Well-known theatre and circus historian William L. Slout here collects together 29 first-hand accounts of 19th- and early 20th-century popular amusements, including summer resorts, watering places, agricultural fairs, World's Fairs, the circus, vaudeville, theatre, and amusement parks. Complete with index, introduction, and contemporaneous illustrations.

Circuses and film are a natural pairing, and the new essays making up this volume begin the exploration of how these two forms of entertainment have sometimes worked together to create a spectacle of onscreen alchemy. The films discussed herein are an eclectic group, ranging from early silent comedies to animated, 21st century examples, in which circuses serve as liminal or carnivalesque spaces wherein characters-and by extension audience members-can confront issues as far-reaching as labor relations, sensuality, identity, ethics, and more. The circus as discussed in these essays encompasses the big top, the midway, the sideshow and the freak show; it becomes backdrop, character, catalyst and setting, and is welcoming, malicious or terrifying. Circus performers are family, friends, foe or all of the above. And film is the medium that brings it all together. This volume starts the conversation about how circuses and film can combine to form productive, exciting spaces where almost anything can happen.

Roll up, roll up for a trip back in time to the heyday of the circus! Originally published in 1936, Circus Parade shows the big top at its most exciting: a world of expert horse-riders, death-defying trapeze artists, elastic acrobats, fearless lion-tamers and, of course, hilarious and loveable clowns. The author, John S Clarke, had many years' circus experience and understood its people and way of life like no other. As well as explaining the origins of the circus in Roman and medieval times and highlighting some of the most celebrated acts through history, he reveals the fascinating and sometimes tragic stories behind the glitz and sawdust of the big top. Illustrated with numerous photos of circus performers in action, Circus Parade offers a unique ringside view of this traditional yet ever-changing entertainment.

James A. Bailey and P. T. Barnum first joined forces to produce a double show in 1881--a royal coupling--inaugurating the "Golden Age" of the American circus. This book details some of the activity leading up to that notable landmark in amusement history, particularly during the decade of 1871-81. Complete with notes, bibliography, index, and contemporaneous illustrations.

"Chilly Billy" was the nickname of circus mogul William Washington Cole, the chief rival of P. T. Barnum. Cole was born into a circus family in 1847, and beginning in 1870 and continuing through 1886, developed "Cole's Colossal Circus" into a money-making enterprise. He wisely invested his earnings in real estate, making himself a multimillionaire before finally closing down shop. Another landmark contribution to American circus history, complete with notes, index, bibliography, and contemporaneous illustrations.

Reprint 1961 edition. p.224. Sonora Carver was an American entertainer, most notable as one of the first female horse divers. Carver answered an ad placed by "Doc" William Frank Carver in 1923 for a diving girl and soon earned a place in circus history.Her job was to mount a running horse as it reached the top of a forty-foot (sometimes sixty-foot) tower and sail down along the animal's back as it plunged into a deep pool of water directly below. Sonora was a sensation and soon became the lead diving girl for Doc Carver's act as they traveled the country. In 1931, Sonora was blinded, a retinal detachment, due to hitting the water off-balance with her eyes open.while diving her horse, Red Lips, on New Jersey's Steel Pier, the act's permanent home since 1929. After her accident Sonora continued to dive horses until 1942.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

"A fascinating history of the unexpected intersection of science, technology and show business." --John Steele Gordon, author of " Hamilton's Blessing" "Once upon a time, American know-how flourished through show-how: spectacular demonstrations by ever resourceful technological entrepreneurs. David Lindsay brings back these glorious (and sometimes infamous) theatricals in a delightful, witty, narrative with a serious point: the American inventor, now relegated to endless rehearsals, needs to resume a rightful place on the national center stage. For admirers and critics of technology and for veteran and inspiring inventors, "Madness in the Making" will give pleasure and inspire debate." --Edward Tenner. Author of "Why Things Bite Back"

1927. Tully, novelist, journalist, lecturer, Hollywood columnist of the 1920s and 30s, road kid, chainmaker, boxer, circus handyman, tree surgeon; an inheritor of the tradition of the literary wanderer, and father of another, the school of hard-boiled writing. A quote in the beginning of the book by George Jean Nathan reads, If there is a writer in America today who can lay hold of mean people and mean lives and tear their mean hearts out with more appalling realism, his work is unknown to me. One of his autobiographical works, Circus Parade is a series of his none too happy and often ironical incidents with a circus.

Angels Can Fly, a Modern Clown User Guide, includes a mix of fiction which follows the adventures of ten clowns, some personal anecdotes from clowns from around the world, a total of 50 practical clown exercises, and some theory on the nature of modern clown. Clown is a fascinating, diverse, complex and exciting art form, which has existed around the planet for thousands of years. Like any art form it has to evolve to stay relevant to the culture nurturing it, and at the same time, and by its very nature, clown teases and turns upside down the cultural patterns and boundaries around us. This book is an attempt to chart the growth of modern clown, and to promote the process by providing, not only practical exercises for individuals and groups, but also reference points for thinking.

Volume 2 of 2. This work is Barnum's recollections of forty busy years. There is an almost universal, and not unworthy curiosity to learn the methods and measures, the ups and downs, the strifes and victories, the mental and moral personnel of those who have taken an active and prominent part in human affairs. But an autobiography has attractions and merits superior to those of a "life" written by another who cannot know all that helps to give interest and accuracy to the narrative. Barnum's narrative is interspersed with amusing incidents and even the recital of some very practical jokes. Such is simply because his natural disposition impels him to look upon the brighter side of life and he hopes that his humorous experiences will entertain the reader as much as they were enjoyed by himself.

A century ago, daily life ground to a halt when the circus rolled into town. Across America, banks closed, schools canceled classes, farmers left their fields, and factories shut down so that everyone could go to the show. In this entertaining and provocative book, Janet Davis links the flowering of the early-twentieth-century American railroad circus to such broader historical developments as the rise of big business, the breakdown of separate spheres for men and women, and the genesis of the United States' overseas empire. In the process, she casts the circus as a powerful force in consolidating the nation's identity as a modern industrial society and world power.

Davis explores the multiple "shows" that took place under the big top, from scripted performances to exhibitions of laborers assembling and tearing down tents to impromptu spectacles of audiences brawling, acrobats falling, and animals rampaging. Turning Victorian notions of gender, race, and nationhood topsy-turvy, the circus brought its vision of a rapidly changing world to spectators--rural as well as urban--across the nation. Even today, Davis contends, the influence of the circus continues to resonate in popular representations of gender, race, and the wider world.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Meet the greatest entertainer of the 19th Century... In 1834, desperate to create a better life for his family, small-time Connecticut businessman P. T. Barnum moved to New York City. With true entrepreneurial spirit and against all odds, he wowed audiences with his ensemble of musical spectacles, attractions and variety shows - often exploiting the vulnerable for entertainment value. A master showman, his crowning achievement was the world-famous circus, Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth. In this account of his life and work, written by the man himself and first published in 1855, P. T. Barnum creates an aura of excitement about himself and his enduring fame, confirming his reputation as the greatest impresario of all time and revealing the controversial decisions that helped him to his fortune.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2019 This book documents and discusses the meaning(s) of the creative process at play in the crafting and staging of circus acts. It highlights the experience of circus artists as their skills develop and mature into public performances that create aesthetic and emotional values in the modern economy of live spectacles. It scrutinizes the meaning that circus acts produce for the spectators and for the artists themselves who live this process from the inside. This is a book for those studying semiotics and wanting to see it applied to a real life milieu in accessible and passionate prose. The Meaning of the Circus is grounded on the personal experience of Professor Paul Bouissac as both a circus entrepreneur and a researcher with decades of primary material on the significance of past and contemporary circus acts. It is based on substantial accounts provided by many men and women who have agreed to share the challenges, joys, and anxieties of their life as artists. Personal and rigorous, it contributes to the hermeneutics of the circus arts by adding existential depth to the production and reception of their performances.

A collection of thirty-two clown skits for one or two performers, accompanied by tips for aspiring clowns on props, gestures, terminology, and safety.

In 1847, during the great age of the freak show, the British periodical Punch bemoaned the public's 'prevailing taste for deformity'. This vividly detailed work argues that far from being purely exploitative, displays of anomalous bodies served a deeper social purpose as they generated popular and scientific debates over the meanings attached to bodily difference. Nadja Durbach examines freaks both well-known and obscure including the Elephant Man; 'Lalloo, the Double-Bodied Hindoo Boy', a set of conjoined twins advertised as half male, half female; Krao, a seven-year-old hairy Laotian girl who was marketed as Darwin's 'missing link'; the 'Last of the Mysterious Aztecs' and African 'Cannibal Kings', who were often merely Irishmen in blackface. Upending our tendency to read late twentieth-century conceptions of disability onto the bodies of freak show performers, Durbach shows that these spectacles helped to articulate the cultural meanings invested in otherness - and thus clarified what it meant to be British - at a key moment in the making of modern and imperial ideologies and identities.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Meet the greatest entertainer of the 19th Century... In 1834, desperate to create a better life for his family, small-time Connecticut businessman P. T. Barnum moved to New York City. With true entrepreneurial spirit and against all odds, he wowed audiences with his ensemble of musical spectacles, attractions and variety shows - often exploiting the vulnerable for entertainment value. A master showman, his crowning achievement was the world-famous circus, Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth. In this account of his life and work, written by the man himself and first published in 1855, P. T. Barnum creates an aura of excitement about himself and his enduring fame, confirming his reputation as the greatest impresario of all time and revealing the controversial decisions that helped him to his fortune.

During the last 300 years circus clowns have emerged as powerful cultural icons. This is the first semiotic analysis of the range of make-up and costumes through which the clowns' performing identities have been established and go on developing. It also examines what Bouissac terms 'micronarratives' - narrative meanings that clowns generate through their acts, dialogues and gestures. Putting a repertory of clown performances under the semiotic microscope leads to the conclusion that the performances are all interconnected and come from what might be termed a 'mythical matrix'. These micronarratives replicate in context-sensitive forms a master narrative whose general theme refers to the emergence of cultures and constraints that they place upon instinctual behaviour. From this vantage point, each performance can be considered as a ritual which re-enacts the primitive violence inherent in all cultures and the temporary resolutions which must be negotiated as the outcome. Why do these acts of transgression and re-integration then trigger laughter and wonder? What kind of mirror does this put up to society? In a masterful semiotic analysis, Bouissac delves into decades of research to answer these questions.

This book analyses two features of the traditional circus that have come under increasing attack since the mid-20th century: the use of wild animals in performance and the act of clowning. Positioning this socio-cultural change within the broader perspective of evolutionary semiotics, renowned circus expert Paul Bouissac examines the decline of the traditional circus and its transformation into a purely acrobatic spectacle. The End of the Circus draws on Bouissac's extensive ethnographic research, including previously unpublished material on the training of wild animals and clown make-up, to chart the origins of the circus in Gypsy culture and the drastic change in contemporary Western attitudes on ethical grounds. It scrutinizes the emergence of the new form of circus, with its focus on acrobatics and the meaning of the body, showing how acrobatic techniques have been appropriated from traditional Gypsy heritage and brought into the fold of mainstream popular entertainment. Questioning the survival of the new circus and the likely resurgence of its traditional forms, this book showcases Bouissac's innovative approach to semiotics and marks the culmination of his ground-breaking work on the circus.