The rise of large cultural performance venues in early 1900s America presented a problem: how to harness the energy and profit potential of the crowd without risking the political and property damage that large masses threatened? The solution lay in crowd control technologies, including turnstiles, stanchions, and seats. Manufacturers framed these products in terms of their ability to generate calm audiences by channeling bodies through venue spaces and seating them in neat rows. Designers and operators of theaters, music halls, and stadiums with crowd control equipment often used the same language of calmness and orderliness. Historicizing existing social science scholarship with trade literature and technical books, this article shows how large performance facilities used technological means to convert mass crowds into audiences, accommodating expanding urban populations and reinforcing the racial order of early twentieth-century America.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Adams, Michael H;
(2012)
Lee De Forest: King of Radio, Television, and Film
Book
Suisman, David;
(2009)
Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music
Article
Mohun, Arwen P.;
(2001)
Designed for thrills and safety: Amusement parks and the commodification of risk, 1880--1929
Chapter
Berger, Michael L.;
(1983)
The great while hope on wheels
Chapter
Cristina Grazioli;
(2010)
Allegorie d’acqua e luce: uno spettacolo pirotecnico sul Reno a Düsseldorf nel 1585
Book
Craig Ryan;
(2015)
Sonic Wind: The Story of John Paul Stapp and How a Renegade Doctor Became the Fastest Man on Earth
Book
Sarah E. Robey;
(2022)
Atomic Americans: Citizens in a Nuclear State
Book
Mark Aldrich;
(2018)
Back on Track: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1965–2015
Article
Arwen P. Mohun;
(2013)
Amusement Parks for the World: The Export of American Technology and Know-How, 1900—1939
Book
Kraft, James P.;
(1996)
Stage to studio: Musicians and the sound revolution, 1890--1950
Article
Vaillant, Derek W.;
(2013)
At the Speed of Sound: Techno-Aesthetic Paradigms in U.S.--French International Broadcasting, 1925--1942
Chapter
Erica Levin;
(2018)
Sounding Snows: Bodily Static and the Politics of Visibility during the Vietnam War
Chapter
Duval, Steven;
(2018)
Identity, Rhetoric, and Method in the Collaborations of Experiments in Art and Technology, the Artist Placement Group, and the Art and Technology Program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Book
Pursell, Carroll W.;
(2005)
Companion to American technology
Chapter
Sandra Skurvida;
(2018)
Technologies of Indeterminacy: John Cage Invents
Book
Rosemary A. Joyce;
(2020)
The future of nuclear waste: what art and archaeology can tell us about securing the world's most hazardous material
Chapter
Goodyear, Anne Collins;
(2018)
Launching “Hybrid Practices” in the 1960s: On the Perils and Promise of Art and Technology
Book
Kittler, Friedrich;
Enns, Anthony;
(2010)
Optical media: Berlin lectures 1999
Article
Wosk, Julie;
(2007)
Catastrophe chic: A commentary
Article
Wosk, Julie;
(2006)
Designing for safety: Safe: Design takes on risk
Be the first to comment!