The American circus has a unique and often overlooked importance in American history. The first American circuses began shortly after the country was founded, and as the country’s population grew, moved West, went through the Industrial Revolution, and opened its gates to the world, the circus followed. Indeed, in many cases the circus provided people’s first view of new inventions, exotic animals and peoples, and popular entertainments. The history of the circus is in many ways a microcosm of the history of America.
The history of a circus dates back to the ancient Roman period, when the first circus, or Circus Maximus, was founded. Soon after, Circus Flaminius and Circus Neronis also appeared. In Roman society, the circus was very different from how we may picture circuses today. It was used mainly for exhibitions for chariot and horse races, staged battles, displays featuring trained animals, jugglers and acrobats. The circus was important to Roman society as it was the only public event that did not separate men and women. Although the layout and the acts of this infant circus is much different than today, the circus still brought much joy to the public. The story of the first American circus begins with John Bill Ricketts, who set up a circus in America. Although his circus career only lasted seven years, he managed to befriend President George Washington, tour the East Coast, Canada, and the West Indies with his company, and present America a new type of entertainment that blended equestrian feats with acrobatic and theatrical performances. A master rider himself, he set the tone for the circus’s succeeding his own. His equestrian acts were the highlight of his circus, and throughout the early 1800’s most of the circuses followed his lead. Ricketts offered a pleasant and exciting spectacle that the American audience has grown to love. In the mid to late nineteenth century, P.T. Barnum changed the American circus into what it is today. Instead of focusing mainly on equestrian acts, he expanded his sights to much further. He started out a museum owner; so he never owned a circus of his own. However, he worked with many co-owners to market and produce some of the most popular circuses within that time period. One of his best included Bailey and Barnum, which would be his leading success. In 1868, his museum burnt down, causing him to retire. However, in 1871, he opened the P.T. Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie and Circus. Through his ‘museum’ which mainly was a collection of human and animal oddities, he created the Sideshow, still popular in American society. Next year, he merged with Bailey’s Great London Show which would eventually merge with Ringling Bros. to form the most enduring circus corporation of the twentieth century. However, Barnum would not live to see this merger, due to his untimely death in 1891.
In the circus, the acts that the family can perform pretty much guaranteed their success level. The better the acts, the more diverse, the more people will show up to watch. The acts of a circus are categorized into ten different catagories. These include acrobatic, aerial, animal, clowning, equestrian, equilibristic (balance), (historical) spectacles, juggling, strength, and thrill. Acrobatic acts mainly include vaulting, equilibristic, and juggling. All three of these acts can be combined in a variety of ways, and can be done on the ground or in the air. The acrobatic acts are closely linked to the equilibristic acts, as both can be performed closely together or ever overlapping. Equilibristic acts include rope dancing and the famous wire or rope walking. The wires or ropes are typically ⅝th of an inch thick, and held about thirty feet above the ground. There are three different types of wires/ropes, slack, tight, and bound. The term ‘bound’ refers to a wire’s or rope’s ability to spring, but still remain taut.
Aerial acts consist of the trapeze acts. Up until the mid nineteenth century, trapeze acts consisted of acrobats leaping from one ground-based bar to another. However, Jules Leotard, a young French acrobat, changed this typicality. He practiced hanging two trapeze bars from ropes over a swimming pool and leaping from one to the next. On November 12th, 1859, in Paris’s Cirque Napoleon (Now Cirque d’Hiver), Leotard, dressed in a skintight costume, performed the first flying trapeze act. The costume, now becoming widely popular due to its lightweight form that was both easy to dry and created little drag, held his name. The flying trapeze act quickly became popular in America, and a song, “The daring young man on the flying trapeze” was made in his honor.
Next, the animal acts. These quickly became the most popular acts of the circus. Cats, ponies, dogs, and elephants all filled the mind of the audience as a whirlwind of sights and smells put them under a spell. The best of the acts were the elephants, which remains the only act in the circus without a complaint.
The two most popular elephants were Black Diamond and Jumbo. These two became the circus mascots of their time.
Black Diamond, although popular, fell to a tragic end. On October 12th, 1929, Black Diamond maimed and killed a woman, wrecked an auto, and injured two trainers in Corsicana, Texas. Black Diamond was one of the largest elephants displayed in the county at the time. He was extremely devoted to his handler H. D. (Curley) Pritchett. However, Eva Speed Donohoo hired Mr. Pritchett, forcing him to leave behind the show and the elephant to oversee her plantation and its animals. Unfortunately, the elephant never forgot seeing his trainer leaving with Eva. More than a year later, Pritchett returned to Corsicana and helped unload the animals and was reunited with his precious elephant. It was during the circus parade in Corsicana that Black Diamond spotted Eva in the crowd and charged her, killing her seeking revenge for his trainer leaving him. John Ringling, who had recently purchased the show, wired it to kill the elephant humanely. Black Diamond was shot on October 16th, 1929 in Kennedy, Texas.
Jumbo was the highest publicized elephant in history; even his name has been added to dictionaries to describe a massive quantity or enormous size.
P.T. Barnum bought Jumbo from the London Zoological Gardens for the pricey sum of $10,000 on February 3, 1882. The Zimbabwean-born circus elephant had been a resident of Paris and London zoos since he was captured as a baby. He was over eleven feet high and weighed about one ton less—6½ tons. So as far as anyone knows, Jumbo was the largest elephant ever measured in captivity. After the sale was made public, 100,000 school children and even Queen Victoria herself urged that Jumbo be kept on British soil. However, Barnum had knew what he had gotten and boasted that he would even turn down an offer of 100,000 pounds to void the sale. The price of 10,000 dollars today equals to about $223,039.77 dollars today. The price of 100,000 pounds today equals to $1,380,614.15!
By the time Jumbo arrived in New York, he had become the single biggest success in Barnum’s career. The world went “Jumbo-crazy”, and the gentle Jumbo seemed to love all the attention. For three and a half years, he was the much-loved feature attraction on the circus. According to Barnum he sold millions of souvenirs and photos on which he was portrayed, and gave “at least a million children” rides on his back. He was killed by a passing freight train on September 15, 1885, in St. Thomas, Ontario. Jumbo’s stuffed hide eventually went on display at Tufts University, where Barnum was a trustee, and remained until it was destroyed by a fire in 1975. Jumbo’s bones were mounted and given to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, New York.
Elephants ruled the circus. A simply stated fact, however true. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Africans were the most popular, due to their larger size mostly, than Asians. The distinctions between them may be subtle at a distance, but it is simple to differentiate the two types.
In general, African elephants are larger, weighing from four thousand to seven thousand kilograms and three to four meters at the shoulder. Asian elephants weigh between three thousand and six thousand kilograms and are just two to three and a half meters at the shoulder. Furthermore, African elephants have more wrinkled skin, and the ears and tusks are much larger, appearing in both sexes, as opposed to the Asian’s smoother skin, smaller ears, and smaller tusks. Female Asian elephants have only rudimentary tusks or none at all. However, the easiest way to differentiate between the two is by its trunk. In an African elephant, the trunk will be softer and possess more rings than an Asian elephant, and have two “fingers” at the trunk end as opposed to one. Caring for one of these gentle giants was no easy feats for the travelling circus. In addition to food and water, transporting the elephants required specific sized carts. The means of food usually meant letting the elephant browse the lot where the circus would be performing. However, if the circus would be travelling for more than a day or two, bushels of feed were transported in separate containers. Carson and Barnes famous circus was said to have 18 Asian elephants, and per season, they pooped out 1,216,282.5 pounds! Finally, the equestrian acts. Equestrian acts are also called ‘Voltige’ acts. Voltage is a French term referring to gymnastics on a horse. These Voltige acts may include vaulting off a horse’s back and running along with it, and then returning to a rear-facing position. This position is mainly used for easy retrieval of items on the ground. The three most popular Voltige acts include “Voltige á la Richard”, “Voltige á la Cowboy”, and “Tcherkesse” also popularly, although mistakenly called “Cossack”. “Voltige á la Richard” is an act where the horse is unbridled and unsaddled; “Voltige á la Cowboy” uses a lariat, or a lasso; and “Tcherkesse/Cossack” occurs when the performer lies across the horses’ back with ankle in a loop, mainly attached to the surcingle (The band around a horse’s midsection). This nearly upside down position also helps the rider further enable him or herself to perform ground based acts or to retrieve items, such as a handkerchief or a hat, while the horse is still in motion. Transportation. In the early nineteenth and twentieth century, this word dramatically changed with the coming of cheaper, more efficient modes of transportation. The story of railroads also tells the story of a growing America, and ultimately, a growing American circus. Beginning in the 1820’s, the railroad captured the imagination of many Americans, much like how the space race did in the 1960’s. The demand for quicker, cheaper, more efficient transportation paralleled the rise of the industrial revolution, as Americans reasoned that the speed and efficiency of things would lead to increased profits. After the tent, the second largest innovation was the use of the railroad around the 1830’s to transport the American circus. Before trains, circuses would move via wagons or steamboats. The early shows had a maximum touring of seven or eight cities a season. With the railroad, these numbers quickly increased to fifty or sixty stops. Communication between the public and the American circus has always been a touch-and-go affair. People either loved or dreaded the circus. Therefore, good communication became the key of much of the success of the American circus. As advertising methods of the American circus changed, the shows grew larger, covered more territory and more competition was present. Announcements in the local paper of the circus turned into billboards and giant posters covering any vacant area.
Life in the circus is different than most of us imagined as little children, wishing to join it. The relatively short two-hundred year span of the American circus has given birth to thousands of people who have been associated with it: owners, performers, roustabouts (workers), publicity crews, teamsters, and others have all been required to manage a successful circus.