Carousel

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This article is about the amusement ride. For the stage musical, see Carousel.

A carousel 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.

Within a given country, carousels are generally all built to rotate in the same direction, with the choice derived perhaps from the rules of the road of that country. In the US, traffic as seen from the sidewalk appears to travel from left to right; hence American carousels rotate counter-clockwise so that the view from outside is the same as that from the sidewalk. In Britain, it's the reverse in both cases. Another reason for the choice may be that the British felt it necessary to enable the rider to mount the wooden steeds in the "proper" fashion, inserting the left foot in the stirrup and swinging the right leg over and up onto the animal. The Americans, on the other hand, were more concerned with people being able to "grab the brass ring" while spinning round and round. Since most people are right-handed, the machine would have to travel in a counter-clockwise direction so that the right hand would be free to reach for the ring.

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 References
4 External links

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History

Records of early carousels are known from the Byzantine Empire. The first steam-powered carousels began to appear in Europe in 1860, and then in England and the USA in 1870. 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).

The carousel met its artistic zenith in early 1900s America - the industry's carvers, mostly immigrants from Europe, took the traditions of their home countries, and let their imaginations loose in their new creations. 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. American companies fell into three distinct carving styles: The Philadelphia Style (including the William Dentzel, Daniel Carl Muller, and Philadelphia Toboggan Companies), The Coney Island Style (including the Charles Carmel, Marcus Charles Illions, Solomon Stein & Harry Goldstein, and Charles I. D. Looff companies), and The County Fair Style (including the Armitage Herschell, Allan Herschell, Edward Spillman, and Charles Parker companies). Another style is a double decker, where there is a huge carousel stacked on top of another. An example is the Columbia Carousel.

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.

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

A homemade merry-go-round	French old-fashioned style carousel with stairs	Modern carousel in Bruxelles	Columbia is a Double Decker
Standard Soviet carousel, 1970s-1980s	James Noyce & Sons' traditional "gallopers" at Nottingham Goose Fair in 1983