Amazon.com Review
Fred Thompson (1873-1919) was a pioneering entrepreneur who encouraged Americans, especially American men, to have fun and stop feeling guilty about it. He designed and built Luna Park, which in 1903 transformed Coney Island from an area so tawdry it was known as "Sodom by the Sea" into a respectable venue for middle-class recreation. He created the Hippodrome, the world's largest theater when it opened in 1905, and filled it with lavish spectacles at affordable ticket prices. He moved on to become "the boy-wonder of Broadway producers," responsible for such popular hits as
Brewster's Millions and
Little Nemo. His financial acumen never equaled his showmanship (he lost control of both Luna Park and the Hippodrome to better businessmen), but he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed spending vast sums of money to make fantasy and luxury accessible to the masses. Woody Register, professor of American Studies at Sewanee, explores Thompson's life and career as a paradigm for the sea change in commercial culture that took place in the early years of the 20th century, when the Victorian emphasis on educational, elevating entertainment was challenged by a more hedonistic attitude that valued pleasure for its own sake. Gender theory and other currently trendy academic disciplines inform the author's point of view without detracting unduly from his well-written and well-paced narrative. Register could have eased up on the Peter Pan metaphors, but he convincingly links Thompson to present-day innovators who've made a bundle by refusing to grow up, such as director Steven Spielberg and the whiz kids who created the personal computer and Internet revolutions. This is a nice example of a scholarly work that reaches beyond its core audience to appeal to the general public.
--Wendy Smith
From Publishers Weekly
In the late 19th century, when men were supposed to be men at home, at work and in war, visionary entrepreneur Fred Thompson struck gold with the proposition, let 'em be kids. Amid shifting conceptions of gender, race, class and work, Thompson labeled a Peter Pan for his business efforts and his demeanor created elaborate playgrounds for adults, most spectacularly (and lucratively) Luna Park, an electrified extravaganza built in 1903 at Coney Island. This wonderfully written, entertaining and unusually perceptive look at a forefather of 20th-century American leisure culture makes delightful reading out of serious scholarship. Born into a middle-class family in Ohio in 1873, Thompson aspired to become an architect but soon, enticed by the possibilities of large-scale fairs and theatricals, became an "exposition fiend." He designed a striking "Moorish" building to highlight the achievements of African-Americans, a giant mechanical seesaw in answer to Mr. Ferris's wheel and a "trip to the moon" cyclorama for various turn-of-the-century expositions. From his famed Hippodrome Theater in Times Square, such extravagant productions as Brewster's Millions and Polly of the Circus went on the road. Register, professor of American studies at Sewanee, draws upon the groundbreaking pop culture studies of Kathy Peiss, William Leach and Jackson Lears as well as on his own research. Ranging from the theoretical (the construction of white masculinity in popular literature and entertainments) to wonderful specifics (e.g., the alleged threat of teddy bears "to all instincts of motherhood" in young girls), Register makes an important contribution to the literature of popular culture, consumerism and gender.
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