When Tivoli opened in 1843, Copenhageners were suddenly immersed in a magical world of entertainment. Indeed, a look back at Tivoli‘s history reveals entertainment that is hard to imagine today: from highly flammable hot-air balloon rides to children exhibited in cages. The mid-18th century was a time of innovation and adventure, when hot air ballooning captured the public’s imagination: ‘Balloon Captain’ Lauritz Johansen used the Tivoli Gardens for his thrilling ascents, accompanied by music from the Tivoli orchestra. In 1891, Tivoli created a breathtaking ride for paying guests: the height of the balloon’s ascent depended on the price of the ticket, so for one crown you could reach three times the height of the Round Tower, and for five crowns you could reach 305 metres in the air, an incredible four times higher than Tivoli’s current highest ride. To add to the excitement of the ride, one of the ropes that tethered the balloon to the ground contained a telephone cable: passengers could use another new invention of the time and make phone calls from high in the sky.
The turn of the century was also the heyday of ethnographic exhibitions, which showcased life in different parts of the world. In 1905, Tivoli hosted the great Colonial Exhibition, with artefacts, houses and people from the colonies: the Danish West Indies, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Each colony had its own pavilion, complete with human representatives who wore clothes from their culture, showed off their local crafts and acted as guides. The West Indian pavilion had a traditional palm hut with coconut trees, animals and three West Indian people: William Smith and two children (Victor Cornelins and Alberta Viola Roberts). The children’s families had agreed to the trip to Copenhagen in exchange for the children’s education. At the time of the exhibition, Victor was seven and Alberta was four: Victor was particularly fascinated by the Greenland pavilion and spent so much time running off to be with the Greenlanders that the two children were put in a cage to keep them in the Danish West Indian pavilion. Understandably, Victor was not happy about his loss of freedom and showed his displeasure by spitting through the cage bars at passers-by. Crown Princess Louise was the patron of the exhibition, which attracted a huge crowd of over 100,000 people, including many government ministers and members of the Royal Family. Despite its popularity, the exhibition was not without its problems. In particular, the Icelanders protested loudly because they felt superior to the other groups and didn’t want their pavilion to show their country as a primitive culture. To assuage these concerns, Denmark agreed to show objects and exhibits from its own agricultural history, but the Icelanders’ protest was a sign of the changing times and Denmark’s numbered days as a colonial power. Just over a decade later, in 1917, the islands in the Danish West Indies were sold to the US, and a year later Iceland became an independent state. What happened to Victor and Alberta after the exhibition? Sadly, Alberta died in her teens, but Victor completed his schooling and teacher training: he ended up as a highly respected vice-principal of a school in Nakskov, where he lived until his death in 1985.
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