1916: The Year that the Modern American Summer Vacation was Born on the Beaches of Coney Island and along the Jersey Shore
During the unbearably hot summer of 1916--while the horrors of the First World War raged across the Atlantic in Europe--Americans, who as yet were still considered neutrals in the Great War to End All Wars, flocked to the beaches along the eastern seaboard in record numbers. Nowhere was this early twentieth century summer holiday craze more apparent than along the Jersey Shore and at the beaches that were in close proximity to New York City--most notably Coney Island. By July of 1916 Brooklyn’s Coney Island had already begun to come into its own known worldwide as America’s most popular summertime playground for both children and adults. Coney Island’s nearest competitor for the title of America’s Beach in 1916 was about one hundred miles south, with a boardwalk all its own and just as famous in its own right, New Jersey’s Atlantic City. During the monumental summer of 1916 in France soldiers from all over Europe were slaughtering one another by the thousands in t...