In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity by Lauren Rabinovitz
  • Jennifer Leigh Lieberman
Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies, and American Modernity. By Lauren Rabinovitz. New York: Columbia University Press. 2012.

Lauren Rabinovitz traces the coevolution of American cinema and amusement parks, posing provocative new questions about subjectivity and spectatorship at the turn of the twentieth century. She begins by framing these forms of entertainment as national phenomena that cannot be reduced to a single case study: “By 1910 every municipality with a population of more than twenty thousand had both amusement parks and motion picture theaters” (8). By examining the emergence of these venues across the country, Rabinovitz troubles the conventional narrative that the early amusement park was inherently democratizing. While Coney Island famously “allowed for commingling of immigrants,” most parks were racially segregated. Some “catered exclusively to African Americans in both the North and the South,” while others functioned as metaphorically and socially “white cities” (27–8). Rabinovitz explores how these sites were literally linked by interurban rails and ideologically linked by a shared vision of mechanized modernity. Even if amusement parks were not microcosms of the “melting pot,” they still promulgated other national values, training Americans to enjoy the electrified urban landscape—including its attendant dangers (64).

The final chapters of this study lend even more depth to the rich, archival history with which it begins. In her discussion of pyrodramas, disaster shows, and other thrill rides, Rabinovitz lingers on the bodily motion and the streams of sound that accompanied visual spectacles. By attending to the multisensory experiences of fair goers, she crafts a convincing argument that amusement parks and motion pictures taught Americans to relish the anticipation of danger. Ironically, these venues did more than simulate danger for public enjoyment—they were also vulnerable to the same disasters they put on display, such as fires, floods, and cyclones. In light of these actual and virtual dangers, the popularity of these rides and shows indicates a fascinating nexus of fear and pleasure. At this intersection, Rabinovitz discovers fantasies about subjectivity and “new lessons about tourism and nation building” (98). She closes Electric Dreamland by reflecting on how these fears were sublimated into enduring amusements of the late twentieth century: the slapstick comedy and the nostalgic, family-oriented theme park. Overall, this rigorous volume contends that American [End Page 225] cinema and amusement parks can best be understood together. If its argument about Americans coping with modernity and technology is not entirely novel, its approach and subject matter raise new questions about the psychological experience of the technological sublime that should appeal to a wide range of humanists and historians.

Jennifer Leigh Lieberman
University of North Florida
...

pdf

Share