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Cedar Point: A Park in Progress
Author(s) -
Hildebrandt Hugo John
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
the journal of popular culture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.238
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1540-5931
pISSN - 0022-3840
DOI - 10.1111/j.0022-3840.1981.00087.x
Subject(s) - theme park , amusement , great depression , history , national park , theme (computing) , curiosity , depression (economics) , point (geometry) , turning point , geography , period (music) , aesthetics , tourism , archaeology , art , psychology , computer science , social psychology , geometry , mathematics , macroeconomics , economics , operating system
This is a biography of an amusement park, Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, by its marketing director. This life history, using sources close to the park and in the popular press ouer many decades, traces the many shifts in circumstance, philosophy and mood in its development ouer a span from 1897 to its present status as “one of the great parks of the country.” This case study of a single park that has incorporated characteristics of many growth stages ofparks ingeneral serues as a capsule history: from its beginnings as a resort; expansion of rides and attractions during the flush years of the 1920s; the backsliding deterioration of the Depression years and the immediatepost‐ War period; the decline of the big‐city parks and the moue to the suburbs in the 50s; and the Disney effect: the advent of the national super theme park, with its revolutionary impact on the traditional park concept. According to Hildebrandt, Cedar Point is “the only modern superpark that also has an ancient history…. the only old‐time amusement park to successfully make the transition to the new amusement park culture.”