Full Circle: Rediscovering a Carousel from my Youth

In 1800, an advertisement for a peculiar device appeared in a Salem, Massachusetts newspaper. The ad stated that the device was also in use in New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia. It promised to bring “innocent pleasure” and “great satisfaction” and that doctors recommended it as an aid to the circulation of the blood.

The device, derived from those popular in Europe, was an early form of carousel, a “circus ride” with wooden horses. By the mid-19th century, these devices (often consisting of niches and horses that were crude by later standards) appeared in seaside resorts and urban parks.

An 18-year-old German immigrant who arrived in Philadelphia in 1864 changed all that. Gustav Dentzel first opened a cabinet shop and then, influenced by his father Michael Dentzel (who built carousels in Germany), formed the G. A. Dentzel Company in 1867. The young Dentzel pioneered the industry in America, employing the most talented carvers who made elegant horses and a whimsical array of other animals, often with lavish carved decoration. His business prospered for decades.

In 1903, the Philadelphia businessman Henry Auchy hired some of Dentzel’s best carvers and formed the Philadelphia Toboggan Company. This firm also had a long and successful history, and helped popularize the Philadelphia style of richly decorated, elegant and refined carousel carving that could be seen in many late 19th-century city parks.

You probably rode one of these carousels as a kid, although very few working examples exist today. Both of these points were driven home to me on a recent shopping trip to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse. The carousel there is one I’ve often admired, and sometimes ridden, especially after having kids. It was built in 1909 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company as their 18th carousel. They had been in business 6 years, so that means they created about three carousels per year. At 54 feet in diameter, and with 42 horses and several bench rides, along with ornate rounding boards, it’s no wonder that it took master carver Leo Zollar some time to produce this carousel.

As I read about its history, which included amusement parks in Louisville, Kentucky, Worcester, Massachusetts, Erie, Pennsylvania, and Syracuse, I found out something startling. This was the very same carousel that ran at Roseland Park in Canandaigua, New York from 1941 until the park closed in 1985.

It was then I realized that I had ridden this carousel forty years ago. Back in the 1960s, when I was a kid, we used to make the one-hour drive from our cottage in the Finger Lakes to Roseland Park for the day. It was a great park, and one of my favorite rides was the carousel. This carousel.

Considering what I now do for a living, it seems fitting that this great masterpiece of folk art touched my life at such a young age. That I can relive this experience today with my own children is somewhat of a miracle. It is another reminder of the potency of artistry that stems from ordinary people and directly addresses their needs and desires.

The Jewish Origins of American Carousel Carving

Nothing seems more American than a carousel animal, especially at a place like Coney Island in its heyday. Horses galloping with flowing manes and flared nostrils, exotic animals like lions (the example above, by Marcus Charles Illions, is in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York) and tigers snarling and roaring to the delight of youngsters and adults. It has long been recognized that the Coney Island style of carousel carving was more flamboyant than that seen in other centers of this kind of sculpture. What hasn’t been understood until recently is why. And the answer lies in a carving tradition quite distant from America geographically and culturally.

You see, the reason these figures look the way they do is that the carvers were Jewish. Really. This was a complete revelation to me when I first saw the exhibition Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel, which opened at the American Folk Art Museum in 2007 and came to the Fenimore Art Museum in 2008. The exhibition curator Murray Zimiles made a compelling case for the reevaluation of a quintessentially American art form, tying it convincingly to the Jewish aesthetic traditions of Eastern and Central Europe.

Photographs of huge Jewish synagogues (none of which have survived owing to anti-Semitic destruction leading up to and during World War II) show massive wooden structures that featured ornate interior decoration. The primary focus of the interior was the Torah Ark, a large (sometime more than thirty feet tall! See the example from a synagogue in Lithuania at right) cabinet that held the Torah scrolls (the first five books of the Bible). These arks often had elaborate carving, which included eagles and lions. The lions are often seen flanking and holding the Tablets of the Law, or Decalogue (an American example of this form, also by Illions, can be seen below).

It’s not just the presence of the carving that matters, but also the manner or style. The animals in these synagogues were meant to get the attention of the congregation. They exude physical power in their ferocity and sense of movement. Just like the carousel animals of Coney Island.

Marcus Charles Illions was one of the key figures in this trans-Atlantic artistic crossing. His Brooklyn shop can be seen in the photo below. Illions was born in Lithuania (then part of Russia) in the 1860s or 70s, was conscripted into the Russian army and fled his homeland for England, where he perfected his carving skills, and immigrated to the U.S. in the 1880s to eventually start his own shop.

Take a good look at the picture. On the wall is a large drawing of a carousel lion; the very one that was included in the exhibition and is pictured at the top of this post. To the right of the drawing, above a doorway, is a Decalogue probably carved for a New York City synagogue, similar to t he one pictured above. Holding the Tablets are a pair of lions with flowing manes and ferocious expressions just like their carousel counterpart. Two traditions, thousands of miles apart, side by side in a New York City carving shop.

Author’s note: Our own Empire State Carousel at The Farmers’ Museum is the product of a Jewish carver, Gerry Holzman, who says he was inspired by the Coney Island style when he envisioned and created our carousel.