The Kid of Coney Island: Fred Thompson and the Rise of American Amusements

413 Pages·2001·2.15 MB·English

by  Woody Register

the kid of
Coney Island
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KI
H E D
T O
F
C o n e y Islan
d
Fred Thompson
and the
Rise
of
American Amusements
Woody Register
1
2001
1
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires
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Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai
Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 2001 by William W. Register
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 0-19-514493-7
Parts of chapter 4 originally appeared in Inventing Times Square:Commerce and Culture at the
Crossroads of the World, edited by William R. Taylor, ©1991 Russell Sage Foundation, New York,
New York; parts of chapter 6 originally appeared in Men and Masculinities2 (October 1999), Sage
Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif.; lines from “Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Would Not Grow
Up,” from The Plays of J. M. Barrie, are reprinted with permisssion of Scribner, a Division of
Simon &Schuster, New York, New York.
Book design and composition by Susan Day
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For my parents
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contents
acknowledgments ix
one Uncle Sam’s a Boy at Play 3
two The Moon for a Plaything 23
Fred Thompson’s Apprenticeship in Play, 1873–1901
three Life Is Only a Merry-Go-Round 85
Luna Park, 1903–13
four New York’s Gigantic Toy 145
The Hippodrome, 1902–6
five Millionaires and Monsters 193
Melodramas of Consumption, 1906–12
six We’re Playing Games 249
The Toylands of Peter Pan Culture, 1912–30
seven A Kindergarten Preacher in Toys 299
notes 323
index 389
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acknowledgments
hisbook began longer ago than I like to admit, but the ex-
T
tended incubation has been well worth the wait because of
the aid I have received along the way. My first debts are to
the historians who taught and inspired me in college and graduate
school: the late Anita Goodstein, Bill Leach, and, most recently, Jack
Thomas, my faithful supporter and great intellectual friend. I also am
grateful to Roger Horowitz, John Sullivan, Carl Estabrook, Mary Gluck,
Jim Patterson, the late Bill McLoughlin, John Kasson, the late Bob
Wiebe, Bill Taylor, Gary Cross, and Gail Bederman, all of whom have
lent important support, advice, or criticism to the project. Martha
Hodes and Gayle McKeen read the manuscript at a crucial stage, and
their encouragement and insights were indispensable. Luckily for me,
the review process brought my work under the scrutiny of Karen Halt-
tunen and David Nasaw, and I cannot thank them enough for the im-
portant additions they made to the final product. Peter Ginna, my
editor at Oxford, has been this manuscript’s (and writer’s) best friend,
as intelligent, sensible, and respectful a reader as I could have wished
for. In countless ways this book benefited from the skill and dedication
of the people at Oxford University Press, including John Sullivan
(again), Rudy Faust, and especially Aimee Chevrette, who efficiently
ix