Analysis and Bibliography

Tourism at Niagara Falls From Early 1800s to mid 1900s

                 Niagara Falls is a place of splendor, majesty, and one of the most popular vacation destinations in the world.  Thousands of visitors come each month to see, explore, and take delight in the grandness of the falls.  However, the falls have only been a tourist spot since the early 1800s.  Before industry and railroads, only a few explorers would transverse the wilderness to visit Niagara.  Only after the War of 1812 did small communities decide to settle near the falls and more visitors travel to see this delight.  Those who came to Niagara came for many different reasons: the nature, honeymoons, technology, or to risk death and cross over the falls.  No matter what reason they came, Niagara gave them something they could not find in their everyday life—an overpowering sense of nature and a need to either conquer or give into it. 

                  Explorers discovered Niagara Falls in the mid 1600s; however, the falls were not accessible to anyone until the 1820s when railroads were built to the falls.  Prior to the War of 1812, those who explored Niagara brought back drawings or poems in order to exclaim the wonders of the falls.  Since Niagara was inaccessible to ordinary travelers, an image of Niagara as a place with “no parallel in the world” that had mystical and exotic qualities rose up among the educated and wealthy in both Europe and America[1].  This meant that those who knew about Niagara desired to visit and see for themselves this supposed paradise.  After New York opened the land around Niagara for “productive exploitation” in 1805, acres of land were sold quickly and for relatively high prices.[2]  Niagara was profitable and desirable.  Railroads were built on the side of the mountains or across the falls on bridges.  Power lines, staircases, and paths sprung up to give visitors easy access to see the falls.[3]  However, as visitors, usually the educated, literate and artistic, already had an image of Niagara as a pristine paradise, the immediate industry that was built up, including factories, bridges, and stairs, took away from this initial image.  This did not prevent the elite of society from visiting between the War of 1812 and the Civil War.  They came to “see what meanings they could discern amid [Niagara’s] plunging waters”.[4]  These initial visitors were the ones who gave into the power of Niagara.  They described remoteness, death, nature, the future, and a need to leave the ordinary world behind and only see the extraordinary after seeing the falls.[5]  These early tourists were taken in with the splendor as that was all Niagara offered.  It was only after the Civil War that Niagara changed to accommodate the growing middle class.

                  After the Civil War, cheaper rail lines and automobiles meant that the middle class was able to visit the falls.  Post Civil War into the early 1900s brought about many changes that benefited the middle class, including a shift to white collar office jobs and more leisure time.  Along with more time for vacation, rail lines became affordable for the middle class.  Around ninety-two trains would stop each day bringing hundred of visitors to see the falls.  They would come to Niagara to escape from the unhealthy climate of the city and return to nature.  Between May and August of 1897, around 276,900 visitors came by train to see the falls.[6]  With the enormous amount of visitors each month, Niagara was the place to vacation and visit, which led to the building of the town of Niagara Falls and the many hotels that sprung up to support the growing tourism. 

                  With an influx in visitors, the area surrounding Niagara was built up with hotels to accommodate and give visitors the full leisure experience.  Hotels were essential for bringing “civilization to Niagara Falls” as “they increased the accessibility to Niagara’s scenic attractions, eased the burden on sightseers, and diversified the tourist’s experience”.[7]  The hotels were grand, lavish resorts that had the most modern amenities.  Photographs of the hotels show them as buildings that stretched forever, with room after room.[8]   Even though visitors came to escape from the city life, they did not really want the primeval wilderness that Niagara claimed to be, but wanted culture and class in a controlled environment, which hotels provided.  As claimed by advertisements for the hotels, like the poster for the Hotel Converse, the hotels were built close enough to the falls that visitors only had to look out their hotel window to see the falls.[9]  The grandness of the hotels, the modern amenities they provided, and the social scene that sprung up were all ways to help visitors experience Niagara even after they saw the falls.  Many visitors would see the falls at the beginning of their trip and then socialize at the hotels for the rest.  For those who did not have the means to stay at the hotels and when the hotels were full, tourist camps were built up near the falls.[10]  These were advertised on billboards[11] and were a cheap way for visitors to see the falls.  The tourist camps and grandness of the hotels were all signs of just how many visitors were coming to Niagara in the early 1900s.

                  Of the visitors who came to experience Niagara, a large portion were honeymooners who considered visiting Niagara a rite of passage and transformation between single and married life.  This “wedding journey” as the honeymoon was called, was a way for the couple to leave behind the pressures of their social life and have a chance to start their marriage away from society.[12]  The large numbers of newly married couples that had their wedding journey at Niagara is evident in the building of honeymoon cottages adjacent to the hotels.[13]  These were separate buildings just for the couple to live in for their vacation.  The cottage at Niagara was a symbol of their hiatus between single and married life because they went away to a place of uncivilized nature and only when they returned would they have to follow the societal rules again.  Though honeymooners were just one group of people who come to Niagara to relish in the wonder and beauty, there were others who came specifically to try to conquer the falls. 

                  Since the 1850s, some people have come to Niagara not for honeymoons or leisure, but to perform various stunts across the falls, defying death and conquering nature.  These events attracted huge crowds due to the danger and spectacle of death.  Visitors who came to Niagara would come to see these courageous people rather than the falls themselves.  One of the first stunters was Charles Blondin, known as “The Great Blondin.”  He came to Niagara in 1858 and walked across the Niagara River on a tightrope on June 30, 1859.  For Blondin's first walk, he went from the American to the Canadian side in 20 minutes with a 30 foot balancing pole to keep his balance.  Blondin walked across the Niagara River eight more times in 1859, one of which he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back.[14] Blondin pushed the limits of conquering nature and overcoming the danger and mystery of Niagara.  However, in all the images of “The Great Blondin”, he is alone with no audience in the background[15].  However, in order to get the images of Blondin, there must have been a crowd of people watching and taking photographs.  The evidence of a crowd and Blondin’s success comes in the form of Andrew Jenkins.  Jenkins’ father took him to see a performance of Blondin when he was a child, which is evidence that Blondin’s acts were advertised and attended.  After seeing Blondin, Jenkins wanted to become like him.  However, after watching a bicycle act on stage, he wanted to combine the bicycle with crossing Niagara.  In 1869, Jenkins crossed the Niagara River on a bicycle on a tightrope to a crowd of 8000 American and Canadian tourists.[16]  This was because he was performing at the same location as Blondin and on a bicycle, which had not been seen before.  Another tightrope act that brought thousands of visitors to Niagara was Maria Spelterini’s act.  She was the first woman to cross the Niagara River on a tightrope proving that women can perform the same feats as men.  The crowds that came to see her are apparent in images of her crossing.  They lined the bridges near where she was crossing, creating an indistinguishable mass on the bridge.[17]  These people did not come to see the falls, but to see the many tight rope acts that were performed over the Niagara River.

                  The visitors that came to see these stunts came to not only see the talent of the stunters but also to experience and become aware of their own mortality.  It was not known if the tightrope walkers would survive the cross over the river.  This fear of the unknown appealed to the spectacle of death and danger that the viewers came to see.  While the tightrope walkers were in control of their future and were trying to conquer death, the spectators came for the thrill of not knowing what would happen.  They came by the thousands to see another person put their mortality to the test, but not have to experience it themselves.  Thousands of visitors that might not have come to see the falls came to see the spectacles as “artificial contests and spectacles, rather than the lure of natural scenery, captivated the public consciousness”.[18]  These tests against mortality and nature drew more people to Niagara in the late 1800s and early 1900s than the actually nature. 

                  As the wave of tightrope walkers declined due to the act becoming more commonplace rather than spectacular, the act of barrel stunts became popularized.  The first man to go over Niagara Falls was Carlisle Graham, an English copper who had immigrated to Philadelphia[19].  He wanted to test his barrel against the forces of Niagara.  Advertisement photographs show him standing next to his barrel showing off both himself and the barrel.[20]  The photograph is clearly staged and for the purpose of advertising his stunt.  The photographs did work as they drew a huge crowd to Niagara due to the stunt’s novelty, and as it was another act that pitted humans against nature.  On July 11, 1886 Graham went over Niagara Falls in his barrel.  The trip took 30 minutes and in that time the crowd did not know whether he lived or died.  Though he did survive, this type of paradox enhanced the spectacle of danger and mortality.  Barrel stunts rely on chance rather than on skill as the stunter has to hope his barrel will survive the pressure of the water.  For this reason-this chance-visitors came by thousands to see barrel acts. 

                  Barrel acts took on masculine and dangerous qualities until Annie Edson Taylor’s trip over Niagara Falls.  Though other women had gone over in a barrel, none had survived until Taylor.  Her survival and the fact that she was an ordinary woman changed how barrel stunts and the falls were viewed.  No longer where they a dangerous or mystical place that only the few could master; they had been conquered by a middle aged woman.  In her advertisement photographs, the words “Heroine of Niagara Falls” is painted on the side of her barrel to signify how extraordinary her trip was due to her status.[21]  Her trip took place on October 21st, 1901 in front of a crowd of thousands and marked the beginning of barrel stunts becoming common. 

                  After Taylor, many more men went over Niagara Falls in barrels in order to try to conquer death and nature.  However, not all of them went over in wooden barrels.  Jean Lussier, after hearing about another stunters, Charles Stephens’ tragic death while going over the falls, decided he too wanted to try to test his mortality.  However, instead of a barrel, he made his craft out of rubber.  The ball was six inches in diameter and lined with thirty-two inner tubes.  Though his act was new, Lussier had to elude the police who tried to stop barrel stunts due to the number of deaths that occurred.  However, once on the water, his stunt did attract a crowd interested in seeing if he would survive the trip.  This is seen in photographs afterwards where the crowd is trying to pull him out of his rubber ball.[22]  While he survived going over in rubber, not all of the rubber barrel stunts were successful.  William “Red” Hill, Jr. did not have the funds nor support to construct a barrel, so instead he constructed what he referred to as “The Thing”, which was thirteen inner tubes bounds together.  On August 5, 1951, Hill went over Horseshoe Falls to a crowd of thousands who had heard about “The Thing”.  Hill and “The Thing” tragically got caught in the extreme pressure, the inner tubes were torn apart, and Hill died.[23]  By the 1950s, enough stunters had died going over Niagara Falls that there was a public outcry over the needless deaths.  In 1951, the Niagara Parks Commission passed an act that made it illegal to perform stunts within the park.[24]  However, the stunters, like Hill, showed the world that Niagara was a place to come, test, and conquer nature.  No longer was Niagara just to escape from city life and commune with nature, but to see people push the limits on mortality. 

                 Niagara Falls was the place to see the combination of technology and nature, both with the tightropes and barrels, but also with waterpower.  Niagara Falls has been used to create electricity and power since the early 1800s; however, it took until 1895 to successfully transmit the power to Buffalo and the surrounding cities.  The first use of waterpower was by the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company who successfully built a canal and power station by 1881 and could light the Village of Niagara Falls.[25] However, the amount of electricity produced was not enough to truly affect the surrounding area until 1895 when Nicola Tesla figured out how to transmit power with AC current.  The Niagara Falls Power Company then successfully connected power to Buffalo.[26]  The Niagara Falls Power Company became the forefront industrial attraction of the falls and was quickly added to the guidebooks.  Published photographs and postcards[27] of the power plant, and the guidebooks showed the power plant, and the runoff falls created for the waterpower, as being a tourist attraction and feature of Niagara.  In order to gain support for waterpower, the guidebooks called on tradition of American progress and how it was the goal of America to transform energy into power.

                  With the success of the Niagara Falls Power Company, the power plant became a place that visitors could marvel at and see the blend of technology and nature while visiting the falls.  In the early 1900s, Niagara shifted from a place to see nature to a place to see the “most modern and powerful machine”[28] in the world.  The goal of visiting Niagara was not to see the falls, but to see the powerhouses and tunnels that were built to move the water.  The powerhouses were even designed to blend into the landscape and be part of the scenery.  This was another way to show the blend of nature and technology.  As the company knew that thousands of tourists would tour the interior of the plant, they “balanced technological requirements with aesthetic taste” by keeping the plant well lit, clean, and smoothly run.[29]  The workers were required to show precision, effortlessness and give an aura of leisure while working.  This was all to gain public support that waterpower from Niagara was beneficial and not harming the natural scenery of the falls.  As power plants gained support, through tourist literature and photographs, both the elite of society and the middle class came to visit.  According to the Niagara Falls Power Company Register,[30] President McKinley, engineers, and scientists all came to see this modern wonder, along with middle class vacationers.  They came to tour the power plants to learn how they worked and as a result helped create a positive image of the plant and the technology.

                  The main effect of the power plants at Niagara was a shift in who came and why they came to Niagara.  The powerful and educated would come to see the technology and modern inventions rather than the falls.  Even those that came for the falls would tour the power plants as guidebooks, such as the Index Guide to Buffalo and Niagara Falls, encouraged “after visiting the wonders of nature, it is instructional to pass to a wonder of modern engineering.”[31]  There was more emphasis on seeing man conquering nature rather than the nature itself.  This transition to seeing man and technology occurred at the same time as stunters and barrel stunts became popular.  Both water power and barrel stunts show a change from man communing with nature to conquering it, both through defying nature’s deadliness and by using it to make electricity.  This encouraged a shift in how tourists viewed nature.  Nature was for using and conquering rather than becoming one with or observing.  This was due to the Industrial Revolution and an increase in consumerism of the early 1900s encouraging people to use and take whatever they could find to help American progress.  Tourists of the early to mid 1900s did not come and see Niagara as a mystical and paradisiacal place but rather a place to conquer and control. 

                  Niagara Falls inspired people to leave the bustle of their lives and commune with nature.  They were a symbol of something pure, uncorrupted, and an earthly paradise.  This is the image that the early tourists saw and took away, and the image that made Niagara into an American icon.  However, by the mid 1910s, tourists could not match this iconic view with the build up of industry at Niagara, and with other attractions being built and other natural wonders being discovered, more Americans started traveling other places for vacation.  The thrill of Niagara was being lost and the golden age of Niagara was over after the Pan American Exposition.  However, the number of tourists who came to see the falls, the stunters, and the water plants show that Niagara Falls had something that no other place else had: a place to come and feel inspired to either conquer or to give in to the endless wonders and beauties.       

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[1] Patrick McGreevy, Imagining Niagara (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press), 3.

[2] William Irwin. The new Niagara: tourism, technology, and the landscape of Niagara Falls, 1776-1917 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press), 10.

[3] See the first four photographs in the Tourism section in the Niagara Falls Omeka exhibit

[4] Irwin, 7.

[5] McGreevy, 11.

[6] Irwin, 55.

[7] Ibid., 21.

[8] See the four photographs of hotels in the Tourism section in the exhibit

[9] See the photograph of a hotel advert in the Tourism section in the exhibit

[10] Conheady, accessed 13 December 2015, http://nyfalls.com/niagara-falls/history.

[11] See the photograph of a tourist camp in the Tourism section in the exhibit

[12] McGreevy, 38.

[13] See the photograph of the honeymoon cottages in the Tourists and Honeymooners section in the exhibit

[14] “Daredevils of Niagara Falls”, accessed 9 December 2015, http://www.niagarafrontier.com/devil_frame.html.

[15] See the photographs of Charles Blondin in the Stunts-Tightrope section in the exhibit

[16] “Daredevils of Niagara Falls”

[17] See the photographs of Maria Spelterini in the Stunts-Tightrope section in the exhibit

[18] Irwin, 24.

[19] “Daredevils of Niagara Falls”

[20] See the photograph of Charlisle Graham in the Stunts-Barrels section in the exhibit

[21] See the photograph of Annie Edson Taylor in the Stunts-Barrels section in the exhibit

[22] See the photograph of Jean Lussier in the Stunts-Barrels section in the exhibit

[23] “Daredevils of Niagara Falls”

[24] Ibid.

[25] Jack Foran. “The Day They Turned the Falls On: The Invention of the Universal Electrical Power System”, accessed 9 December 2015, http://library.buffalo.edu/projects/cases/niagara.htm

[26] Ibid.

[27] See the photograph of the water plant in the Water Power section in the exhibit

[28] Irwin, 122.

[29] Ibid., 124.

[30] See the photographs of the interior of the water plant in the Water Power section in the exhibit

[31] Irwin, 130.

 

Works Cited

Conheady, Matthew, “Niagara Falls Historic Timeline”, NYFalls. Last modified 2013.  http://nyfalls.com/niagara-falls/history.

“Daredevils of Niagara Falls”, Niagara Falls Thunder Alley.  http://www.niagarafrontier.com/devil_frame.html.

Foran, Jack, “The Day They Turned the Falls On: The Invention of the Universal Electrical Power System”, University of Buffalo. Last modified 2015.  http://library.buffalo.edu/projects/cases/niagara.htm

Irwin, William R. The new Niagara: tourism, technology, and the landscape of Niagara Falls, 1776-1917. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

McGreevy, Patrick. Imagining Niagara. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994. 

 

All Image Citations under Individual Dublin Core 

Analysis and Bibliography