Recreation

Recreation, defined as leisure-time activities pursued for pleasure, underwent significant change during the early 20th century. At the turn of the century, class largely determined recreational opportunities. Upper-class Americans who were not tied down by work schedules and were wealthy enough, enjoyed a variety of recreational activities ranging from bicycling to summer vacations. The growing middle class was beginning to engage in many of the same recreational opportunities, albeit on a less grand scale, by the turn of the century. Wageworkers, on the other hand, did not have the time or money to participate in recreational activities beyond trips to the saloon for men, informal interactions among neighbors, and church activities.

This pattern changed during the first three decades of the 20th century as recreation became democratized. Early 20th-century changes in the workplace led to decreased hours for wage laborers at a time when real income was rising. Although wage laborers were never able to afford the grand vacations undertaken by wealthier Americans, they enjoyed increased access to recreational activities. This in turn led to a tremendous increase in the number of available recreational activities as entrepreneurs jumped in to take advantage of the new demand and reformers attempted to use recreation as a means to reform society.

Americans participated in a tremendous variety of different activities. Some involved an afternoon while others occupied an entire week or longer. While many spent their leisure time in their homes and neighborhoods, the 20th century brought a blossoming of recreational activities in places designed specifically for recreation. It was during this period that amusement parks first emerged, baseball became a national phenomenon both as a spectator sport and as a game to be played, and cities throughout America created public playgrounds and parks, to name just a few of the new recreational activities. Some forms of recreation brought people of various backgrounds together to share a common commercial culture, and many public amusements became places where social differences lessened. Other activities maintained social distinctions. The one common characteristic shared by all Americans was an increase in time spent taking part in recreational activities, despite industries’ increasing reliance on the time clock and systemization. Some activities helped workers escape for a brief time while others provided longer respites.

One of the most popular recreational activities was a trip to public amusement parks. These parks symbolized the cultural changes taking place. They helped challenge Victorian codes of behavior but did so in a safe, controlled environment. Modeling themselves on the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago and the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, amusement parks opened in or near every major city in the first years of the 20th century. The first and best known parks—Steeplechase, Luna, and Dreamland— opened on Coney Island, New York, and set the standard for parks nationwide. Developers of these parks created fantasylands where city residents could escape for a day to experience thrills. The key to their popularity was the parks’ easy access by rail from neighboring cities and their appeal

Thousands of Americans flocked to the seashore, as seen here on the New Jersey shore. (Library of Congress)

To visitors of all classes, which they accomplished by offering a variety of attractions. The parks offered roller coasters and other thrill rides, theatrical performances, dance halls, animal shows and rides, sideshow performances, ostensibly educational performances, and disaster exhibitions demonstrating, for example, the floods that devastated Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Galveston, Texas.

The amusements offered at the parks often challenged accepted modes of behavior by offering ribald attractions disguised as wholesome or educational entertainment. One park, for example, offered an exhibit of “The Streets of Cairo and Mysterious Asia,” which included female dancers in states of dress that no proper audience would accept in other contexts. The parks also appealed to young men and women who were beginning to strain against Victorian codes of morality that prescribed a strict distance between the sexes. At the parks, men and women could interact socially with members of the opposite sex outside the supervision of their families. The rides were popular with youths, because the action of the rides often threw men and women together or forced them to hang on to one another for balance, thus allowing physical contact frowned upon in other settings.

New forms of recreation did not have to involve daylong excursions to amusement parks. Many young working-class and middle-class men and women attended dance halls at night, an urban phenomenon made possible by the tremendous increase in young single women drawn to the cities by available work. Men and women went to the dance halls for the chance to mingle with members of the opposite sex outside of parental supervision. Other men and women attended dances and concerts sponsored by such organizations as the Young Men’s Christian Association and Young Women’s Christian Association.

Many types of recreation emerged during these years. The most significant was the motion picture. First made available by one-person nickelodeons in which customers could watch a brief film clip by dropping a nickel into the slot and peering through a small viewer, motion pictures enjoyed great popularity even before they could be projected onto a screen. Once the technology improved to where films could be shown on a screen, films quickly became the most popular form of recreation. One reason for motion pictures’ popularity is that they appealed to a wide audience. Ticket prices were low enough that practically anyone could attend as long as they followed the rules of behavior set forth by theater owners. Even when theater owners began to build ornate houses in central business districts in an effort to attract a wealthier clientele, working-class film lovers could still attend neighborhood theaters.

Americans of all classes also enjoyed sports, both as participants and spectators. It was during the period from 1900 to 1930 that athletic contests witnessed by large crowds emerged. While the audiences were restricted by ticket prices and the fact that few games were played on Sunday, the workers’ only day off, attendance at sporting events skyrocketed. Between 1903 and 1908, for example, attendance at major league baseball games doubled. In response, several professional teams built new stadiums. College football also enjoyed tremendous popularity, and universities built football stadiums with capacities up to 80,000. In the early years of the century, critics had tried to outlaw boxing because of the brutality of some fights, but by 1927 it had rebounded to a point where 145,000 fans witnessed a title bout between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

People were doing more than just watching sports; they spent a great deal of time participating in them. Baseball’s popularity extended to a myriad of amateur teams and leagues. Towns throughout America had amateur or semipro teams for both men and women, factories formed leagues, and baseball gear became standard issue for U. S. military units. Golf, tennis, and skiing also exploded in popularity among those Americans able to afford them. Holiday celebrations, such as union picnics on Labor Day, often included athletic contests in which participants competed for prizes. Cities built parks with playing fields to provide play space for their working-class citizens.

Most cities did not, however, build parks and simply turn them over to the people. Many reformers hoped to use recreation as a way to reform American society. Every large city in America created its own recreation department staffed by a team of experts who oversaw the use of the city’s parks and playing fields. Many reformers believed that athletic contests and games had the power to connect participants to their proper place in the social order, but only if played in the proper way. Unfortunately for the reformers, the users of the parks and playgrounds had their own ideas of how to use them, and no amount of coaching or policing could make them follow the guidelines set by recreation departments.

Americans also participated in numerous recreational activities that did not involve athletics. There were crazes, for example, for ping-pong in 1913, mah-jongg in 1923, crossword puzzles in 1924, contract bridge in the 1920s, and miniature golf in 1930. As soon as they tired of one fad, people turned to new ways to spend their leisure time.

Citizens used their leisure time to make longer escapes from the city as well by going on vacations. In the early years of the 20th century, vacations were still enjoyed predominantly by the middle classes. Before the 1910s, any time off that wageworkers received was unpaid, which for the most part precluded taking any sort of vacation. The vacations taken by middle-class Americans usually involved trips to resorts and hotels at various waterfront locations. Many enjoyed their first vacation experience at camp revival meetings, where they immersed themselves in religious activity. Camping also became very popular, especially when the automobile became widely available. Families could hop in their car and tour the country, stopping to camp along the way. Automobiles provided a form of vacation that was affordable to many middle-class workers.

It was not until after World War I that working-class Americans were able to take vacations in significant numbers, a change brought about by a number of developments. In the tightened labor market employers became more concerned with their employees’ health and happiness, and studies showed that rest benefited both the workers and the employers. As a result, many more employers began to give paid vacations to wage workers. In addition, the cost of automobiles dropped considerably in the 1910s, putting them within reach of working-class Americans. Workers could, therefore, take their families on trips in their cars. Vacations still had to be cheap by necessity, but car trips to fishing and hunting spots, camping trips, and to visit relatives were within the financial means of many wageworkers. By 1930, the family vacation was well on its way to becoming the mass phenomenon that it is today. Between 1900 and 1930, many novel recreational activities became mainstream. Americans decided that recreation was integral to their happiness and therefore embraced a myriad of recreational possibilities. In doing so, they helped usher in many characteristics of our modern society.

See also popular culture.

Further reading: Cindy S. Aron, Working at Flay: A History afVacations in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (New York: Basic Books, 1993).

—Michael Hartman