Merry-go-round, c 1910

Merry-go-round, c 1910. A snapshot photograph of people at a merry-go-round, taken by an unknown photographer in about 1910. Women and children sit on the 'Galloping Horses', as other women keep careful attendance close by. A few children look on from the grass below, perhaps waiting their turn. Roundabouts, the forerunners to merry-go-rounds, are first recorded in the early nineteenth century. Sometimes roundabouts were turned by ponies, or children hoping for a free ride, but gradually steam replaced muscle power. According to Thomas Hurst, a Lancashire roundabout proprietor, Thomas Bradshaw first opened a steam-driven merry-go-round on the old Pot Market in Bolton on New Year's Day, 1861. Bradshaw made the horses himself, and patented his idea in 1863. This photograph was taken using a No. 2 Folding Brownie camera, first produced in 1904. The Folding Brownie cameras were cheaper and simpler to operate than other Kodak cameras on the market. ©SSPL/NMeM/Kodak Collection