1872-1905
1872-1905 marks what many call the “Golden Age” of the American
circus. It also is a period of consolidation of smaller circus companies into
large, powerful companies that came to control the entire industry.
In 1872 Barnum, Coup and Castello utilized the railroad to transport the P.T.
Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie and Circus. A number of innovations
can be attributed to the 1872 Barnum show. Coup “was instrumental
in getting the show to travel by rail, devising loading and unloading methods
and arranging special excursions from the outlying towns to the show site. [He]
introduced a second ring, developed ingenious advertising and promotional stunts
such as the Devil’s Whistle, mass litho posting and small town excursions
by bands, clowns, etc., to create interest in the show which was in the area.” Slout,
William, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle A Biographical Dictionary
of the Nineteenth Century American Circus. p.151.
1873 was a banner year for the development of the circus with an increase
in attendance, touring, and tent size with the addition of the second
ring to increase performance space. The second "innovation" of
the circus in 1873 was addition of the flying squadron. The
flying squadron consisted of a group of men that would arrive in town a day
ahead of the circus to drive the tent stakes. This meant that the circus
would save considerable time in putting up tents and preparing for performances. The
circus was now able to follow the great expansion of American wherever railroad
tracks were laid. No longer was the circus relegated to follow only the
dirt roads of an expanding country. The circus had become by far the
most popular form of entertainment in America, and Barnum , Coup’s and
Castello’s enterprise was America’s leading circus, “The
Greatest Show on Earth.”
During the 1870s circuses grew larger and larger. They were now able
to transport massive amounts of equipment, hundred of animals and people, and
larger tents with more seats. In 1881 the larger tents permitted Barnum
and Bailey to expand the number of performing areas from one ring to three
rings to accommodate the ever-increasing number of acts and animals. By the
end of the century, a circus was not considered worthwhile unless it had three
rings under the big top—more rings meant a better show.
The merging of James A. Bailey and P.T. Barnum was a typical Barnum adventure. Bailey
was affiliated with the Great London show of Cooper, Bailey and Hutchinson. On
March 10, 1880, Cooper and Bailey were delighted when their large Indian elephant
Hebe gave birth, in Philadelphia, to “Little Columbia.” This was
the first elephant ever born in America. Envious of the publicity and
eager to own the baby himself, Barnum reputedly offered $100,000 for her, but
Cooper and Bailey wired back “Will not sell at any price” and promptly
incorporated Barnum’s offer into their own publicity. Barnum’s
reaction was, “I had at last met showmen ‘worthy of my steel’!” The
merger of the Barnum’s “Greatest Show on Earth” with Bailey’s
Great London show during the 1881 season gave Barnum access to some of the
great publicity that Bailey had amassed with his show. The show’s
title for the 1881 season was “P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth,
Sanger’s Royal British Menagerie, The Great London Circus & Grand
international Allied Shows.” The show in 1866 grew to enormous size when
for a single week in Philadelphia when performing jointly with the Adam Forepaugh
Circus, they used four rings, two platforms and the hippodrome track. (Saxon,
A.H. P.T. Barnum The Legend and the Man, 1989, Columbia University
Press. P. 287)
Barnum now wanted an attraction that would maintain a bigger and better image. Barnum
was informed that he could acquire from the London zoo, the largest African
pachyderm in captivity. On Easter Sunday in 1882, thousands gather
at dock site for the arrival of Barnum’s latest sensation, “Jumbo.” The New
York Times declared that there was more excitement in the city “than
there would be in London if Queen Victoria’s imperial knee was swelled
to twice its royal size.”
After three years of traveling with “The Greatest Show on Earth,” Barnum
lost his super star on Tuesday, September 15, 1885 in St. Thomas, Ontario. Jumbo,
while walking back to the circus train on the main line of the Grand Trunk
railway, was hit and killed by a freight train. The ever-practical Barnum,
having previously arranged for Professor Henry A. Ward, head of Ward’s
natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York, to mount Jumbo’s
hide and his skeleton, promptly exhibited the remains of his star.
Barnum suffered a stroke in 1890 and passed away in April 1891 at the age
of 80. After Barnum’s death, James A. Bailey took control of the
Barnum & Bailey Circus. He had acquired part interest in of his principal
rivals, the Adam Forepaugh Circus, in 1890. Adam Forepaugh had first
entered the circus business after receiving a share in the Tom King Excelsior
Circus as payment on a debt, and began to tour a show bearing his own name
in 1866. As a businessman he recognized the need for innovation in a competitive
industry. He was the first to hold his performances under two separate “roundtops,” one
for the menagerie and one for the circus performance. He was also the first
to incorporate the Wild West Show into the circus. In less than twenty years
Forepaugh went from dealing livestock to being the fiercest competitor to P.T.
Barnum. While he achieved fame and fortune, he was notoriously corrupt and
greedy and was known for grifting and short-changing spectators. Forepaugh
did much to advance the circus but his irreverence for his customers’ money
and belongings helped accusations of the circus fold as immoral. Before leaving
for Europe with the Barnum & Bailey circus, Bailey combined the Forepaugh
show with the Sells Brothers Circus under the name of Adam Forepaugh & Sells
Brothers Great Consolidated Shows.
Another circus that would forever change the landscape formed in 1884 in Baraboo,
Wisconsin. The five brothers of the Ringling family ¾ Albert Charles,
Charles August (Gus), William Henry Otto, Alfred Theodore (Alf T.), Charles
Edward (Charley), Henry William George (Henry) ¾ started as a small
wagon circus. The eldest brother, Al Ringling, had begun performing in 1879
as a juggler and acrobat, when he was not working as a carriage trimmer. The
brothers banded together in 1882, blending their talents in music, theatre,
and acrobatics. By 1890, their show had grown so large and prosperous
that they were able to convert to railroad transportation.
Unlike Forepaugh, their drive for success never seemed to edge into greed.
The Ringling Brothers knew the importance of fairness and were equal partners.
Recognizing the corruption of competing circuses, the brothers created a safe
and morally sound environment. At Ringling shows there was no profanity, no
crooked gaming devices and no short-changing. Their business approach and their
commitment to fairness made Ringling a lasting household name for over one
hundred years. When Bailey returned from Europe with the Barnum & Bailey
circus in 1902, the Ringling Bros. Circus was a powerful rival.
1884 saw the beginning of yet another circus, with the very impressive title “Wallace
and Company’s Great World Menagerie, Grand international Mardi Gras,
Highway Holiday Hidalgo, and Alliance of Novelties” (it was renamed the
Great Wallace Shows after the first season). It went on the road in April 1884. Ben
Wallace, a former livery stable owner from Peru, Indiana, formed this circus
with his partner James P. Anderson. Al G. Field, a talented African-American
Virginian who was one of the country’s top minstrels when he wasn’t
traveling with the circus, was Wallace’s head clown and equestrian director
from 1884-1886. During this period it was very rare for an African-American
to hold two important positions in the circus. For over a hundred years,
the circus industry, which on one level seems so accepting of every variety
of human being, was in reality no exception to the rule of discrimination. Black
circus performers after the mid-19th century were traditionally limited to
minstrelsy, freaks, colored sideshow bands, and tribal warriors. For
the most part, the menial jobs of the circus labor force were usually given
to the black population of the show.
The Wallace circus was successful, but it ran into problems. The show
became so well known for encouraging scam artists and pickpocket artists that
it operated under the name “Cook and Whitby’s European Circus,
Museum and Menagerie” for the 1892-1894 seasons. Even so, the show
often had to circumvent towns for fear of reprisal for crimes committed the
year before. In March of 1898, Diamond, then the largest elephant in
the country died at his winter quarters in Peru, Indiana. And,
with the show traveling on rail, train wrecks were a constant worry. There
were wrecks in 1892, 1903, and 1908. The 1903 accident, in Durand, Michigan,
killed more than twenty people and several animals (including an elephant)
when the train’s air brakes apparently failed. The Wallace show
was not the only circus in America to suffered railroad mishaps. An article
in Bandwagon, September/October, 1975, Fred D. Pfening, Jr. lists
nineteen accidents between 1877 and 1906. In 1907, when Ben Wallace
bought the great German wild animal trainer Karl Hägenbeck’s show,
it became the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. The events listed below begins
with putting a large circus on rails and following the development of Barnum & Bailey
and the Ringling Bros.
1872 |
|
W.C. Coup and partner Dan Castello persuade P.T. Barnum
to come out of retirement and launch the P.T. Barnum's Great Traveling World's
Fair. This partnership signals the beginning of the Golden Age of the circus in
America. |
1872 |
|
P.T. Barnum and W.C. Coup's circus was the first large circus to move
by rail on a daily basis. |
1873 |
|
Coup and Barnum’s Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Hippodrome and World’s
Fair has two rings with the hippodrome track running round them. |
1873 |
|
Ulysses Grant sworn in as President for 2nd term |
1874 |
|
Ida Lorina Wilhemina Ringling born |
|
Ida Ringling was the only sister of the seven Ringling Brothers. She was born February 2,
1874 in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Ida married Henry Whitestone "Henry" North August 11,
1902. Ida died December 21, 1950 in Sarasota, Florida and is buried at the Ringling Museum
Grounds, Sarasota, Florida.
|
1876 |
|
Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
|
1876 |
|
James A. Baileytakes the Cooper &Bailey Circus to
California, Australia and South America. |
1876 |
|
Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone |
1876 |
|
The United States is 100 years old |
1876 |
|
Sioux defeat General Custer at Little Big Horn |
1877 |
|
1877-1881 Rutherford B. Hayes serves as 19th President |
1877 |
|
Thomas Edison invents phonograph |
1878 |
|
Once-vast herds of buffalo on Great Plains now significantly diminished due to westward
expansion |
1879 |
|
Edison invents electric light |
1879 |
|
The Great London Circus, Sanger’s Royal British Menagerie, with James
E. Cooper and James A. Bailey and W.W. Cole's Circus
were the first circuses in the country to illuminate their big tops with electricity. They used
steam powered electric generators and open-arc lighting.
this appears to be lifted right from Davis, it needs to be reworked |
|
Circuses were at the forefront in both employing and demonstrating the latest technology.
These particular circuses acted swiftly in putting Edison’s invention to use for their own
purposes.
|
1879 |
|
Flying trapeze artist Eddie Silbon performs the first double back somersault
at the Paris hippodrome. |
1879 |
|
Al Ringling worked part time as a juggler and acrobat |
|
Al Ringling was the first of the seven Ringling brothers to work as a performer.
|
1880's |
|
Industrial Age gives rise to new era of Western imperialism |
1880's |
|
The American West is settled |
1880 |
|
First live baby Asian elephant born in America named Columbia.
|
1880 |
|
Barnum merges his show with James.A. Bailey's
Great London Circus.
|
1880 |
|
Rosa M. Richter Mademoiselle Zazel,"The Human Projectile"is fired from a cannon
traveling 40 feet and caught by another performer hanging from a trapeze. |
1881 |
|
James A. Garfield sworn in as 20th President of the United
States. President Garfield is shot on July 2 and dies on September 19 |
1881 |
|
1881-1885 Chester A. Arthur serves as the 21st President of the
United States |
1881 |
|
Adam Forepaugh searches for Lalla Rookh"the most beautiful woman in
America,"inventing the beauty contest with a $10,000 prize. |
1881 |
|
Wyatt Earp and brothers win gunfight at the OK Corral |
1881 |
|
Clara Barton forms the American Red Cross |
1882 |
|
P.T. Barnum's production, the Barnum and London Show, presents
three-ring format in New York City. |
|
As circuses grew larger and larger throughout the 19th century, the audience size needed to
be accommodated. Using three performing rings, later two stages as well, allowed an entire
audience of up to 10,000 to view some part of the show at all times.
|
1882 |
|
P.T. Barnum's Jumbo arrives in New York City |
|
On April 9, 1882, Easter Sunday Jumbo arrived in New York city. P.T. Barnum had
invested about $30,000 to purchase and transport Jumbo from London to New York. Less than a
week after Jumbo's arrivial, P.T. Barnum> had recouped his initial
investment. Barnum toured Jumbo until September 15, 1885 when Jumbo was being led to the train
and was killed by a freight train. After having Jumbo's hide and skeleton mounted, Barnum
displayed them along with Jumbo's "companion," Alice. In 1972 Jumbo's hide was consumed in a
fire at Tuffs University. The skeleton is housed at New York's American Museum of Natural
history.
|
1882 |
|
The Ringling Brothers began performing a blend of blackface minstrelsy, comic skits,
dance, songs, and juggling routines in hall shows around Wisconsin as the Ringling Brothers'
Classic and Comic Concert Company |
1883 |
|
J.A. Bailey inspired by displays at the World's Fair, presented Ethnological
Congresses displaying cultures and foreign people to Americans. |
1883 |
|
Standard Time is adopted by the General Time Convention |
1884 |
|
Colonel William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, creates the first American Wild West Show. |
|
The Wild West Show became a circus staple in the late 18thand early
20th centuries.
|
1884 |
|
The five Ringling Brothers started their first circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin --
Yankee Robinson and Ringling Brothers Great Double Shows
|
|
Yankee Robinson dies before the end of the season. This is the last time the Ringling name
will take second billing.
|
1885 |
|
1885-1889 Grover Cleveland serves as 22nd President |
1885 |
|
First modern bicycle manufactured in England |
1885 |
|
Jumbo is killed by a freight train September 15 |
|
The story of the tragic death of Jumbo is as heartbreaking today as ever. Only three years
into her career. The gruesome images of this scene were widely distributed at the time and
helped contribute to Barnum's hype and self-promotion .
|
1886 |
|
Statue of Liberty unveiled |
1886 |
|
Walter L. Main and father bought 20 horses for $200 for their new circus. The city
of Cleveland was replacing its horse-drawn streetcars with electric trolleys. |
1886 |
|
W.W. Cole is the first to add a Wild West performance. |
1887 |
|
Thomas Edison invents the phonograph (record player) |
1888 |
|
P.T. Barnum and James A. Bailey combine their circus shows to form Barnum
& Bailey Circus
|
1888 |
|
George Eastman introduces Kodak box cameras |
1889 |
|
1889-1893 Benjamin Harrison serves as 23rd President of the
United States |
1889 |
|
North Dakota 39th state admitted to the Union |
1889 |
|
South Dakota 40th state admitted to the Union |
1889 |
|
Montana 41st state admitted to the Union |
1889 |
|
Washington 42nd state admitted to the Union |
1889 |
|
Idaho 43rd state admitted to the Union |
1890 |
|
Bicycle craze sweeps country, 100,000 new bicycle owners |
1890 |
|
Wyoming 44th state admitted to the Union |
1890 |
|
Stanford White's designed second Madison Square Garden opens. |
1890 |
|
Ringling Brothers Circus travels by rail |
|
Many circuses had used the railroad for part of their traveling season by this time. From
this time until the 1940's, the railroad would play an integral part of circus transportation
and circus life.
|
1890 |
|
1890-1924—23 million immigrants came to United States. |
1890 |
|
US is in the “Victorian Era,” end of the American Frontier |
1891 |
|
P.T. Barnum dies April 7; James A. Bailey continues running Barnum & Bailey
Circus |
|
Barnum dies peacefully in his Bridgeport, Connecticut home after several months of
confinement there. His children and grandchildren had all gathered around to say goodbye.
Barnum's wife, Nancy, was by his side.
|
1891 |
|
Ringling Bros. Circus expands to a three-ring circus. |
1892 |
|
Adam Forepaugh Circus covered an 8 story building with 4,938
lithographs |
1893 |
|
1893-1897 Grover Cleveland serves as 24th President, his second
term as President |
1893 |
|
At an Adam Forepaugh performance in Sioux Falls, SD., the audience is
trapped underneath the canvas of big top after strong winds collapse the tent |
1893 |
|
In River Falls, Wisconsin 7 people are killed after lighting strikes one of the center
poles of Ringling Bros. Circus big top |
1895 |
|
1895 Height of Victorian fashion; women’s clothing restrictive |
1895 |
|
Gillette Co. invents safety razor |
1895 |
|
Some 300 Barnum & Bailey laborers occupied three sleeping cars that were each
designed to hold fifty to sixty people each |
1895 |
|
One of the first female clowns, "Evetta"appears on the Barnum
&Bailey Circus.
|
1895 |
|
First auto race in America—Chicago to Milwaukee |
1896 |
|
Barnum & Bailey exhibits a Duryea automobile |
1896 |
|
Utah 45th state admitted to the Union |
1896 |
|
Ringling Brothers spend $128.000 for Posters as part of advertising campaign |
1896 |
|
James A. Bailey combines the Sells and Forepaugh circuses |
1897 |
|
A Latvian teenager named Lena Jordan is credited with performing the first
successful triple somersault on the flying trapeze |
1897 |
|
Ringling Bros. features “black top” tent under which Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope films
are shown |
1897 |
|
Barnum & Bailey Circus begins European tour 1897-1902 |
|
In November, James A. Bailey took the Barnum & Bailey Circus to Europe.
They performed there for five seasons in England, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary,
Netherlands and Belgium. Army officers studied the movement of the Barnum & Bailey
circus moving their tremendous amount of material.
|
1897 |
|
1897-1901 William McKinley serves as 25th President |
1897 |
|
First U.S. subway opens in Boston |
1898 |
|
2,500 women graduate from college, only jobs available for them are low-paying teaching
positions |
1898 |
|
Spanish-American War |
1898 |
|
Ringling Brothers bring their huge circus entourage to New Orleans and virtually shut
down the city |
1900 |
|
Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams
|
1900 |
|
German army investigated cook house system |
1900 |
|
Americans leave rural areas and move to cities; emigration from Europe continues; 2.5
million residents of New York City, 2 million are foreign-born; telephones now in homes of 1.3
million Americans; U.S. population is 76 million. |
1900 |
|
Cotton candy invented by Thomas Patton |
1900 |
|
Nationwide unemployment at 12% |
1900 |
|
5 transcontinental railroads criss-crossed country |
1901 |
|
The first Nobel prizes are awarded |
1901 |
|
Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up From Slavery is
published |
1901 |
|
President William McKinley is assassinated by a mentally ill anarchist named Leon
Czolgosz on September 14, 1901 |
1901 |
|
1901-1909 Theodore Roosevelt serves as 26th President |
1901 |
|
Scott Joplin’s ragtime jazz extremely popular |
1901 |
|
Board of Education in Bridgeport, Connecticut vote to close the schools on circus
day |
1901 |
|
The National Biscuit Company introduced Barnum’s Animals, crackers encased in a vivid
"take along" package covered with pictures of animals. |
1902 |
|
Barnum & Bailey Circus returns from Europe after six seasons to find The Ringling
Brothers well established. |
1902 |
|
Ninety eight Circuses and Menageries—the highest number in U.S. history. Thirty eight
traveled by Railroad—seven traveled coast to coast. |
1902 |
|
Ringling Brothers Circus traveled on sixty-five railroad cars. |
1902 |
|
Gollmar Brothers—cousins to the Ringling Bros. went out on the rails.
|
1902 |
|
Shift in the country from provincial, rural society to urban society. |
|
"The Historian Robert Wiebe characterizes this era as a time when a provincial nation of
loosely connected islands'was giving way to an anonymous, modern, urban, industrial society....
The proliferation of national railroad networks, the spread of the telegraph and telephone, the
rise of the unscrupulous Gilded Age 'robber baron,' and the stirrings of the nascent automobile
industry all helped destabilize an older, provincial way of life." Davis, Janet: The Circus Age
Culture & society Under The American Big Top. University of North Carolina Press Chapel
Hill & London. 2002. P.7.
|
1902 |
|
The Teddy Bear was introduced, named after President Theodore Roosevelt |
1903 |
|
The Wright brothers make the first successful airplane flights in Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina |
1903 |
|
Barnum & Bailey features Volo the Volitant, who jumps a 56-foot gap
on a bicycle; he later shares spotlight with Ugo Ancillotti, who performs bicycle
loop-the-loop. |
1903 |
|
The first silent movie, Great Train Robbery, is a great
success |
1903 |
|
The Women’s Union League forms to urge women to join unions, since male dominated unions
seldom recruit women members |
1904 |
|
Construction on the Panama Canal begins |
1904 |
|
Ringling Brothers pioneered the use of power-driven stake drivers using a device designed
by George H. Heiser |
|
Driving the stakes which hold down cables which support circus tent structures was one of the
major uses of manual labor for a circus. By using this new technology, a circus could erect
tents more quickly, with less labor and lower costs.
|
1905 |
|
January 10, Bailey transferred a half interest in the Forepaugh-Sells show and its
management to the Ringlings. |
1905 |
|
Barnum & Bailey circus makes first transcontinental tour to the West
Coast. |