#ringling bros circus

[newyorkthegoldenage]

When zebras and camels roam the streets of New York, it can mean only one thing: the circus is in town. Just off the train from winter quarters in Florida, the animals make their way west on East 49th Street to Madison Square Garden, April 3, 1942 for the opening of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Photo: John Lindsay for the AP

[aci25]

In the year 1899, two African-American brothers with albinism were forcibly taken and exploited as performers in a circus.

Renowned as "The Sheep-Headed Men," "The White Ecuadorian Cannibals Eko and Iko," and "The Ambassadors From Mars," George and Willie Muse gained worldwide fame as sideshow performers during the early 1900s. However, the true horrors of their story remained largely unknown to their predominantly white audiences.

Born with a rare form of albinism in the African-American community, the Muse brothers fell victim to a traveling "freak hunter" who targeted them when they were young boys and forcibly abducted them from their home in Virginia. Their distinctive appearance, characterized by African-American albinos with pale blue eyes and blond hair, coupled with their poor vision due to an eye condition often misunderstood as a mental impairment, made them easy targets for exploitation by a traveling circus.

Under the control of their captors, the brothers were compelled to grow out their hair and were sold to various traveling sideshows, including Ringling Bros. Circus. Despite being denied access to education and literacy, as well as being deprived of any financial compensation, George and Willie possessed remarkable musical talents. They could hear a song once and flawlessly reproduce it on any instrument they were handed, be it a guitar, banjo, harmonica, saxophone, or xylophone. Their handlers greatly underestimated their abilities.

Their years of enslavement finally came to an end in 1927 when Ringling Bros. Circus returned to Roanoke, and George recognized their mother among the crowd. Overwhelmed with emotion, George exclaimed, "There's our dear old mother. Look, Willie, she is not dead." This poignant reunion marked the turning point in their lives, bringing an end to their captivity and the beginning of a journey towards reclaiming their freedom and identity.

[vintagegeekculture]

1997 was the last year that Ringling Brothers had a graduating class for its’ “Clown College.”

The most well known member of the 1997 graduating class of Clown College was Steve-O, best known for the brave yet foolhardy stunt/prank series “Jackass.” Steve-O used the lessons he learned at Clown College to excel, a combination of physical comedy and stuntwork.

[gameraboy2]

Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Combined Circus - Prairie Bill And His Congress Of Rough Riders Of The World, 1933 poster

[carbone14]

Affiche pour le cirque Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey avec en vedette Lillian Leitzel - 1929

[aiiaiiiyo]

[frank-o-meter]

Circus Poster: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus / The Greatest Show on Earth (1943). Poster depicting Felix Adler the clown

[head-vampire]

Gunther Gebel-Williams Farewell Tour shirt (1988)

Source

[wiiroms]

(via Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus)

[spdk1]

REVIEW: Battle for the Big Top - P.T. Barnum, James Bailey, John Ringling, and the Death-Defying Saga of the American Circus (2021)

REVIEW: Battle for the Big Top – P.T. Barnum, James Bailey, John Ringling, and the Death-Defying Saga of the American Circus (2021)

A Book by Les Standiford I’ve attended a few circuses in my lifetime, and it’s kind of sad that such a once-dominant institution could be slowly dying off as it has been. After the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey company shuttered in 2017 there was a big question as to whether the circus could even work in the United States anymore considering all of the entrainment options, concerns over…

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The long line of elephants swinging west on 57th Street from Second Avenue on March 27, 1955, could mean only one thing: the circus was in town. Despite freezing temperatures and winds with gusts over 50 miles an hour, hundreds of children lined the parade route from railroad yards at 135th Street and Lincoln Avenue in the South Bronx, down Second Avenue, across 57th Street and south to Madison Square Garden via Ninth Avenue. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus opened with a benefit performance at the Garden on March 30.

Photo: Associated Press via Der Spiegel

[taxi-davis]

“the Hartford circus fire happened on July 6, 1944. Nobody knows how the fire started but it spread quickly because the tent of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus was waterproofed with paraffin. 169 people died and more than seven hundred were injured from fire or trampling.”

[wildwormies]

Ok I may be thinking of a new oc or a new au and I’m not sure which it is yet

[baroque-hashem]

I was one of those kids who went to the circus. We lived in Texas at the time the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus came to Dallas. I sat way up in the stands while my siblings at cotton candy next to me. I didn’t want any cotton candy or peanuts—I was too busy watching the acts. They called it The Greatest Show on Earth and it really seemed to be so. Such pomp, such extravagance of entertainment, it nurtured an early love affair with performance art. Vaudeville, stage magic, theatre, the circus—I loved it all. The Greatest Show on Earth folded in 2017, after almost 200 years of consecutive shows. After that long, in the 21st century things got too steep for that eminent circus—rising production costs, waning popularity, increasing pressure from animal rights activists.

That last in the list is curious. Why would a purportedly innocent form of entertainment draw the ire of activists? The circus is not all big tops and peanuts. The industry has a long history of entertainment at the sake of exploiting and abusing its attractions. Just as ancient Romans may have been entertained by the lions of the coliseum, so were modern humans entertained by watching tigers in cages and horses jumping through flaming hoops.

Truly, the circus is a troublesome entertainment that has been sugar coated in modern visions such as the chart topping musical The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman as a wildly inaccurate P. T. Barnum. In reality, Barnum was a grifter and a crook who exploited and abused people for his own profitable ends. In the movie, for instance, General Tom Thumb is portrayed as a fully grown adult man with dwarfism. In real life, Tom Thumb was a mere child.

It’s difficult to reconcile my nostalgic image of the circus with my contemporary image of it. True, it is a form of classic performance art that astounded my childhood self. But it is also a form of entertainment guilty of the very wrongs I stand against, such as cruelty to animals and exploitation of minorities among other infractions.

Perhaps it’s best to remember the circus as entertainment for a less enlightened time, before our better judgment got hold of us. And yet, Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey folded in 2017, and they have plans to come back (without the animals this time). Perhaps we’re not so different from our vintage counterparts who sat in musty tents on the prairies of America. Perhaps we haven’t changed as much as we think we have.

[carbone14]

Le cirque Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey - Chicago - Etats-Unis - 04 août 1949

©Charles Weever Cushman

[isawken]

reading more abt circus history and learning that during the golden age of the circus, the circus owners would often put themselves on advertising posters for brand recognition. and apparently the Ringling bros would put all five of themselves on their posters but they all looked so similar that their only real defining features were their slightly different moustaches, and this was such a widely known/recognized thing at the time that people would sometimes straight up refer to their circus as "the five moustaches". and i am dying bc it has me thinking of them like a magical girl anime where the only distinguishing features between the girls are their hairstyles. like look at these motherfuckers:

(do not pay attention to the fact that this is a poster for a ringling bros edition of the crusades that's a post for another day)