From 1895 to 1903, Edward Joy Morris was a Philadelphia manufacturer of amusement park rides including several carousels. His company, the Morris Chute Company, maintained offices on Walnut Street and factories at Callowhill and Ludlow streets in Philadelphia. His father, E.J. Morris Sr., had served as U.S. Minister to Turkey under Abraham Lincoln; that family wealth allowed Morris to enter the nascent amusement trade and purchase and assemble carousels faster than his competition. He patented a roller-coaster related invention in the late 1890s and built figure-8 toboggans, water chutes, and carousels — a broader amusement operation than most carousel-only manufacturers of the period. A new Morris carousel cost approximately $8,000 in 1900; he produced around two dozen during his eight years of active manufacturing. Vintagecarousels + 3

Morris carousel horses were known for their decorative saddle trappings, layered blankets, and chest straps, and figures carved behind the saddles included representations of carvers, pets, and friends. His production window closed in 1903, apparently due to declining health, when the Philadelphia Toboggan Company acquired his inventory — as many as 200 completed figures, which PTC used on its own carousels manufactured between 1903 and 1907. Because of this, many Morris carousels were originally misidentified as Philadelphia Toboggan Company machines, an error not corrected until 1989. Morris figures are now recognized as a distinct Philadelphia-school production, though the short manufacturing window and subsequent misattribution make confirmed examples relatively uncommon on the market. CarouselhistoryVintagecarousels