You Must Be This to Ride: Class, Gender, and Race in the American Amusement Park (thesis)

Abstract

The apparent democratization of the amusement park, as explored here, belies the reality that increased inclusion in some aspects of an important mass leisure form does not resolve all problems of inclusion in a society. The numerous intersections between the amusement park and other forms of mass popular culture make it difficult to study the amusement park on its own, particularly when first-person accounts and even superficially reliable sources prove, on further inspection, to be colored by either sentimentality or a desire to speak well of institution that has had deep personal meaning in individual lives. The instinct to “protect” amusement parks in this way deserves further study, but this paper traces some major apparent developments in the American amusement park relative to other major moments in American history, and sets the stage for this necessary additional discussion. [From Introduction]