel" in America, but events in the later history of
Coney Island gave the myth almost universal
credence.
The transition of Coney Island
from an isolated bathing resort
to the playground of America hinged on the arrival of horses and
dogs—horses of wood, horses of flesh, and dogs of the variety
known as hot. Coney Island was much like any other nineteenth
century coastal spa until it developed its own
distinctive style of carousel,
horseracing, and cuisine.
According to Edo McCullough the hot dog
was invented in 1867 by an enterprising young Coney
Island
bakery vendor named Charles Feltman. Feltman
equipped his pie wagon with a charcoal stove
and served boiled
sausages encased in rolls to appeasethe
appetites of hungry bathers. His Coney Island red
hots were so well-received that by
1869 he and a partner
established a shorefront restaurant. The tiny
stand bore an imposing sign, "Feltman
and Wulff, Proprietors.
Lager 5¢." Capitalizing on the explosive popularity of his
invention, Feltman parlayed his
original shanty into a luxurious spread of buildings
extending from
Surf Avenue to
the sea, an assemblage
of beer gardens and dining rooms that became
the finest and most successful restaurant
complex on the
island.
The first race track in Coney Island
opened at
Brighton Beach in June, 1880. Within six years
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