Amusement parks proved attractive and profitable, bringing throngs of people and nonstop activity to what only a short time before had been seen as a seedy, has-been of a destination. This was true for a few reasons. As historian Arwen P. Mohun notes, unlike other occasional or itinerant forms of entertainment, such as circuses or festivals, a theme park “was available on nights and weekends, or whenever industrial workers found themselves released from the temporal bonds of wage labour.” Moreover, the parks offered pleasures that were broadly accessible: folks of all classes could take advantage of cheap and readily available mass transit, bring a friend (or a romantic interest), grab a beer and a snack, and spend the evening “clinging to each other on wild rides, watching each other caught literally off balance in fun houses and simply spending time together without direct supervision.” The rides, the common experience, the technology—all of these things, writes Carroll Pursell—“were thrillingly modern.”
Entrepreneurs liked the concept because they could combine many attractions into a single ticketed site. They could not only control the park universe but play with its form and execution in response to demand. And there was lots of demand. The theme park was a uniquely American model, a soup of innovation and wonder and pleasure, and though Luna Park was neither the first nor the only one of its sort, it would become the emblem of a burgeoning amusement industry. Clones popped up everywhere. For instance, Frederick Ingersoll of Pittsburgh launched a chain of dozens of “Luna Parks.” Even as the Depression dampened the amusements industry at home, manufacturers looked abroad to create new “factories of fun.” Pursell notes that “Luna Park became the namesake and inspiration for dozens of other amusement parks spread across the globe from Japan to Australia, Egypt to Mexico.” Luna Parks appeared globally, “including a chain in Saudi Arabia and a handful of parks in the republics of the former Soviet Union.” Australia had four, the first built in 1912.