Other makers produced “cookie-cutter” horses, each one nearly identical to the next. Such figures filled a niche for carnivals, which required a machine that could be easily broken down and transported. By 1880, East Coast companies such as Charles W. F. Dare, Norman & Evans, and Armitage Herschell had a steady market for these simpler machines. Their carving shops produced hundreds of similar horses from designed models. Some were made by skilled craftsmen, but this was a form of production-line craft.

In 1864, Gustav Dentzel (1846–1909) immigrated to the United States, bringing pieces of a small carousel he had made with his father in their hometown of Kreuznach, Germany. Dentzel settled in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, where he opened a cabinetmaking shop and also began fabricating portable carousels for local fairs and parks. In 1870, Charles I. D. Looff (1852–1918), an ambitious metalsmith, also arrived from Germany, settling in Brooklyn, New York. He found work in a furniture factory, and in his spare time pieced together animals from scraps of wood he brought home. In 1876, Looff built one of the first carousels at Coney Island, and during the next forty years he built carousels and other amusement park rides for venues from Bristol, Rhode Island, to Long Beach, California (Fig. 6).

As the field of manufacturers expanded, so did the desire to attract buyers to a higher grade of carousel. By the early 1900s, there were at least eight full-time manufacturers of carousels in the United States, all competing for an expanding market. Trolley companies, both private and municipal, looking for ways to encourage weekend streetcar riding, built small parks for recreation at the ends of lines, often with bandstands, pavilions for picnics, and electric-powered carousels with band organs.9
With the proliferation of such parks, permanent carousels with more ornate and finely carved figures took the place of simpler, portable machines.10

In 1880, a friend of Dentzel, Johann Müller, immigrated from Hamburg, Germany, to Gravesend, Brooklyn, with his wife and children.11 The family soon moved to Philadelphia, at the invitation of Dentzel, where Müller worked at his friend’s shop. The Müller children, Daniel and his younger brother, Alfred, also worked at the factory as woodworking apprentices. In 1887, a flu epidemic claimed Müller’s wife, Wilhelmina, and then in December of 1889, Müller died, leaving the two teenage boys orphaned. Dentzel assumed responsibility for their education and training, bringing them under his care and tutelage as apprentices to the master craftsmen in his workshop.

Around the time of his father’s death, Daniel Müller began focusing on his artwork and, according to family oral history, he and his brother enrolled in a local art school. He made frequent Sunday trips to the Philadelphia Zoo to sketch the exotic animals, and his artistic interests began to expand beyond carousel carving (Fig. 10a, 10b). At the age of twenty-four, Müller enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), one of the most prestigious art schools in the country, where he took classes intermittently for the next twelve years and was awarded the Edmund Stewardson prize for sculpture.12 While he continued carving in Dentzel’s shop, Müller also won a competition to design a fountain for the academy. The mermaid-themed fountain was sculpted in 1898, and in 1905 it was cast in bronze and installed in the lobby, where it can still be seen today (Figs. 11a, 11b).

The Müller brothers received one of their first orders in 1903 when they were contracted by Gordon W. Lillie (1860–1942), known as “Pawnee Bill.” Lillie operated a wild west show and was in the process of upgrading the wagons he used in his circus parades. Most of the newly designed and carved wagons were being produced by the Sebastian Wagon Company and Samuel Robb (1851–1928) in New York City. At the time, Robb was the leading carver of tobacconist, trade, and circus wagon figures in the country. Lillie hired D. C. Müller & Bro. and Dentzel to supplement the carousel work he had hired Robb to complete.

 Although Lillie’s order with Müller involved carved wagons rather than carousels, the scope of the contract evinces the reach of his professional reputation.18 Regarding many of the carvings in Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show, circus historian Fred Dahlinger noted, “If one mentally erased the wheels and under-gears, the bandwagon side looked more like pieces of fine sculptural work suited more for an art gallery than application to a showman’s wagon.”19

At the height of carousel production, in the early 1900s, almost all of the most creative artisans were immigrants, who were highly influenced by the culture of their new American home.20 While historical themes and fantastic creatures were incorporated into many carousel designs, Civil War motifs held a special fascination for Müller. A number of his carousels included horses outfitted with McClellan saddles.21 A Civil War sword, a canteen, a bed roll, and other details found on a Union officer’s mount were also studied and included by Müller (Fig. 16). One of his military style horses was carved as an homage to the Tenth Cavalry, a post–Civil War African American army regiment (Fig. 17).22

As was the case in Müller’s time, more than a century ago, carousel figures are typically first viewed from a distance. Riders observe the figures and choose the animal that most appeals to their taste. Tickets are purchased, and the riders climb onto the creatures they have selected. The ride lasts about three to four minutes, at which point the riders dismount and proceed to other attractions. The inclusion of intricate detail in the stitching of a saddle, or the particular waves within the carved fabric surely had no bearing on whether someone decided to purchase a ticket. The nuance of muscle tones or the veining on the legs or face of a wooden horse would not increase sales, yet such details were included. Some details of carving were so subtle that they became hidden by the base coat and color overlay, rendered invisible before the figure was ever placed on the machine. One cannot help but wonder what drove a few of these artists to produce carved figures with such exacting detail when it seemed utterly superfluous to the task of completing a utilitarian structure. In the case of Müller, whether he was sculpting in clay at PAFA or carving a wooden carousel figure, he strove to create a work of art and express himself. The beauty and grace of each figure he designed or carved is apparent in each finished piece.

The last of the grand wooden carousels was created by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1932. By that time, the country was experiencing the Great Depression, and amusement parks were no longer purchasing elaborate new carousels. The introduction of cast aluminum legs by the Allan Herschell Company, first used on wooden horses made for traveling carnivals, signaled the end of the Golden Age. Metal horses were much more durable and easier to transport than their wooden counterparts. The transition from all wood to metal in the late 1930s also marked the end of Müller’s involvement in the industry.

From this point on, Müller resorted to odd jobs and repairing figures on operating machines, while continuing to maintain a partial ownership in a carousel he designed at Palisades Park in New Jersey.23 In his later years, he spent much of his time fishing with his friend Harry Dentzel, Gustav’s nephew, in waters near their homes in New Jersey (Fig. 24).

During the 1970s, about two hundred early wooden carousels remained in operation across the country. Frederick Fried’s 1964 book, A Pictorial History of the Carousel, caught the attention of a growing coterie of early American folk art dealers, collectors, and curators in New York, while a 1972 article on the subject by Barbara Fahs Charles in Smithsonian Magazine reached a broad popular audience.24 Many were beginning to take note of surviving carousels and the finely carved figures that populated them. In 1973, a year after the Smithsonian article, a group of enthusiasts gathered in Sandwich, Massachusetts, to form the National Carousel Roundtable, later renamed the National Carousel Association. It was the beginning of the rediscovery of the work of the master craftsmen.

As awareness of the intrinsic and monetary value of carousel figures increased, philosophical differences developed between those who felt that individual carousel figures would be better preserved in collections and those who wanted to preserve operating machines and maintain their availability to the general public. During the 1970s and 1980s, dozens of rides were broken up and sold at auction, others were purchased as full operating carousels and moved to new locations, such as the Philadelphia Toboggan Company machine that was relocated from Idora Park in Youngstown, Ohio, to the Brooklyn Bridge Park by philanthropic preservationists David and Jane Walentas. However, most of the carousels that went to auction are now exhibited as individual figures in private and museum collections (Fig. 25).

Many of the remaining 120 or so carousels still operating are now championed by local communities, and efforts to keep them intact have greatly reduced the dismantling of these antique machines. At least one of Müller’s carousels has survived and can be seen in Forest Park, Queens, New York (Fig. 26).

Daniel Müller died in 1952, decades before his carousel figures would be displayed in the foremost art museums in his adopted country. Müller exhibited a sculptor’s passion for the visual and tactile, imbuing exacting details within monumental figures. Despite struggling as a businessman, his career represented the intersection of art and enterprise. He worked diligently at balancing these two distinct ambitions at D. C. Müller & Bro., but in the end, he was not able to bridge the gap between creating sculptures and managing a successful business.

Over the past twenty years, new carvers have been creating carousel figures, and dozens of new machines can be found throughout the country. A small number of these carvers have reached a level commensurate with the best of the early makers. These prolific and extremely talented craftspeople have brought back the magic of the hand carved carousel.