Geography brought Atlantic City into existence. This view of Atlantic City from 1885 features the Absecon Island Lighthouse, the third tallest lighthouse in the United States.
As the cultural tastes and social attitudes of the shop owners, professionals, and small-business people who visited the area changed, the city changed in response with lasting effects to its vitality and viability. From its founding in the 1850s through the early decades of the twenty-first century, Atlantic City succeeded and failed based on its ability to make itself in the image of the American middle class. Groff for T he Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia)īefore Disneyland, Atlantic City was the first great middle-class resort in the nation, especially the Philadelphia region.
