CIRCUS AND CARNIVAL

CIRCUS AND CARNIVAL. Circuses and carnivals have played important roles in American life and imagination and continue to influence U.S. entertainment and popular culture. Although the two have separate histories, they share common elements, draw upon overlapping industry sectors and audiences, and have influenced one another for over a century.

Circuses and carnivals have European and English antecedents in medieval fairs, menageries, and performances and have been traced back to the Roman Circus Maximus and ancient fertility rites. The first circus to perform within a ring dates from 1770 when Englishman Philip Astley created an equestrian entertainment that expanded to include acrobats and comic acts. Astley's show soon went on the road and inspired competitors.

The idea quickly spread to America, and by 1785 Philadelphia could boast a permanent circus-like event. Scottish equestrian John Bill Ricketts added spectacle and attracted famous patrons such as George Washington. At the same time, traveling menageries featuring exotic animals became popular, beginning with the exhibition of

Old Bet, an elephant owned by New York entrepreneur Hachaliah Bailey.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the two forms had combined, with pioneers such as George Bailey, nephew of Hachaliah, exhibiting animals during the day and mounting circus performances at night. The addition of wild animals and handlers such as famed lion tamer Isaac A. Van Amburgh added excitement; in 1871, W. C. Coup introduced a second ring.

The transformation of the circus into a national institution was furthered by legendary showman P. T. Barnum, who joined James A. Bailey in 1880 to form the company that was to become Barnum & Bailey. Barnum's fame rested on his promotional genius and exhibition of human oddities, helping to make the "side show" an indispensable element of the circus.

As America expanded westward, so did the circus, which by the 1880s boasted three rings and was using rail transportation. Between 1870 and 1915 the circus evolved into a big business and established itself as an American icon. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the annual circus parade, including animals and performers in full regalia, electrified midwestern communities.

In 1917 the Ringling Brothers, siblings from Wisconsin, purchased Barnum & Bailey and rechristened it "The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows"—or, as it is known to most Americans, "The Greatest Show on Earth." During its heyday, and throughout the twentieth century, Barnum & Bailey recruited some of the most celebrated circus performers in the world, including the great clown Emmett Kelly, the trapeze family known as the Flying Wallendas, and May Wirth, the incomparable equestrian acrobat.

The circus began to slip following World War I, the victim of competing forms of entertainment such as amusement parks, carnivals, radio, and movies. In 1956 Ring-ling Brothers passed into the hands of Irvin Feld, an entrepreneur who modernized the show and the business. In the twenty-first century only a few circuses travel in the United States, but the spectacle retains its appeal, especially to children.

Carnivals

The American carnival built on the tradition of the fair and also borrowed from new forms of entertainment that emerged toward the end of the nineteenth century, including the Wild West show, the medicine show, and the circus side show. The crucible of the American carnival, however, was the world exposition or fair, which evolved as a monument to technology and progress from agricultural fairs, trade centers, and "pleasure gardens" of medieval and Rennaissance Europe and England. Beginning with London's Crystal Palace in 1851, this phenomenon reached its height with the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. Millions of Americans experienced the marvels of electrification and the scientific and technological wonders that were showcased in the beaux arts buildings of the "White City."

The exposition also featured the Midway Plaisance, a thoroughfare crowned by the newly invented Ferris wheel and enlivened by purportedly educational displays of near-naked Native Americans and "savages" from Africa and the South Sea Islands. The popular and lucrative midway led away from the exposition proper to more sensational, privately owned concessions pandering "freaks," sex, and rigged games.

The exposition brought together the elements that defined both the American carnival and the stationary amusement park for over 50 years—mechanized rides, freak shows, participatory games, food, and blatant seediness and hokum. In the years following the exposition, showmen such as Frank C. Bostock and Samuel W. Gumpertz reprised its attractions at Coney Island, New York, where three separate entertainment centers coalesced in the first decade of the twentieth century to create the wild, outré modern amusement park.

By 1920 the United States had over 1,500 amusement parks at the edge of cities, and traveling carnivals supplied similar fun to small towns and local fairs. Gradually, however, the raucous industry felt the impact of local regulation, and many of its popular features wilted. The death knell, however, sounded in 1954 with the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California. While retaining some of the variety, color, and fantasy of the carnival, Disney and its competitors created an entirely different ambiance of a sanitized, idealized world dramatizing icons and heroes of American culture within the context of American economic and technological power.

The relatively few traveling carnivals that remain have adopted the cultural trappings of the contemporary theme park, writ small. Strates Shows, Inc., for example, a family business organized in 1923, explains the changes this way: "In our technological society, the animals and rare 'freak' shows are a thing of the past, and the famous girl shows have disappeared … Strates Shows stays abreast of the market … through continued commitment to producing good, wholesome family fun."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bogdan, Robert. Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Brouws, Jeff, and Bruce Caron. Inside the Live Reptile Tent: The Twilight World of the Carnival Midway. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001.

McGowan, Philip. American Carnival: Seeing and Reading American Culture. Contributions to American Culture Series, #10. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Murray, Marian. Circus! From Rome to Ringling. 1956. Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973.

Wilmeth, Don B. "Circus and Outdoor Entertainment." In Concise Histories of American Popular Culture. Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture, #4, edited by M. Thomas Inge. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982.

PerryFrank

See alsoCounty and State Fairs .

Circuses. The circus arrived in America in 1793, when the English rider John Bill Ricketts and his troupe held a show in an enclosed arena in Philadelphia. Ricketts brought jugglers, acrobats, ropewalkers, clowns, and trained animals together into one circular arena for the first time in the United States, in front of an audience that included President George Washington. Soon other European artists were performing in permanent wooden buildings at major population centers along the eastern seaboard. These early one‐ring shows bore little resemblance to the sprawling three‐ring circus of the 1890s; they had no parade, nor did they perform in canvas tents. But, like their successors, these first American circuses provided audiences with an exciting window into the world.

In the early nineteenth century, circuses moved slowly by horseback or boat. Wagon travel began in 1825, when circuses started using the canvas tent, an innovation borrowed from the itinerant animal menagerie shows. With their tents quickly erected and disassembled, circuses became increasingly nomadic. No longer dependent upon urban markets to cover the costs of constructing wooden arenas, showmen could now play in rural areas. As a traveling amusement, circuses, became notorious as hotbeds of gambling and vice. Several states banned the Antebellum Era circus, which was often shunned by “respectable” middle‐class families.

During the nineteenth century, the growth of circuses mirrored the physical expansion of the American republic. The circus's development depended upon internal improvements such as roads and canals and inventions like the steamship and especially railroads. Just weeks after the final spike of the transcontinental railroad was hammered home at Promentory Point, Utah, in 1869, Dan Castello's Circus and Menagerie made the first transcontinental railroad tour in American circus history. As railroad companies constructed more miles of track, Gilded Age railroad circuses grew rapidly. By the 1890s, many proprietors had adopted from other popular amusement, such as the freak show and the world's fairs features like the sideshow and the “ethnological congress.” (i.e., exhibitions of tribal peoples in exotic settings and native garb). On “circus day,” showmen conducted a free parade to attract paying customers.

The Museum proprietor P.T. Barnum, entering the railroad circus business in 1870, contributed significantly to the industry. With partners W.C. Coup, Dan Castello, and, later, James A. Bailey, Barnum made advertising a priority. Barnum and Bailey's circus employed scores of “advance men” who plastered thousands of lithograph posters throughout a town weeks beforehand. By 1890, their vast big top contained three rings, two stages, a peripheral hippodrome track, and space for ten thousand spectators. An outspoken temperance advocate, Barnum banned liquor from his shows and trumpeted his circus as “moral” entertainment that attracted middle‐class families. Competitors like the Ringling Brothers echoed Barnum's claims with their self‐styled “Sunday School” circus. Yet circuses remained venues for fights, gambling, and drunkenness.

In 1900, nearly one hundred circuses roamed the country—the highest number in American history. The Ringling Brothers’ organization became a huge circus conglomerate. Circuses shaped Americans’ views about race, gender, and contemporary politics. Employing hundreds of people and assembling animals from around the globe, railroad circuses brought the world to small‐town America. Displaying exotic people and animals as representatives of a racial and zoological hierarchy, circuses helped popularize scientific theories concerning racial difference. Displaying reenactments of recent foreign battles and peace treaties, circuses celebrated American nationalism and involvement in world affairs. Muscular circus performers embodied the physical fitness ideals of President Theodore Roosevelt and other practitioners of the “strenuous life.”

By the 1920s, circus parades had mostly disappeared because towns were too clogged with cars to accommodate them. During the Depression, John Ringling North, owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus (and nephew of the original Ringling Brothers), attempted to make the circus more appealing to current public taste by hiring industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes to modernize the midway. In 1956, beset by rising labor and transportation costs as well as by the after effects of a tragic 1944 circus‐tent fire in Hartford, Connecticut, that took 168 lives, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus abandoned the canvas tent in favor of air‐conditioned urban arenas that dramatically diminished the circus's presence. Furthermore, the advent of radio and television eroded the circus's authority as an educational amusement. With its elephant pyramids and dancing tigers, the circus came to seems anachronistic when one could easily see animals in their native habitat on television. However, the shared experience of watching live animals and human beings perform astounding feats still continued to draw countless Americans to the circus each year. The Circus World Museum in the Ringling Brothers’ hometown of Baraboo, Wisconsin, preserves the history of this long‐lived popular‐culture institution.
See also Canals and Waterways; Leisure; Popular Culture; Race, Concept of; Racism; World's Fairs and Expositions.

Bibliography

Neil Harris , Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum, 1973.
Fred Dahlinger Jr. , The Development of the Railroad Circus (4 parts), Bandwagon: Journal of the Circus Historical Society 27–28 (Nov/Dec. 1983–May/June 1984): 6–11, 16–27, 28–36.
A.H. Saxon , P.T. Barnum, The Legend and the Man, 1989.
Stuart Thayer , Travelling Showmen: The American Circus before the Civil War, 1997.

Janet Davis

circus [Lat.,=ring, circle], historically, the arena associated with the horse and chariot races and athletic contests known in ancient Rome as the Circensian games. The Roman circus was a round or oval structure with tiers of seats for spectators, enclosing a space in which the races, games, and gladiatorial combats took place. Underneath were dressing rooms, dens for wild beasts, and rooms where properties were stored. The Circus Maximus, presumably built in the reign of Tarquin I (c.616–c.578 BC), and rebuilt by Julius Caesar, was reported by Pliny in his Natural History to have a capacity of 250,000, though this figure is suspiciously large. Other famous circi of Rome were the Circus Flaminius (221 BC); the Circus Neronis, of Caligula and Nero, at which many Christians perished; and the Circus Maxentius. The circus of Septimius Severus at Constantinople and many others were often scenes of riot and bloodshed between factions of charioteers. The games, aside from races, were brutal and bloody, and for this reason the Greeks, even under Roman domination, never really accepted the circus.

The modern circus, which originated in performances of equestrian feats in a horse ring strewn with sawdust, dates from the closing years of the 18th cent. The circus is traditionally a nomadic tent show, with trained animals, acrobats, and clowns. The main tent, known as the big top, is often surrounded by various concessions and sideshows with "freaks" and wild animals. Even before 1830, traveling circuses were common in the United States and in England. After 1873 two rings were used in the main tent and the three-ring circus, as we know it today, was initiated by James A. Bailey. The most celebrated circus in America was "The Greatest Show on Earth" of P. T. Barnum , which, in merging with Bailey's, became Barnum and Bailey's. On Bailey's death in 1907 the circus was purchased by Ringling Brothers , and in 1919 the two circuses were combined. Since 1969, Ringling Brothers has had two large circuses on tour that play mostly indoors and visit almost every major U.S. city annually.

The traveling circus, in its heyday from 1880 to 1920, declined in the 1950s and 60s. By the 1980s, however, more than 30 circuses were touring the United States and Canada. Outstanding among contemporary circuses are two small and sophisticated shows, the New York City–based Big Apple Circus and the Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil . The latter is the most elaborate and best known exponent of the form called cirque nouveau. A type of modern circus without animal acts, it is characterized by a mixture of traditional circus arts with poetic spectacle, music, and dance and is practiced by a number of European and Canadian troupes.

Bibliography: See studies by H. R. North and A. Hatch (1960); E. C. May (1932, repr. 1963); C. P. Fox and T. Parkinson (1970); M. Murray (1956, repr. 1973); G. Speight (1980); L. D. Hammarstrom, John Ringling North and the Circus (1992).

Circus, traveling company of acrobats, clowns, and animals, who usually perform in tents. The modern circus originated in the English equestrian troupes of the late 18th century, and the first of these to visit the U.S. was the Rickett's Circus, which came to New York in 1795. The distinctive American type of traveling tent show had developed by 1850, when American troupes were already touring Europe. Famous clowns and impresarios have included John Robinson, Adam Forepaugh, the Sells brothers, Dan Rice, James A. Bailey, and the Ringling brothers, while P.T. Barnum's “greatest show on earth,” the most spectacular development of circus showmanship, was founded in 1871 and combined with that of Bailey in 1881. Since the time of Dan Rice, who was the last of the great “talking clowns” to perform in tents of moderate size, the circus has been devoted to large‐scale spectacles, pantomimic humor, equestrian and aerial acrobatics, menagerie and freak exhibitions, and such special features as Wild West shows patterned after that of Buffalo Bill. Nineteenth‐century circuses appear often in literature, including the boys' stories Toby Tyler by J.O. Kaler and Chad Hanna by Walter Edmonds.

Circus, in Roman times a place of exhibition for chariot racing and athletic and gladiatorial contests. In its modern sense it dates from the mid-18th century. Mainly itinerant, it is performed in the central area of a tent (the Big Top) or in a specially adapted building. The programme is built up of separate turns featuring animal acts and acrobatics, controlled by a ringmaster and loosely connected by the antics of the clown. Owing to the specialized nature of their work, circus performers tend to remain a class apart, with much intermarrying. The great names of the circus in the USA are Barnum and Ringling and in Britain Sanger, Mills, Smart, and Chipperfield; but the circus is universal and can be at home anywhere.

cir·cus / ˈsərkəs/ • n. (pl. -cus·es ) 1. a traveling company of acrobats, trained animals, and clowns that gives performances, typically in a large tent, in a series of different places. ∎  (in ancient Rome) a rounded or oblong arena lined with tiers of seats, used for equestrian and other sports and games. ∎ inf. a public scene of frenetic and noisily intrusive activity: a media circus. 2. [in place names] Brit. a rounded open space in a city where several streets converge: Piccadilly Circus.

circuses, cross-Channel sorties by combined formations of RAF fighters and bombers. Their primary objective was to bring the Luftwaffe to battle after the battle of Britain had been won, and later to force the Germans to increase their fighter strength in the west at the expense of the Eastern Front. Sometimes as many as 300 fighters were employed, using perhaps just six bombers as bait. The results were poor, with the RAF losing more aircraft than the Luftwaffe. See alsorhubarbs.

circus building surrounded with rising tiers of seats XVI; circular area for equestrian and acrobatic feats; circular range for houses XVIII. — L. circus circle. circus = Gr. kírkos, kríkos ring. circle. prob. rel. to L. curvus CURVE.

Circus (harriers) See ACCIPITRIDAE.

circus •Bacchus, Caracas, Gracchus •Damascus •Aristarchus, carcass, Hipparchus, Marcus •discus, hibiscus, meniscus, viscous •umbilicus • Copernicus •Ecclesiasticus • Leviticus • floccus •caucus, Dorcas, glaucous, raucous •Archilochus, Cocos, crocus, focus, hocus, hocus-pocus, locus •autofocus •fucus, Lucas, mucous, mucus, Ophiuchus, soukous •ruckus • fuscous • abacus •diplodocus • Telemachus •Callimachus • Caratacus • Spartacus •circus