The Horseless Carriage, the height of technology and status at Connecticut's Savin Rock, an early amusement park in New England

      The tintypes below were recently discovered at a stamp and coin shop in Bangor, ME. An ink stamp on the back of the paper construction souvenir frame reads: "Sea View Photo Gallery---Savin Rock---Chas. Stratton Prop'r [ Is that Gen. Tom Thumb?]. Connecticut's Savin Rock was an amusement park, one of the nation's first. It became the model for the original Luna Park and Coney Island in Brooklyn, as well as others.  My own experience with the concept of a "Luna Park", which became a generic term for amusement parks offering mechanical thrills was in Istanbul, Turkey where a "Luna Park" has served generations with an assortment of mechanical "rides". These exist around the world and were modeled after this Connecticut landmark with a selection of newly patented machines providing amusement. Depicted here is a horseless carriage with its "tiller" for steering; this was the latest technology when this was photographed in a studio at the park. Having ones' photo taken in a studio where the props included the latest technology were among the commonplace souvenirs and marks of status purchased  by New Englanders and many American's travels and amusements at the turn of the 20th century. This tradition stems back to the very beginnings of portraiture and continues to this day.

This was taken of a car owned by the Holbert family in Warwick, NY in 1903 (Photo from the Robert Schmick Collection).