Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity
In: Film and culture
In: Film and Culture Series
More than two thousand amusement parks dotted the American landscape in the early twentieth century, thrilling the general public with the latest in entertainment and motion picture technology. Amusement parks were the playgrounds of the working class, combining numerous, mechanically-based spectacles into one unique, modern cultural phenomenon. Lauren Rabinovitz describes the urban modernity engendered by these parks and their media, encouraging ordinary individuals to sense, interpret, and embody a burgeoning national identity.As industrialization, urbanization, and immigration upended socie