Coney Island essays

Coney Island essays At the turn of the 19th century Coney Island, following societal queues began to emerge as the entertainment capital of America. Today, with a Disneyworld on each coast, they boast an even more extravagant, elaborate amusement park then Coney Island could have imagined in its heyday. However does Disneyworld, despite its impressive, technologically advanced enchantment offer the same liberation from routine as Coney Island did? In short no, the extreme cultural difference, and escape from routine Coney Island offered is unmatched even in todays digital world. For us to see how Coney Island provided such a release to its visitors we must take a look at the cultural norms of the Victorian era. Beginning in the antebellum period a self-conscious elite of critics, ministers, educators, and reformers... had arisen to assume cultural leadership. This group of elite grown from the Protestant middle class believed all activities both in work and in leisure should be ultimately constructive. Even when people were spending time off from work, Leisure...should be spent not in idleness but in edifying activities...poetry, fiction, the visual arts, and related pursuits were legitimized not for arts sake but for their moral and social utility. However at the turn of the century a new generation became distinctly noticeable, this generations leading minds hungered to immerse themselves in issues and experience outside the categories of genteel respectability. George Tilyou realized that Coney Islands greatest potential lie not in corruptly defyi ng the genteel culture, but in satisfying the white-collar workers taste for sensory appeal and emotional release. Coney offered a fantasy world that let this new generation break free from its limitations of the genteel culture. Coney Island was the first place to offered release from this sort o...