[Ahead of my annual
trip to Charlottesville with my sons, a trip that always features a good
deal of swimming
pool action, a series on pools and swimming in American history and
culture. Leading up to a special weekend post highlighting one of my favorite
pieces I’ve had the chance to write in the last year!]
Like two other
sites about which I’ve written in this space, Newton
(MA)’s Norumbega Park and yesterday’s subject, Charlottesville
(VA)’s Fry’s Spring Beach Club, New Hampshire’s Canobie Lake Park began (after its 1904
opening) as an early 20th century trolley park. Designed as escapes (or
at least respites) from the period’s increasingly crowded and modernizing urban
spaces, a logical complement to the Progressive Era’s City Beautiful
movement and its emphases
on the need for the pastoral in that developing world, these trolley parks
often focused on green and flowering spaces, and Canobie in this first stage of
life was no different. For its
first few decades, the park was best known for its elaborate botanical
gardens and promenades, with visitors often arriving in their Sunday best and
with the park’s featured attractions (such as canoeing and picnic areas)
fitting nicely into that pastoral landscape and relaxed ambience. That wasn’t
the only
kind of theme park in this early 20th century moment, of course,
but it seems to have been the most common version.
By the mid-20th
century, however, Canobie had taken on a significantly more up-tempo identity.
That included the 1936 introduction of the first roller coaster, the Yankee Cannonball
(please don’t watch that video if you have issues with motion sickness), a
wooden beast that endures to this day (this AmericanStudier and his sons rode
it last summer!). But it also included a new emphasis on popular entertainment
of the musical variety—between the 1930s and 1950s the Canobie Lake Ballroom
became a Big Band era destination, with performances by Duke Ellington, Jimmy
Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and many
other prominent acts and artists. The rise to dominance of the automobile and
the development of the suburbs had made the escapist quality of trolley parks
much less unique or necessary, and so theme parks had to evolve alongside those
innovations, becoming less a pastoral alternative to the city and more a
combination of high-powered entertainments for which there wasn’t room in any
one city space (and which, at least in the case of the musical performances,
were unlikely to be found in the suburbs).
By 1957, a
number of catastrophes (including a fire and a hurricane) had almost destroyed
the park, and the Big Band era was likewise coming to a close. When new owners
purchased Canobie and reopened it in 1958, they did so as part of a new era,
that of Disneyland
and Palisades Park and Pacific
Ocean Park, among the many other amusement parks (most of which have long since
closed) that were booming in the late 50s. These many theme parks provided
both inspiration and competition for a newly revitalized park like Canobie,
requiring the park to constantly add new and more elaborate roller coasters and
attractions (such as an extensive
water park section), as well as specialized entertainments like the Halloween
screamfest. Again, the majority of late 20th century theme parks
have not survived into the 21st century; but those that have, like
Canobie, have grown ever bigger in their efforts to remain a destination. It’s
hard to say whether there will be another stage in Canobie’s evolution, but if
the enjoyment of my AmericanStudier sons is any indication, there’s certainly
still a place for theme parks in the American future.
Special post
this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
No comments:
Post a Comment