It doesn't so much matter where the carousel came from, or when; we don't have to be concerned that its original name may have been derived from the words for "little war" - or that it may have been a cavalry training exercise. The carousels we knew, or that our parents knew, were meant only for the delight of children.

We rode noble, faithful horses or strange and wild creatures in a revolving circle of wonder. Armored horses may have made some of into Arthurian knights, while wise, moon-saddled rabbits made sorceresses out of others; wild lions chose to let us ride them, or mystical stags, or maybe we drove a whole chariot on our own. The carousel wound around and around and never really took us anywhere… except that while the ride lasted we were someplace else entirely.

The heyday of American carousels lasted only a short while: from the late nineteenth century into the 1920's. By the middle of the Great Depression the industry had dwindled away. These were also years in which European immigrants brought many traditional skills across the ocean with them, including decorative wood carving. The old carousel animals were built up like hollow boxes out of hardwood, then carved skillfully - and rapidly! - into the fanciful creatures that children eventually rode.

The carousel is an odd mixture of industrial technology and traditional craftsmanship. Powered by an engine that's driven by steam or electricity, it's nonetheless a mechanism whose visible parts are entirely crafted by hand, mallet and chisel. It's as though the modern - or nearly modern - heart of the great machine is there in service of the old world craftsmanship that the whole ride seems to be.

Most carousels led long, hard lives and their animals were patched, shored up, shimmed and painted over far too quickly when they needed work. Very few complete menageries survive and we won't even dwell on their fiberglass descendants. There are still a few, refurbished and reconditioned, that are pretty much the same as they were two generations ago.

More often they've been disassembled, broken up, and their animals sold off as antiques or junk. Collectors have bought quite a few of them up and there are now even workshops that specialize in restoring carousel horses and creatures.

A few years ago we were fortunate enough to stumble across a traveling collection of these carousel animals in a setting full of lights and mirrors, a lot like the original setting the animals were created for. We took a series of photographs of the animals in that collection. The designs here at theRetrovert are our favorites. We hope you like them, too.

Use the bar at the top of the page to browse the carousel animal art.