Carousel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article describes the amusement ride. For other uses of "carousel" and "carrousel", see Carousel (disambiguation).

A carousel in a summer festival in London, with traditional animal mounts, barley twist poles and fairy lights.

A carousel (or carrousel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating platform with seats for passengers. The "seats" are traditionally in the form of wooden horses or animals, which are often moved mechanically up and down to simulate galloping. This leads to one of the machine's alternative names, the galloper. Other popular names are merry-go-round, roundabout and flying horses.

Although modern carousels (especially in America) are mainly populated with horses, carousels from earlier periods frequently included diverse varieties of animals, including dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs, and deer, to name a few.

Any rotating platform may also be called a carousel. In a playground, a merry-go-round is usually a simple, child-powered rotating platform with bars or handles to which children can cling while riding. At an airport, rotating conveyors in the baggage claim area are often called carousels.

1 History
2 Trivia
3 Gallery
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

The earliest carousel is known from a Byzantine Empire bas-relief dating to around 500 A.D., which depicts riders in baskets suspended from a central pole. The word carousel originates from the Italian garosello and Spanish carosella ("little war"), used by crusaders to describe a combat preparation exercise and game played by Turkish and Arabian horsemen in the 1100's. In a sense this early devise could be considered a cavalry training mechanism; it prepared and strengthened the riders for actual combat as they wielded their swords at the mock enemies. European Crusaders discovered this contraption and brought the idea back to their lands, primarily the ruling lords and kings. There the carousel was kept secret within the castle walls, to be used for training by horsemen; no carousel was allowed out in the public. Eventually some small carousel rides were made and installed for royalty in their private gardens. Soon after that, with the pomp of France and circumstance of Paris a grand game was devised and played in Le Place du Carrousel. Along with a pageantry-filled jousting tournament it also consisted of "combatants" throwing clay balls filled with perfumed water at each other, thus those being hit would smell for days. A highlight of the carrousel was the ring-tilt, in which knights would attempt to spear suspended rings at full gallop.

As for the Turkish and Arabian horseman, a carousel was built around 1680 as a training device for the ring-tilt, consisting of wooden horses suspended from arms branching from a center pole. Riders aimed to spear rings situated around the circumference as the carousel was moved by a man, horse, or mule. With the development of craft guilds and the relative freeing up of the trades in Europe, by the early nineteenth century carousels were being built and operated at various fairs and gatherings in central Europe and England. For example, by 1837, wagonmaker Michael Dentzel had converted his wagonmaking business in what is now southern Germany to a carousel making enterprise. Animals and mechanisms would be made during the winter months and the family and workers would go touring in their wagon train through the region operating their large menagerie carousel at various venues. Other makers such as Heyn in Germany and Bayol in France were also beginning to make carousels at this time. In its own unique style England was also rapidly developing a carouselmaking tradition.

Early carousels had no platforms, the animals would hang on poles or chains and fly out from the centrifugal force of the spinning mechanism, these are called "flying horses" carousels. They were often powered by animals walking in a circle or people pulling a rope or cranking. By the mid-1800's the platform carousel was developed where the animals and chariots would travel around in a circle sitting on a suspended circular floor which was hanging from the centerpole; these machines were then steam powered. Eventually, with advances of the industrial revolution, bevel gears and offset cranks were installed on these platform carousels thus giving the animals their well known up and down motion as they traveled around the center pole. The platform served as a position guide for the bottom of the pole and as a place for people to walk or other stationary animals or chariots to be placed. Band organs were often present when these machines operated. Eventually electric motors were installed and electric lights added giving the carousel its classic look.

Although the carousel developed gradually in European countries such as Germany, France, England, and Italy, it did not reach its full scale development until it went into its American phase. This began with several makers, primarily Gustav Dentzel, Michael Dentzel's son, of Germany and Dare from England. Michael Dentzel sent all four of his sons over to America in the 1850's, one of them, Gustav, with a full and complete large carousel packed away on the steamship. In early 1860 Gustav had set up his family's carousel in Philadelphia to test the American market. It met with great success while at the same time he had opened up a carousel and cabinet workshop in Germantown. This eventually became the headquarters for one of America's greatest carousel making families. Shortly after this beginning other carousel makers from Europe were arriving on American shores. Many fine woodcarvers and painters, classically trained in their European homeland, worked for these early American companies. The Dentzels, being of German origin, also employed other Germans such as the Muller brothers and also many Italians, such as Salvador Chernigliaro.

Several centers and styles for the construction of carousels emerged in the United States, Philadelphia style, with Dentzel and the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, Coney Island style with Charles Carmel, Charles I. D. Looff, Marcus Charles Illions, Soloman Stein and Harry Goldstein and Mangles, Country Fair style with Allen Herschell and Edward Spillman of Upstate New York, and C.W. Parker of Kansas. Early on the Dentzels became known for their beautiful horses and lavish use of menagerie animals on their carousels. Their mechanisms were also considered among the very best for durability and reliability. Gustav's sons, William and Edward operated the company until William's death in 1927 at which time the company was auctioned off. By this time many carousel companies had gone out of business or diversified into other rides due to the hardships of the depression. Young Edward Dentzel, who was operating carousels in Southern California at the time decided to stay there and become a luxury housing contractor in Beverly Hills, he eventually became the Mayor of that city in the early 1950's.

Many carousel connoisseurs consider the golden age of the carousel to be early 20th century America. Very large machines were being built, elaborate animals, chariots, and decorations were superbly made by skilled old-world craftsmen taking advantage of their new freedoms in America. Large amounts of excellent and cheap carving wood were available such as Appalachian white pine, basswood, and yellow poplar. Whereas most European carousel figures are relatively static in posture, American figures are more representative of active beasts - tossed manes, expressive eyes and postures of movement are their hallmarks. The first carousel at Coney Island was built in 1876 by Charles I. D. Looff, a Danish woodcarver. The oldest functional carousel in Europe is in Prague (Letna Park). Another style is a double-decker, where there is a huge carousel stacked on top of another. An example is the Columbia Carousel.

William H. Dentzel of Port Townsend, Washington is the only descendant from a founding American carousel family of the United States still making wooden carousels. His carousels are similar to the oldest operating carousel in the United States in Watch Hill, R.I. (1893) built by the Dare company, a "flying horses" machine. The power sources for Dentzel’s contemporary carousels range from rope-pull to hand-crank to foot-pedal to AC 110 volt electric to DC solar power.

In the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s carousel was not just an attribute of amusement parks, but also an integral part of the urban culture. Many playgrounds, which existed in every yard, were equipped with a standard flower-shaped carousel, made of metallic bars with six wooden seats attached to them.

[edit] Trivia

Recently, William Henry Dentzel III, built the world's first solar-powered Carousel. The carousel is in operation in the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, California.

There is only one carousel in the world that rides in a waving motion - "Over the Jumps: The Arkansas Carousel" in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is also the only remaining wooden track carousel built by the Herschell & Spillman Company, and one of only four track carousels still in existence.

The carousel at Hersheypark in Hershey, PA is purposely misspelled as "Carrousel".

Binghamton, New York is considered the "Carousel Capitol of the World" due to the six original carousels in the Triple Cities area, donated by George F. Johnson, owner of the Endicott-Johnson Company early in the 20th century.

Himmelskibet in Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen is the world's tallest carousel.

The oldest exsisting carousel made in 1907 in Germany is now at Toshimaen Park in Tokyo, Japan.

[edit] Gallery

A homemade merry-go-round	French old-fashioned style carousel with stairs	Modern carousel in Brussels	Columbia is a Double Decker and the World's Tallest Carousel
Standard Soviet carousel, 1970s-1980s	James Noyce & Sons' traditional "gallopers" at Nottingham Goose Fair in 1983	Mickey Marley's Roundabout in the 1970s, a famous carousel on the streets of Belfast	A 1920's The Allan Herschell Company merry-go-round in Tucson, Arizona
The Town Square Carrousel at Adventureland in Altoona, Iowa