Social Effect
It has strong appeal to individuals in their youth because it offers a display of strength. Young boys use the high striker to determine who among them is the strongest. More often than not, high strikers are used to impress other people.
In the 1930s, some High Striker operators preyed on young men and rigged (or fixed) the High Striker unit to prevent anyone, no matter how strong, from striking the bell. They usually picked a small man to demonstrate how easy it was to swing the mallet and impact the arm, ringing the bell. Then, when a stronger person (usually a young man in his late teens and early 20s) attempted, they failed. Players attempted the game repeatedly to avoid humiliation. Eventually, the operator would allow that player to ring the bell so as to not discourage others from attempting. Popular Mechanics in a 1935 article revealed this secret, and, since then, most High Striker operators have ceased fixing their units.
Read more about this topic: High Striker
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or effect:
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
“This is the great truth life has to teach us ... that gratification of our individual desires and expression of our personal preferences without consideration for their effect upon others brings in the end nothing but ruin and devastation.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)