News release: Blackpool - Britain's Coney Island?

Abstract

A Public Lecture by Professor John Walton
Thursday, 19th February 2004, Harrington Lecture Theatre, 6.30pm.
John Walton, Professor of Social History and Director of Research at the University
of Central Lancashire, is to present a public lecture on Thursday, 19 February,
entitled: 'Biackpool- Britian's Coney Island'.
There are two real competitors for the title of world's first working-class seaside
resort: Lancashire's 'Breezy Blackpool' and New York's even more famous Coney
Island.
"Both places became immensely popular with working people in the late nineteenth
century, and built upon that popularity until the 1950s, when Coney Island went into a
downward spiral while Blackpool continued to reinvent itself with impressive
success," said Professor Walton.
Both regions pioneered fairground amusements and theme parks, but both were also
hugely popular as beach resorts and had many other entertainments.
Professor Walton continued: "These were places where people could let off steam and
do things they might not do elsewhere from eating sticky food in the street with their
fingers to 'copping off with an attractive stranger."
This lecture looks at the similarities and differences between them, using a wealth of
old photographs of both places, and tries to decide which of them really came first,
and why their twentieth-century fortunes have been so different.
For ticket details contact Jodi McNeillie on 01772 892347.