This is a book for all who enjoyed the experiences of watching, hearing, and riding the wooden carousel during the golden age of American amusement history -- and for those who continue to appreciate the carousel, or merry-go-round, as a very special element of the American cultural landscape. This book contains 107 black-and-white photographs and printed images. Carrie Papa invited thirty-seven 'insiders' -- people who lived behind the lights, music, magic, and fantasy of the antique wooden carousel to reveal the purposes, experiences, memories, and emotions of their involvement with this form of amusement and entertainment. The reader will hear the stories of manufacturers of carousels and the craftsmen who made them, owners and managers of amusement parks, carousel operators and support personnel, riders, and those who have studied, preserved, and revitalised carousels and preserved interest in them. These accounts provide windows onto the everyday life of participants in the industry -- onto the reality behind the nostalgia -- and document an important part of our national amusement heritage.

This book documents the history of two celebrated mines in Sussex County, New Jersey, through the eyes of those who lived it. The two mines, consolidated in 1897 under the New Jersey Zinc Company, were recognised world-wide for their diverse and magnificent mineral deposits and are acknowledged as the birthplace of the US zinc industry. At its peak of operations in Sussex County in the first half of the 20th century, the Zinc Company employed over 2000 hourly workers. The Company developed the towns of Franklin and Ogdensburg for the miners, and one of them, Franklin, became known as the 'model mining town of America'. The book is divided into three parts: The Mines and the Miners; The Model Mining Town of America; and The Legacy and the Future. In the first two parts, the narratives explore the positive and negative aspects of life in the mines and in the company towns. In these sections, the author compares the lives of Zinc Company miners to those of other hard-rock miners in the US. The third part looks at the continuing educational impact of the mines, including the influence on the development of local museums and on the Smithsonian Institution's mine exhibit that opened in 1997.