Amusement Parks For The World PDF

International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC)
Amusement Parks for the World: The Export of American Technology and Know-How,
1900—1939
Author(s): Arwen P. Mohun
Source: Icon, Vol. 19, Special Issue Playing with Technology: Sports and Leisure (2013), pp.
100-112
Published by: International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23788122
Accessed: 28-01-2019 16:51 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) is collaborating with

JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Icon
This content downloaded from 132.174.254.72 on Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:51:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Amusement Parks for the World:
The Export of American Technology and Know-How, 1900-1939

Arwen P. Mohun
In the decades between the beginning of the twentieth century and the start of
World War II, American-style amusement parks were established on every con
tinent except Antarctica. This article explores how and why this happened. It
argues that global industrialisation and urbanisation provided the context for new
forms of technological entertainment, including amusement parks. Park owners
looked to the United States, notjustfor models ofhow to recreate well-known parks
such as Coney Island's Luna Park, but also for expert advice in the building and
operation of mechanised rides such as roller coasters and tilt-a-whirls. Some
American companies also provided entire rides, boxed and shipped. This article also
places the transfer of amusement park technology in the larger context of early
twentieth-century globalisation and technology transfer, thus inviting historians
to consider the histories of entertainment technologies when researching the spread
of western industries and technological cultures.
In 1902, a new amusement park opened at Coney Island, the popular beach
side resort on the outskirts of New York City. In the decades that followed,
Luna Park became the namesake and inspiration for dozens of other amuse
ment parks spread across the globe from Japan to Australia, Egypt to
Mexico.1 At the same time, the more general idea of amusement parks as a
form of entertainment for the urban masses captured an even broader
international audience. Until the onset of World War II finally brought the
industry to a temporary halt, not even a global depression could stop this
global exchange of technology and culture. In fact, as American parks began
closing their doors and selling their rides after 1929, some of best-known
Arwen P. Mohun is Professor of History at the University of Delaware. She may be contacted at
224 Cheltenham Rd., Newark DE, 19711 USA (mohun@udel.edu). The author wishes to thank her
colleagues Owen White and Darryl Flaherty for lending their expertise on the French empire and
Japan to this project. She is also grateful to the very helpful archives staff at the Penn State University
Archives and to J. Sastre-Juan and J. Valentines-Alvarez who kindly shared their unpublished paper
"Technological Fun." Thanks to Jim Williams and Stefan Poser for help and encouragement in
bringing this article to publication.
ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology, 19 (2013): 100-112.
© 2014 by the International Committee for the History of Technology
Arwen P. Mohun 101
American ride designers and manufac

Europe and Latin America, hoping t
ing for international expositions an
The story of why and how Amer
constitutes part of a largely unwrit
globalisation and technology transfer
know about this process, particularly
connected to a few themes and top
production in the older literature a
recent publications.2 The relatively sm
of the amusement park example und
globalisation. Attention to the role
entrepreneurs, trade consuls, ofte
reinforces a point made long ago by h
industrial revolution: technology tr
organisations, to translate techn
technological context to another.3
documented how nineteenth-centur
fairs inspired the first American tro
pages that follow describe a lesser-k
American style of amusement park to
The first half of this article describ
tion and urbanisation provided both
their spread. Two industries, film
particularly important parts. Particip
ideas across national borders both i
saw themselves as participating in a
Amusement parks offered an obvious
entertainment into a centralised lo
streetcar companies appropriated the
parks' at the end of lines and provide
and operate parks.
The second part of the article explain
and entire park designs worked. Th
different patterns. Across the globe,
information gleaned by visiting exist
produce their idea of an American
establishments sometimes bore fam
emulation did not necessarily result
duction of American models on for
technology directly, making use of in
tion and financial networks. Sometim
102 Amusement Parks for the World
to build or install rides. A few American entrepreneurs, notably Frederick

Ingersoll who created an international chain of Luna Parks in the 1910s, also
expanded their brands by building and operating parks abroad.
AMUSEMENT PARKS AS A GLOBAL INDUSTRY
'We are now planning the establishment [of] an amusement park in Tokyo
following the example of your park,' Japanese entrepreneur Takamura Kôhei
wrote to the directors of Pittsburgh's Kennywood Park in 1934. 'Would you
kindly send plans, informations [sic], photographs, and any other things that
concern your park, as we want to take them as the reference for our own
amusement park.'6 There is no evidence that Andrew McSwiggan,
Kennywood's director, ever complied with Takamura's request, but others
did. As it turns out, Takamura had written to a number of parks all over the
world with the same request. Rye Beach Playland in New York, Sunnyside
Amusement Area in Toronto and Angol Park in Budapest were among the
parks that provided detailed information and photographs. Takamura used
the material he collected to write an article explaining to his Japanese col
leagues in some detail how to create profitable American-style amusement
parks in a Japanese context.7
By the time Takamura began collecting information, amusement parks
had become a familiar feature of urban areas and seaside resorts all over the
world. Melbourne (Australia), Rio de Janeiro, Havana, Vienna, Paris,
Shanghai, not to mention Cleveland (Ohio) and Galveston (Texas), all
boasted at least one park. While many were built from the ground up, others
involved a technological reimagining of pre-existing nineteenth-century
pleasure parks, picnic grounds, zoos and resorts. These 'factories for fun'
shared certain common features: mechanised rides, a midway, exotic archi
tecture built from lathe and plaster - the Eiffel Tower was a particularly
popular feature. But Takamura was hardly a pioneer in Japan. Instead, he
followed in the footsteps of Japanese entrepreneurs who had been building
amusement parks for nearly two decades. Japan's first amusement park was
probably the short-lived Asakusa Luna Park in Tokyo, which burned down a
year after its opening in 1910. A second Luna Park in Osaka was built soon
thereafter. It survived until 1925.8
What drove the sudden flourishing of this distinctive form of mass enter
tainment? As capitalist enterprises and forms of leisure, amusement parks fit
exceedingly well into the contexts of urbanisation and industrialisation. They
provided a form of inexpensive, easily available entertainment that fitted the
rhythm and constraints of city-dwellers' lives. Unlike the episodic character
of pre-industrial fairs and festivals, the 'industrial saturnalia' of the amuse
ment park was available on nights and weekends, or whenever industrial
Arwen P Mohun 103
workers found themselves released fr

In addition to offering the traditio
alcohol, spectating both formal perfor
perhaps flirting with members of t
new: interactions with various kinds
ing, most distinctively, mechanica
safety.10 Constant novelty not only a
reason for repeat visits. In 1910, for i
an astonishing 20 million people had c
them returning multiple times over t
The format of the amusement p
because it allowed them to consolida
ment into a single, permanent site th
stantly tinkered with. It is no accid
American-style amusement parks
technological mass entertainment.
Islands original Luna Park, began hi
great international fairs of the turn o
sion to the popular ride, 'A Trip to
1900 Buffalo Pan-American Expositi
Australia, was developed by J.D. Wil
founded First National Films, th
Brothers.13 Tokyo's original Luna P
directors of the Yoshizawa Shoten film
Entertainment for the masses went
mass-transportation. Parks were of
development of urban mass transporta
In places as distant as Mexico City a
at the convergence or termini of stre
streetcar companies and park operat
Luna Park, for instance, was explic
Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopo
companies across the world also emu
'trolley parks' at the end of lines to at
spread the electrical load more ev
Railway Company did just this whe
Parkin 1907.17
While profit was undoubtedly the underlying motive for creating many
parks, Takamura also points us to a larger ideological context, which may
have helped convince public officials in more authoritarian states to tolerate
the noisy and sometimes disorderly crowds that flocked to the parks.
Amusement parks can be called necessary facilities for the urban masses,
particularly in terms of the modern life goals of pleasure, relaxation, and

health,' he wrote.18 Beneath the veneer of seemingly chaotic fun, these spaces
simultaneously provided a carefully planned outlet for energies that might
otherwise threaten the development of industrial capitalism while disciplin
ing and instructing patrons. 'If the people are allowed to amuse themselves
they will forget to talk politics,' George Carsten reportedly told the king of
Denmark when making the argument for the creation of Copenhagen's
Tivoli.19 Parks were places where urban newcomers could learn how to be
modern. Pleasure rewarded conformity while being ejected or ostracised
punished unwanted behaviours.20
In a world increasingly characterised by international migration and dis
placement, the pleasures of a day at an amusement park also helped smooth
the cultural integration or at least the mixing of very different kinds of
people. A 1913 image of Senegalese soldiers ('Tirailleurs' or colonial
infantry) enjoying a water ride at the Magic City, a park in Southern France,
offers a particularly complex mix of entertainment as social control, imperial
ism and the transnational transfer of technology. It is likely that these
tirailleurs had travelled to Marseille from the coastal town of Frejus, where
many such soldiers were stationed.21
Figure 1. 'Spahis Sénégalais À Magic City' (15 July, 1913). By courtesy of the National Library of France.
If a would-be park owner wanted to build their own park, how would they
go about doing so? Imitation was one possible option. Written descriptions,
Arwen P. Mohun 105
photographs, and moving pictures

Travellers' accounts and personal exp
The vaguely exotic lathe-and-plaster
Parks could be used to reproduce th
using local resources. Names provided
nection with the United States in the m
'Luna Park' was the most obvious wa
tomers that they were being offered a
also found other names that made t
seekers could spend the day at 'Ame
(1911) - named in homage to Luna an
than the Catalan 'pare' or Spanish 'par
Mechanical rides were more challeng
idea of a roller coaster, merry-go-ro
grasp, producing a device that reliab
for the patron and a profit for the o
twentieth century, shops that could
and structures could be found in urban areas across the world. At least some
park owners simply worked with local craftspeople and engineers to turn
ideas into rides, particularly in Western Europe. The celebrated airplane ride
at Barcelona's Tibidabo Park, for instance, was designed by Marian Rubio
Bellvé, Chief Engineer of the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, and
built by a Barcelona-based company, Talleres Estrada de Sarrià.23 For those
with more capital than technical knowledge, a second option also existed:
import plans, machines and expertise from the United States.
EXPORTING PEOPLE AND MACHINES
Sometime around 1910, the United States Department of State sent o

request to its trade consuls asking them to provide information about am
ment parks in their jurisdictions. At the time, the United States governm
had hundreds of representatives posted across the globe who were ch
with developing trade opportunities for U.S. businesses. Edwa
Cunningham, the agent in Bombay, India, reported that 'recently there w
an Old Bombay Exhibition at which was erected the first scenic railway t
had been known in this city'. Scenic railways were a type of primitive ro
coaster. This one was not apparently of American manufacture
Cunningham thought it indicated a potential market. He noted tha
Indian people, both Anglo-Indian and native are keen on amusemen
various kinds'. His office had also received several inquiries about purchas
American-made amusement devices.24 Cunningham's counterpa
Germany reported that he was working with a German owned comp
recently capitalised at $180,000, which was looking to purchase a scenic rail

road from America for a planned park.25
Consular offices were only one of a number of ways for would-be pur
chasers of American amusement devices to find sources for equipment and
expertise. In the increasingly mobile, early twentieth-century world, contact
sometimes began instead with a visit to the United States. For the director of
Yoshizawa Shoten film company, who brought home with him the inspira
tion for a Japanese Luna Park, the initial encounter was at least partly
serendipitous. He took time out from a visit to New York, where he was
investigating American filmmaking, to spend the day at Coney Island.26
Others travelled with the intention of seeing rides in operation before mak
ing purchases, or perhaps even to engage in a little industrial espionage.
A. Harlan Pickard, proprietor ofThompson's Switchback Railway Company
in London, wrote to R.S. Uzell, an American ride manufacturer that he was
sorry to have missed Uzell during a visit to the States, but that he 'had an
opportunity of seeing some of your devices in the states, and am fairly con
versant with your products, and can only say that at a future date we may
have the pleasure of doing business with you'.27
Beginning with Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, world's fairs pro
vided another means of demonstrating ride-makers' wares. American fairs
typically featured an area called a 'midway' offering fairgoers respite from the
relentless commercial promotion and edification in the rest of the grounds.
Along with freak shows and exotic dancers, the Chicago midway offered
a device called a 'Ferris Wheel' by its designer, the Pittsburgh bridge
fabricator George Washington Gale Ferris. The wheel was wildly popular,
attracting more than 175,000 riders during the summer of 1893.
Consequently, it became the first American amusement ride to be success
fully marketed, exported, and of course, copied, abroad. Subsequent fairs
helped popularise a variety of other devices, including Thompson's Scenic
Railroad at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.28 L.A.Thompson
was already a major exporter of these small roller coasters, but the fair helped
to expand his business both at home and abroad.29
Thereafter, world's fairs gradually declined in significance as sites where
novel amusement devices were introduced, but they remained important
as places where members of the public sometimes got their first taste of
mechanised thrills.30 Moreover, increasing numbers of American ride
builders and marketers began setting up concessions at fairs in Europe, there
by transferring technology in a different way.
Other would-be purchasers of equipment saw what they wanted in
advertisements or catalogues published by American companies. R.S. Uzell's
company published a Spanish-language catalogue for the Latin American
market. The 1910 version featured photographs of the company's 'Circulo
Arwen P. Mohun 107
Columbio Aeroplano' operating at Rio

tion. Potential customers were advised that a similar model could be theirs
for $6,000.31 Thirty years later, an advertisement posted in the American
entertainment trade magazine, Billboard, by the Philadelphia Toboggan
Company, an important builder of roller coasters and carousels, caught the
eye of Francisco Cardena, a self-described 'impressarios de diversions'. He
wrote to the company in fractured English, 'I note that you sell a carrousel.'
He asked the company to send him a more detailed description and the
company's catalogue.32
Once committed to purchase, customers of American amusement device
companies could select from a variety of services and options. In the United
States, even experienced amusement park operators preferred to pay outside
companies to build or install rides. Larger companies customarily offered the
services of a trained mechanic who would work on-site to install rides and
train local operators. This was particularly true with larger rides, such as
scenic railroads, log flume rides, and roller coasters that were site-specific.
Some companies also offered the same service for rides sold abroad. In 1906,
Carl Gabriel of Munich contracted with Frederick Ingersoll, a ride manu
facturer who later created a short-lived international empire of Luna Parks,
to construct a roller coaster in Germany. Amusement park historian William
F. Mangels recounts that 'the price agreed upon included the services of
a trained mechanic, skilled in the construction of coasters'. Once the
mechanic arrived in Germany, Gabriel decided that what he really wanted
was a portable coaster that could be dismantled and moved from fair to fair.
Ingersoll's mechanic helped him design and build it.33
Like many early twentieth-century machines, amusement devices required
continual adjustment and repair to operate reliably. Operators needed a cer
tain 'knack' for anticipating problems and mechanical skills for making
repairs when things did go wrong. The stakes were high. Accidents and the
possibility of breakdowns drove away potential patrons who saw no need to
spend their hard-earned wages on a potentially unpleasant, totally voluntary
experience. As a consequence, ride builders often stayed on to operate rides
through the first season, gradually training on-site staff to make adjustments
and repairs.34
In the 1920s and 1930s, American rollercoaster designers focused a great
deal of effort on building rides across Latin America. While working for
Miller 8t Baker Company, Joseph A. McKee spent months supervising the
construction of a coaster and a water-flume device called a 'mill chutes' for
Havana Park in Havana, Cuba, in 1923.35 Miller & Baker was one company
in a long line of business efforts by John Miller, who is considered by many
historians to be the greatest designer of his era. As his reputation spread (and
the Depression deepened) in the 1930s, he sought out commissions across
the world. 'I have some prospects. Have just furnished set of plans for
Blackpool, England,' he wrote a friend in 1931.36 Later in the decade, Miller
could be found living in the Hotel Ontario in Mexico City while he super
vised the construction of another of his designs. As a side line, he had agreed
to act as an agent for the National Amusement Device Company, which wa
trying to market internationally a device called the 'Leap Frog'.37 Miller's for
mer partner, Harry Baker, built his last ride in Rio de Janeiro in the late
1930s. Baker's obituary described it as 'the largest roller coaster in Latin
America', noting that it had been opened by none other than the President
of Brazil, Getúlio Vargas.38
For clients with shallower pockets, American companies also offered a
service called 'equipment basis' purchasing. Described as 'the most reason
able,' by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, it provided plans and equip
ment, but everything else was left up to the purchaser.39 This approach
worked best with smaller, self-contained rides that could be disassembled
and boxed. These ranged from the extremely simple - slides, often photo
graphed at Coney Island, were very popular in the 1910s - to more complex
devices involving motors, cars and staging areas. With proper design, even
small Ferris wheels and roller coasters could be sold this way.
Harry Traver, partner in the Pittsburgh-based Traver Engineering
Company, specialised in these kinds of rides. He was known throughout the
industry for a number of distinctive attractions, including the caterpillar
tumble bug and circle swing.40 In the late 1920s, Traver began focusing his
marketing on providing rides for a global market. 'This company builds more
rides for export than any other,' a 1930 advertisement proclaimed. 'We have
the facilities and the know how to take care of our export customers. Our
rides are operating and making money all over the world.'41 Traver also acted
as a broker for American park operators looking to sell used equipment. In
***
1932, Al Wyant of Pitts
burgh's Kennywood Park
asked Traver to sell a 'tilt-a
whirl' (a 'flat ride' in which
individual cars spin on a
platform that is raised and
lowered - known as a
'Waltzer' in Europe), which
the park no longer needed.
Traver had sold a similar
model to a park in Buenos
Aires three years earlier.
Figure
Figure 2. Tilt-a-whirl
2. Tilt-a-whirl broken down for broken down
transportation. By for transportation. By Initially, he encouraged
courtesy of Ballyhoo Betty. Wyant: 'I am writing some
courtesy of Ballyhoo Betty.
Arwen P. Mohun 109
letters to some of our foreign prospe

A few inquiries revealed that the
American parks began to contract
efforts to put off Wyant, reveal so
ment market worked. If he took the
it, overhaul it, paint it, box it for ex
York."'42
After Traver lost control ofTraver Engineering in 1933, he began a peri
patetic existence between Europe and the United States. He pieced together
a living by operating ride concessions at various international fairs and
exhibitions: Brussels in 1935, Paris in 1937, the New York World's Fair in
1939.43 After the Brussels exhibition, he wrote a friend that he was planning
to buy the ride that he'd been operating and resell it in France, taking
advantage of the devaluation of the franc.44 Though difficult to trace, it is
likely that the reselling of used rides provided an important means for dif
fusing ride technology.
Some American entrepreneurs went a step further by setting up entire
parks overseas. In 1910, Trade Consul Henry Drederich reported that 'when
the Brussels Exhibition of 1910 was being organised, Americans in Brussels
immediately busied themselves in view of the establishment of a Luna Park.'
Typical of American amusement park owners of the day, these men estab
lished a concession system in which other investors built and operated indi
vidual attractions.45 Frederick Ingersoll's chain of Luna Parks was the most
ambitious effort to create a multi-national park empire. Although Ingersoll
built parks as far afield as Cairo and Bombay, he primarily focused on Latin
America. An English language guidebook described Ingersoll's Mexico City
park: 'not far from Chapultepec, on the side of the Paseo, an enterprising
American company has started what is called Luna Park, an imitation of the
famous New York seaside resort, Coney Island.' Visitors could expect many
familiar attractions including 'a huge Ferris Wheel' and a 'switchback rail
way'. 'President Diaz, in his apartments in the castle [nearby] can probably
hear the revels of Luna Park,' the author editorialised.46
Other American investors sought to take advantage of Cuba's warm winter
climate and quasi-colonial relationship with the United States. In 1906, one
such group began building El Parque de Palatino in Havana, Cuba. They
imagined a dual function for the park: attracting tourist dollars during the
winter season when many parks in the United States were closed, and
market-testing and showcasing new rides on behalf of manufacturers. The
park owners commissioned a film of the park's rides to promote them abroad,
a film that is considered by many film historians to be the first movie made
in Cuba.47 In the winter of 1923, a second Cuban park, Havana Park,
showcased Harry Traver's 'Caterpillar'. By March, Traver reported 'we are
building sixty machines and we believe this breaks all records for th
exploitation of a new ride in its first season.'48
In the long run, selling equipment and services abroad proved far mor
successful for Americans than owning and managing foreign parks. Even
the pre-World War II geopolitical environment in which American and
European corporations could often dictate the terms under which their
banana plantations, oil and gas drilling operations, and mining compani
operated in local political economies, amusement parks proved too small an
too vulnerable to local conditions to operate profitably as imperialistic enter
prises. The 1929 onset of the Great Depression had a disastrous effect on the
amusement park industry within the United States, but interestingly enough
seems to have led to greater emphasis on equipment manufacturers refocu
ing their marketing efforts on the rest of the world. Those efforts resumed
after the war with the opening of a new group of Luna Parks, including
chain in Saudi Arabia and a handful of parks in the republics of the form
Soviet Union.49
CONCLUSION
In his magisterial study American Genesis, Thomas P. Hughes enti

chapter on the exportation of American technological know-how to
after World War I 'Taylorismus + Fordismus = Amerikanismus'. In
the history outlined above, a third word might be added to the eq
something that might be called 'Coneyismus' or 'Lunaismus'. At th
ning of the twentieth century, it is clear that technologies of product
not the only exports that helped establish the United States' posi
technological innovator and producer for the world.
The principal purpose of this article is to demonstrate that amus
parks really were a global industry based in part on an American m
have also tried to recover some of the lost history of how both the ide
American park and the technologies to realise it were transferred arou
globe in the first half of the twentieth century. A more compre
approach to the topic would require the work of a group of scholars wi
guage skills and access to local archives in places where parks were
this period.501 hope this article will provide a useful starting place.
NOTES
1 J. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (New York, 1978), 61.
2 See, for instance, T. Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technologica
Enthusiasm, 1870-1970 (New York, 1989); D. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology
Arwen P. Mohun 111
Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940

Design: Technological Imperatives and America's
3 D. Stapleton, The Transfer of Early Industria
D. Jeremy, Transatlantic Industrial Revolution: The
and America, 1790-1830s (North Andover, MA
4 See,for example,J. Adams-Volpe, The American A
and Thrills (Boston, 1991); W. Mangels, The Outd
the Present (New York, 1952).
5 For more on the broader context for this phe
Bologna: The Americanization of the World, 186
6 Takamura Kôhei Kennywood Park, Septem
Jacques Amusement Park Collection, Penn Sta
University Libraries (hereafter Jacques Collectio
7 Takamura Kôhei, 'Eiriteki yüenchi no susumu
achieve amusement park profitability], alternat
table of contents as: 'The Amusement Parks of
Z'oen zasshi: Journal of the Japanese Institute o
Many thanks to my colleague, Darryl Flaherty, f
8 Isolde Standish, A New History of Japanese C
2005), 18; 'Luna Park - Tokyo', http://en.wiki
November 2012).
9 The term was coined by G. Cross, 'Crowds and L
Century', Journal of Social History, 39 (Spring 2
10 A. Mohun, 'Designed for Thrills and Safety:
Risk, 1880-1929Journal of Design History, 14
11 Cross,'Crowds and Leisure', 632.
12 W. Register, The Kid of Coney Island: Fred Thomp
2001), 69-72.
13 J. Mathews, 'Modern Nomads and National Film History' in Connected Worlds: History in
Transnational Perspective, eds. A. Curthoys, and M. Lake (Canberra, Australia, 2005), 160.
14 Standish, A New History of Japanese Cinema (n. 8 above), 18.
15 'Company de Ferro Carriles del Distrito Federal de Mexico', Electric Railway Directory and
Buyer's Manual (McGraw, 1907), 136; 'Red Lights in Japanese Lanterns', Survey, 36 (July 15,
1916): 405. For a more detailed description of the American streetcar parks, see D. Nye,
Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 (Cambridge, MA, 1990).
16 'Report from Cairo Electric Railways and Heliopolis Oases Company', Daily Consular and Trade
Reports, 1 April 1912 (United State Department of Commerce and Labor 1912); 'Luna Park,
Cairo', en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Park,_Cairo (accessed 23 January 2013).
17 I. Ogawa, 'History of Amusement Park Construction by Private Railway Companies in Japan',
Japan Railway and Transportation Review, 15 (March 1998): 32.
18 Kohei Takamura to Kennywood Park, September 20,1934, GST/AJ06.17, Jacques Collection.
19 'Tivoli Gardens at Copenhagen', Travel, 57 (1931): 48.
20 Mohun, 'Designed for Thrills and Safety' (n. 10 above), 295; J. Sastre-Juan and J. Valentines
Alvarez, 'Technological Fun: Thoughts on Amusement Parks and the Exhibitionary Complex in
Barcelona (1888-1929)'. Paper presented at the 39th symposium of the International Committee
for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), Barcelona, 10-14 July 2012.
21 Owen White, University of Delaware, personal communication (15 November, 2012); R. Cobb
and D. Gilmour, Paris and Elsewhere (London, 1998), 231.
22 Sastre-Juan and Valentines—Alvarez, Jaume, 'Technological Fun'.
23 Ibid.
24 'Amusement Park Apparatus', Daily Consular and Trade Reports, 3 (Washington, DC, 1912),
1361.
25 'Devices for an Amusement Park', Daily Consular and Trade Reports, 1 (Washington DC, 1911),
976. For other examples, see R.S. Goddard to Philadelphia Toboggan Company, 22 January,
1944, GST/AM02.03, Jacques Collection; 'Foreign Trade Opportunities', Commerce Report
(October 16,1922), 191.
26 Standish, A New History of Japanese Cinema (n. 8 above), 18.
27 A. Harlan Pickard to R.S. Uzell, July 20,1928, GST/AJ06.17, Jacques Collection.
28 Edo McCullough, World's Fair Midways: An Affectionate Account of American Amusement Areas
(New York, 1966), 41,53.
29 T. Throgmorton, Roller Coasters: An Illustrated Guide to the Rides in the United States and Canada,
with a History (Jefferson, NC, 1993), 5.
30 R. Cartmell, The Incredible Scream Machine: A History of the Roller Coaster (Fairview Park, OH,
1987), 93.
31 'R.S. Uzell Corporation', [catalogue] (c. 1909), GST/AJ06.17, Jacques Collection.
32 Francisco Cardenas to Philadelphia Toboggan Company, June 6, 1944, GST/AJ06.17, Jacques
Collection.
33 Mangels, Amusement Industry (n. 4 above), 93.

34 A. Mohun, Risk: Negotiating Safety in American Society (Baltimore, 2013), 226.
35 Miller and Baker, Inc. [brochure] (1923), 21, GST/AJ01.21, Jacques Collection.
36 Quoted in C. Jacques, 'John A. Miller: The Greatest Name in Coaster Design, Part II',
Amusement Park Journal, 5 (Summer 1983): 19.
37 National Amusement Device Company [brochure] (1937), GST/AJ01.02, Jacques Collection
The company also had an agent in Blackpool, England.
38 'Harry Baker, Obituary' [typescript, August 24,1939), GST/AH03.07, Jacques Collection.
39 Philadelphia Toboggan Company, Amusements for Parks (1920), GST/AM02.03, Jacques
Collection.
40 For a contemporary circus worker's description of assembling Traver's tilt-a-whirl, see http://
www.heyrubecircus.com/contemporary-culture/a-labor-of-love-an-insiders-perspective-on
assembling-the-tilt-a-whirl (accessed 20 October 2013).
41 'Export Orders' (December 1930), GST/AH03.07, Jacques Collection.
42 H.G. Traver to Al Wyant (Novermber 14,1932) GST/06.17, Jacques Collection.
43 C.J. Jacques, Jr., 'Harry Traver: Ride Innovator and Showman ', Amusement Park Journal, 3 (1981):
11.
H.G. Traver to William de L'Horpe (September 25,1936) GST/AJ06.17, Jacques Collection.

Amusement Park Apparatus' (n. 24 above), 1359.
W.E. Carson, Mexico: Wonderland of the South (New York, 1909), 102.
R. Abel, 'Cuba', The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (New York, 2005), 228. The film can be viewed
on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILHsr_t5xUA (accessed 20 October 2013). See
also R. Price, 'From Coney Island to La Isla Coco'',,Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 3
(2011): 217-231.
C. and B.Jacques,'Harry Traver's Small Rides', Amusement Park Journal,2 (1980): 8.
[Chain of Luna Parks in Saudi Arabia], http://www.alhokairgroup.com/division_items.
php?id=62 (accessed 23 January 2013); 'Luna Park', Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Luna_Park (accessed 23 January 2013).
The appendix to Mangel's Outdoor Amusement Industry (n. 4 above), 204-206, lists trade journals
and trade associations in Europe, Turkey and Japan that could be used as a starting point for
research.

Amusement Parks For The World PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Amusement Parks For The World PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC)

International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) is collaborating with

The Export of American Technology and Know-How, 1900-1939

© 2014 by the International Committee for the History of Technology

American ride designers and manufac

to build or install rides. A few American entrepreneurs, notably Frederick

AMUSEMENT PARKS AS A GLOBAL INDUSTRY

workers found themselves released fr

particularly in terms of the modern life goals of pleasure, relaxation, and

photographs, and moving pictures

EXPORTING PEOPLE AND MACHINES

Sometime around 1910, the United States Department of State sent o

recently capitalised at $180,000, which was looking to purchase a scenic rail

Columbio Aeroplano' operating at Rio

letters to some of our foreign prospe

In his magisterial study American Genesis, Thomas P. Hughes enti

Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940

33 Mangels, Amusement Industry (n. 4 above), 93.

H.G. Traver to William de L'Horpe (September 25,1936) GST/AJ06.17, Jacques Collection.

You might also like