America's Theme Park: Coney Island

The greatest thing about the Brooklyn, New York, New York area back around the 1880s to about the 1920s was a pretty spectacular, yet seemingly affordable amusement park by the name of Coney Island. On its own little peninsula, Coney Island thrived off of the middle class. People came in droves just to visit this four mile long “island of fun”. The actual island got its name from the Dutch name Conyne Eylandt which literally translated to “Rabbit Island” in English; Coney being archaic for rabbit, it was a pretty diverse island full of rabbits before its eventual development.

Coney Island, being off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, was the spot for a thriller time. It offered hotels (the coolest one being shaped as an oversized elephant), three main amusement parks (Luna Park, Steeplechase Park, and the Sea- Lion Park), gambling casinos and horse racing. In the 1860s and 1870s, excursion railroads and the Coney Island and Brooklyn Railroad streetcar lines reached Coney Island making it easier for transportation to the island. When steam railroads were electrified and connected to Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (B.R.T.C), Coney Island became more of a day- to- day theme amusement park. In 1920, a subway line was also completed running from Manhattan to Coney Island.

May 16, 1903, the Luna Park phase was opened by Fredrick Thompson and Skip Dundy and it employed nearly some 1,700 employees by the year 1907. It had its own telegraph office, radio office, and long-distance telephone service which I’m sure was a large deal back then because the invention of the telephone was still rather fresh amongst the world. A few of the rides that were included in this park were the War of the Worlds, The Kansas Cycle, and the Trip to the Moon ride. The park itself was designed to keep every single person on their feet and moving; if someone were to sit down, musicians were ordered to go and play to persuade them back onto their feet and moving. This was probably the least dangerous of al of the parks.

Then there was Steeplechase Park, opened by George C. Tilyou. This park was named after its famous horse races. Now Steeplechase was probably the weirdest of the three parks in the fact that it consisted of the Human Zoo. Visitors would walk up a spiral staircase until they found themselves in a cage where they were offered peanuts and were spoken to as animals. Then there was the more normal Steeplechase ride which included six double-saddled mechanical horses that took passengers down a 1,100 feet long track and over a series of hurdles all around the park. Gravity even gave the heavier riders an advantage over the less husky and riders were dressed as jockeys. At the exit of the ride was the Blowhole Theater where women walked over a large opening that blasted a large amount of wind up their skirts while a crowd would look on with approval. If the women’s escorts protested against it, they were often shocked by a clown that waited nearby. In 1907, though, Steeplechase Park burned to the ground.

            The major park was the Sea- Lion Park, which was the first enclosed amusement park at Coney Island and was opened by Captain Paul Boyton. This park was probably the least exciting because it only consisted of trained sea lions doing tricks and flipping out of the water and an exotic water park. This park, I’m sure, was still very fun and enjoyable though. There was a famous hotdog stand in Coney Island named “Nathan’s Hot Dogs”. It opened in 1916 and is still to this day a very famous, well known hotdog.

Steeplechase Park Sign

Luna Park entrance

fun house entrance

            To this day, I’m positive that Coney Island is still one of the largest theme parks that had ever been built. People would come from near and far to visit its marvelous yet strange attractions that seemed to entertain majority of the middle class back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Although this park doesn’t exist anymore, it is inspirational to merely every amusement park in the United States of America and will always be one of the greatest parks ever.


Links to Sources:
-http://topics.wisegeek.com/topics.htm?coney-island-rides
-http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/index.php?g=press
-http://www.bigapplehomesrealty.com/Coney%20Island.htm
-http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/coney/
-U.S. History book

Faces of America: Ancestry and Immigration Discussion

After watching the interesting "Faces of America" video of immigration and ancestry, I have learned that many people are unaware of just exactly who and where their ancestors are and where they come from. I learned that most of immigration between the time of about 1880 to around 1920 came from the East and into the city of New York, more specifically into Ellis Island which is right of the coast of New York, practically literally. It seems that if one really digs deep and really tries to figure out the ancestry, it is very possible, but many have never really tried. I learned that the earliest of many people's ancestors were practically 100% foreign which makes tons of sense in the fact that people merely wanted to start over and create new lives and opportunities for themselves and they would all migrate to "free land".

What I believe it means to be a "nation of immigrants" is that pretty much our nation accepts the fact that we are one huge "melting pot". Being a nation of immigrants is what makes this country considered the greatest nation in the world. The mixture of the different ethnicity of people is what the different styles or ways of doing things such as religion. I do not really feel aware of the connection I have with any of my ancestors because I have never out forth the effort to figure out where my roots come from. I have had maybe one conversation with my grandmother about the ancestry of my family, but she never really got into detail with the topic. I think I would be very interested to find out about my roots and hopefully one day will find the time to research it.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt, son of W.H. Vanderbilt, was one of the wealthiest men during his time, partially because of his him being brought up by his father who just so happened to be the 4th wealthiest man in the late 19th century. Vanderbilt's first little business was his passenger ferry business in New York where he was raised. He had gotten money from his parents to buy one boat so he could start his business. In his desire for more money, he then started his own steamship company and eventually got to where he was operating a fleet of more than 100 steamboats. He was also the overseer of a transatlantic steamship business.

Vanderbilt first purchased railroads in New York in the 1860's and then provided the first rail service between New York and Chicago. His father was also an expert in the railroading industry because he was the creator of the railroads which is why he was as wealthy as he was. Cornelius got some help because of his fathers wealth in continuing the "railroad dynasty" that his father had started. I don't really see him as much of an original industrialist because of his father practically started what he continued in a sense referring to the railroad industry. I would venture to say that he inherited a lot of his fathers money and didn't necessarily make as much money as is shown on the list of the top American Industrialists from the late 19 century. His father was obviously a much more successful guy than he was. So all in all I don't believe he worked near as hard to get where and what he got.

Corrnelius Vanderbilt looking mighty spiffy, ehh?

Vamderbilt's face on a train

Links of sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/cornelius-vanderbilt-9515195

http://www.nnp.org/nni/Publications/Dutch-American/vanderbiltc.html

The Use of Native American Mascots

My topic is practically about how we as Americans portray the use of Indian nicknames as team mascot and the perception of Native Americans themselves. Throughout the United States, be it high school, college, or the professional level, the use of Native American mascot team names is quite common. Be it the Washington Redskins, the Atlanta Braves, the Florida State Seminoles, or less commonly known Native American names, the Utah Utes or Illinois Fighting Illini. Probably the most controversial team is the Florida State Seminoles. Several years ago, in about 2008, an NCAA committee sent out a mass verbal message to all of the teams in the NCAA who had a Native American nickname as it's mascot, stating that every single one was strongly advised to change it's name. Well, Florida Sate was about the only university that refused the advising. You see, Florida State had a much supported reason behind why they didn't want to remove its current team name; the Seminole tribe of Florida was a very heavy supporter of the team name. They even went as far as helping create the mascots in- game attire. The NCAA soon realized that Florida State was supported by the actual Seminole people and left that particular situation alone. The Washington Redskins are also another story on its own. See, the Redskins team name was not very well condoned by anybody for that matter. I believe that the term "Redskin" is similar to a team naming themselves the "Coons" or a name of old that blacks were referred as in the mid 1900's. Several years ago, the Redskins as an organization were sued by a Native American group because of their team name. In a Sports Illustrated article, a man was interviewing a Native American guy and kept referring to him as chief. The Native American kindly told the guy that calling him chief turned his stomach and that he thought it was similar to calling a black the "N" word.  I think that in today's world, many people don't think about the specific name of an Indian tribe as being racist which is sort of inconsiderate seeing that there are many Native Americans that live in the United States. I think that people don't put much thought into it because during the previous century, all of everyone's attention was focused on blacks vs. whites, slavery in the South, and everything that evolved around that back then catastrophic situation. I do agree with the people that do think that these names are somewhat racist though in the fact that if you research on where the names come from, I’m sure Native Americans wouldn’t want anyone using their honorable tribe name as fun nicknames.

Florida State Seminole mascot showing  pride

Joe Cypress; considers himself the first Seminole

A very elaborate Indian mascot outfit at  being shown at a game

Sources: 
1. http://www.opb.org/news/article/schools-debate-native-american-mascots-again/
2.http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/magazine/08/17/indian.wars030402/index.html
3.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/sports/24mascot.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www&_r=0