I had no idea roller coasters have been around this long. The photos are laugh-out-loud terrifying. I was shocked that anyone would pay to ride them until I read the quote above. Now it makes sense. I’d pay to watch that too!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Chicago-...
Note how large the cars relative to the tiny people standing in them. This thing was unimaginably massive. It's easy to think of 1893 as being before the modern technological era, but we were more modern than most people like to think.
A video of the coaster in the photo exists (the playback framerate seems somewhat too fast): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flip_Flap_Railway_ea...
Modern tubular steel rails also allow for rickety-looking yet safe single-car coasters: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rat%C3%B3n_Vacil%C3%...
We used to have a much different view on systematic rare danger.
When I was a kid, we used to rid maybe 6 kids in the back of a pickup truck flat bed.
That was normal. It would not only be illegal today, but probably considered very immoral.
Hockey players didn't even wear helmets, not even the goalies (!).
Nobody wore helmets when I grew up skiing, now almost everyone does.
We are considerably safer about everything today.
Likewise, I've never once worn a seatbelt in an NYC taxi.
We have more science, more education. 10% of kids under age 1 would die at the turn of the century (1900), which means, everyone knew a family with a child that had died, and that's traumatic.
Our views of safety and risk have evolved.
My grandfather, he worked in a lumber camp, the stories ... my god.
We also react to it differently now. Even in our language i.e. 'I feel unsafe' or people talk about 'harm' or 'violence' with just language.
where i live, because of paucity of transportation means, it is not uncommon to have the back door of a car straight open and 3 kids sit there, dangling their feet. that is considered very normal in these parts of the world.