1 ORIGINS OF THE SIDESHOW
THE SIDESHOW, AS ITS NAME IMPLIES, is an adjunct to a main show. But the types of exhibits that came to constitute the sideshow preceded both kinds of shows.
Early Roots
Far back in prehistory, the solitary entertainer vied for the attention and approval of others. perhaps he had learned some simple feat of acrobatics or juggling. Maybe he was able to perform a clever trick using sleight of hand. or possibly he had something for show-and-tell, such as a remarkable stone or an exotic trophy. Originally, his would have been an impromptu show, probably performed for a few family members and friends around a communal fire.
From this primitive beginning, performances flourished, eventually involving multiple entertainers appearing before large assemblages. Among the early recorded stories of such entertainers—and the earliest concerning a magician—is one written in the Westcar papyrus of 1550 B.C. It describes the feats of an Egyptian conjurer named Tchatcha-em-ankh—not a contemporary story, but a handed-down tale from the court of Khufu (or Cheops), circa 2680 B.C. As related by the papyrus, in addition to being familiar with all the stars constituting the House of Thoth (a demonstration of his knowledge of astrology), the magician could perform remarkable feats, such as leading a lion about as if with a rope and restoring a head that had been severed. The first of these feats was doubtless an early example of what would eventually become a circus mainstay: lion taming.
As to the restoration of the cut-off head, the papyrus provides a clue by describing the feat of a later conjurer named Dedi, who supposedly could decapitate a goose, a duck, or an ox and then restore the head. No doubt, Dedi did the trick with birds in much the same manner that modern magi do. (Street magician David Blaine performed it on one of his television specials, employing a dove.) Dedi deftly tucked the goose's or duck's head under its wing, at the same time bringing out a dummy head he had hidden in his robe. To restore the bird, he simply reversed the procedure. As for the ox, magical authorities suspect that Dedi only claimed that he could do that, relying on his demonstrations with birds to give the claim credence (Gibson 1967, 11–12; Randi 1992, 1–4).
At least as far back as 2400 B.C., ancient Egyptian art depicts jugglers, acrobats, and clowns, along with parades, entertaining the nobility and citizenry. Indeed, Queen Hatshepsut imported giraffes and monkeys—exotic animals that would later appear in circuses worldwide (Granfield 2000, 6). And on the island of Crete—as shown in a blue, white, and gold fresco dated 1600 B.C.—young Minoan daredevils performed acrobatics with charging bulls. The young men and women grasped the animals’ horns and then vaulted over the animals’ heads with backward somersaults and momentary handstands that were as dangerous as they were entertaining. some of these bull leapers became the “stars” of society, sporting embroidered outfits, arm bracelets, and elaborate coiffures and makeup—foreshadowing the colorful costuming that would be used by entertainers throughout history (Granfield 2000, 6). Among the entertainments that presaged the modern circus were performances by contortionists (in old China) and wild-animal trainers (in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East), as well as such spectator sports as chariot racing (in ancient Greece).
In the Roman era, the writer Juvenal (circa a.d. 60–127) stated that what the public really desired was panem et circenses—”bread and circuses.” That is, so long as the people were fed and entertained, they would represent a happy citizenry, unlikely to rebel against their leaders. In Juvenal's time, Romans enjoyed nearly 175 days of celebrations and festivals annually (Granfield 2000, 7). During the Roman festivals, spectators gathered in large roofless arenas called circuses (figure 1.1). These circuses contained an oval track used for chariot races, various games, and public shows. The first and largest of the circuses was the Circus Maximus, which developed from a modest thirdcentury structure into a stone building seating 150,000 or more spectators. The circus acquired a sinister aspect when Nero used the Circus Caligulas (built in A.D. 37–41) for spectacles involving the torture of Christians (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1960, s.v. “Circus”).
Figure 1.1. In ancient Rome, contests and other entertainments were held in open arenas called circuses. (From a nineteenth-century print)
Admission to the circuses was free, but hawkers of various types harangued the crowds. Pastry and wine vendors, bookmakers, and prostitutes sought the spectators’ money, as did others. Located in nearby booths were astrologers, acrobats, jugglers, and the like—such booths clearly anticipating the later sideshows of circuses and carnivals (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1960, s.v. “Circus”; Granfield 2000, 7).
The Fairs and Beyond
During the Middle Ages, when people tended to live out their lives in small communities, traveling entertainers created excitement when they arrived with their dancing bears, trained dogs, and troupes of jugglers and other performers. They drew their wagons into a broad circle, using them as stages. Jesters—forerunners of clowns—teased the onlookers with jokes, riddles, and songs.
In medieval times, juggling involved more than keeping several objects in the air simultaneously; it also referred to conjuring—that is, performing magic tricks. Many performers were skilled in conjuring-juggling, ventriloquism, sword swallowing, or even fire eating. The traveling jugglers followed a regular itinerary and often joined with ballad singers, acrobats, musicians, storytellers, and others to give more elaborate performances.
Many of the conjuring tricks performed during the Middle Ages are described by Reginald Scot in his book The Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in 1584. Credulous peasants watched as a performer thrust a dagger through his arm or performed a decapitation trick in which a boy's severed head conversed with astonished spectators. (These secrets are discussed in chapters 9 and 10.)
At the edge of the village were set up tents and booths, not unlike the ones at Roman circuses, again heralding the modern circus and carnival sideshows. “Come and see the rare unicorn,” the crier might yell. “The only one in the world, and yours to see—for a small fee.” Of course, the “unicorn” was merely a horse fitted with a false horn. Even those who suspected trickery lined up anyway and paid the admission fee to satisfy their curiosity. Besides, “People felt the push to buy and see, for the traveling entertainers would be gone in a day, maybe two” (Granfield 2000, 9).
As the medieval crowds gathered, there were other, less entertaining foreshadowings of American medicine shows and traveling carnivals. Pickpockets took advantage of the spectators’ rapt attention to lift their purses, and mountebanks (the term originally referred to quack doctors but has come to mean any type of charlatan) touted the miraculous cures their nostrums could supposedly bring to anyone willing to buy a small bag or bottle (Granfield 2000, 9).
In France, jongleurs (jugglers) and trouveres (troubadours) entertained at various venues. A wedding feast at the home of a wealthy burgher was a gargantuan affair with arrays of food and wine barrels in profusion. such affairs called for entertainment. In their Life in a Medieval City, Joseph and Frances Gies (1981, 72) take us back to thirteenth-century Troyes for such a wedding feast: “Jongleurs accompany the successive courses with music, and as soon as the spiced wine, wafers, and fruit are served the entertainment begins. It starts off with handsprings, tumbles, and other acrobatics. Imitations of bird calls, sleight-of-hand tricks, and a juggling act are likely to be on the program. Interspersed are singers who accompany themselves on two musical inventions of the Middle Ages: the six-stringed, pear-shaped lute, which is plucked, or the five-stringed viol, the first bowed instrument.”
While jugglers, troubadours, and jesters were entertaining village folk in France and England, sixteenth-century Italy was being provoked to laughter by commedia dell'arte (comedy of art). Troupes of Italian entertainers toured the rest of Europe performing folk stories in mime. Among the commedia characters were Pulchinella, who became Punch in the Punch and Judy puppet shows, and Harlequin, whose colorful patchwork costume would be adopted by clowns ever after (Granfield 2000, 9).
A major venue for the jugglers, mountebanks, jesters, and others was the fair, which became established in the Byzantine Empire as well as in Europe. There were many important fairs, such as those in Frankfurt and Venice and especially the one in Troyes, France. In the early Middle Ages the fairs were largely gatherings for trade. Alongside these commercial fairs grew pleasure fairs, which began to dominate by the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The most famous of these was the Bartholomew Fair in London. Henry I had granted rights to the commercial fair to a man by the name of Rahere (who founded st. Bartholomew's hospital). Its almost complete transformation to an entertainment fair made it a classic of that type (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1960, s.v. “Fair”). Among the most famous British fairground entertainers was Bartholomew Fair conjurer Isaac Fawkes. At the height of the season in the early 1700s, Fawkes would give as many as six shows a day, performing such feats as causing an apple tree to blossom and bear fruit in less than one minute, which was possibly accomplished by using a mechanical tree (Christopher 1962). Another favorite Bartholomew Fair attraction was the celebrated dwarf Wybrand Lolkes (McKennon 1972, 1:15).
A rare aquatint depicting the Bartholomew Fair in 1721 (Jay 2001) provides a valuable glimpse back in time. Its panoramic view shows the milling crowd among the food and beverage vendors. Individual booths with raised platforms have pictorial background banners announcing “Rope Dancing is here” and “Faux's [i.e., Isaac Fawkes's] Dexterity of hand.” Another large booth presents a drama, the cast of which includes a Harlequin. A booth at the side sells novelties. There are other “amusements” (as the print's caption terms them), notably a contraption with three suspended seats that is an obvious, if primitive, forerunner of the modern Ferris wheel. Here in this scene are encapsulated all the elements that would later constitute a carnival midway.
Beginnings of the Modern Circus
Out of these permanent and traveling fairs, which had begun to decline by the eighteenth century, emerged the man who would bring the various elements together to create a modern show form. Philip Astley (1742-1814) did not run away from home to join the circus; instead, he ran away to join the army. He became an expert equestrian and eventually earned the title the Father of the Modern Circus (Granfield 2000, 10).
By the age of twenty-five, Astley had purchased a London field known as Halfpenny Hatch, where he had a riding ring. Every afternoon, astride his horse at the southern end of Lambeth Bridge, he passed out handbills advertising his performance and used his sword to point toward the arena. He astonished spectators with his skill as a trick rider, jumping off and on his galloping horse's back and even standing on his head as it cantered around the ring (Loxton 1997, 10).
FIGURE 1.2. “Scenes of the Circle” are shown in an 1843 wood engraving advertising the celebrated amphitheater originated by Philip Astley, “Father of the Modern Circus.”
Soon the enterprising Astley managed to construct a two-story frame building over the entranceway and erect roofed viewing stands. He trained a troupe of riders and added other entertainers to his show, including musicians, acrobats, and tightrope walkers. He also added clowning and other elements to make what Howard Loxton, in his Golden Age of the Circus (1997, 12), terms “a show that begins to be recognizable as what we call a circus.”
In 1769 Astley exhibited a “learned” horse and even performed magic tricks on horseback. Soon he had taken his troupe to France. By 1779 he had erected a building called Astley's Amphitheatre Riding House. It was later called the Royal Amphitheatre and a number of other names as it was repeatedly rebuilt after a succession of fi res (Loxton 1997, 12-14). (See figure 1.2.)
Ironically, it was not Astley but his chief rival, Charles Hughes, together with his partners, who first used the name circus. Hughes opened his Royal Circus in 1782, and his contributions were significant, although Astley is generally considered to have been the better showman. In time, Astley managed to establish no fewer than eighteen circuses across Britain and the European continent (Granfield 2000, 10). Concludes Loxton (1997, 14): “With Astley and Hughes almost all the elements of modern circus, including the name, had been brought together, from rope dancers, clowns, equestrians and trained animals to the grand spectacle that became such a feature of American circus in its heyday.”
In France, Astley leased the operation of his circus to a former menagerie cage boy named Antonio Franconi (1737-1836). Franconi had appeared at Astley's Amphitheatre with a bird act, later performed as an equestrian, and in 1786 began his own circus. He and his two sons built their Cirque Olympique and developed it into France's greatest circus of the era. The Franconis made many innovations, including setting the circus ring's diameter at forty-two feet, which remains the standard measurement worldwide. Their descendants came to represent one of Europe's most celebrated circus family dynasties (Granfield 2000, 12; Loxton 1997, 15–16).
Across the Atlantic, eighteenth-century America saw various performances, such as “rope-dancing” (tightrope jigs), exhibitions of exotic animals, and the like. Then in Philadelphia in 1785 an American named Thomas Pool began to perform equestrian routines and to engage a clown to entertain between acts. Thus was formed “the first American circus” (Granfield 2000, 14). (Pool was also active that year in Boston and Baltimore, the following year in New York, and still later in Georgia [Loxton 1997, 19].)
However, an English equestrian named John Bill Ricketts, who brought his own circus from Scotland, is generally credited with creating “the first real circus in the United States” in 1792. A former pupil of Charles Hughes, Ricketts erected an appropriately circular building in Philadelphia to house his circus. The following year he entertained an audience that included George Washington (Loxton 1997, 19).
A newspaper advertisement of that period for “Ricketts’ Circus” describes what spectators would see, including Ricketts riding with his knees on the saddle and then leaping over a twelve-foot ribbon and juggling four oranges while riding at full speed. There were also “comic Feats” (clowning) by a Mr. McDonald and “many Surprizing [sic] Feats on the tight Rope” by a “Seignior Spiracuta” (Granfield 2000, 15).
The arrival of the nineteenth century saw Ricketts expand his enterprise by erecting two circus buildings in New York City. One of his entertainers was a fellow rider, Thomas Swan, who introduced a locally born equestrienne named Miss Johnson, along with a monkey that did a rope-dancing act. Previously, exotic animals had merely been exhibited; this was “the first evidence of an animal act in America other than horses” (Loxton 1997, 20). Soon Ricketts had many competitors.
Attempts at permanent circuses were not successful, however, and the showmen eventually took to the road. At first, traveling circuses used makeshift timber structures, but they soon adopted tents. The first such circus set up its tent in a New York park in 1823. That practice began to be copied by the touring circuses, which could now afford to make briefer stays in smaller towns. By the 1830s there were more than thirty circuses “on the road” in the eastern United States. Actually, because the roads were so poor, circuses traveled by water whenever possible. One, the Floating Palace, even performed on the water. It was constructed on a huge barge capable of accommodating 3,400 spectators and was propelled by a stern-wheeler. It plied both the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers beginning in 1851—exhibiting a menagerie, “curiosities,” and performances on stage—but it was burned during the Civil War (Loxton 1997, 21–22).
Meanwhile, by the 1830s, what were called “outside shows” began to align themselves with traveling menageries and circuses. They flourished not as a midway but as separate attractions set up on nearby lots. At first, main shows distanced themselves, even proclaiming in their ads that “no sideshows of pigmy children, overgrown men, abortions, and monstrosities” were permitted to travel with them. In 1850, however, a relationship was established between the sideshows and main shows. One of the former was characterized at its site off the main lot as “vastly amusing” and consisting of “half a dozen supplementary tents” containing a “French Giant,” a “Skeleton Man,” and other exhibits, complete with pictorial banners (Polacsek 1996).
Barnum the Showman
The name P. T. Barnum (figure 1.3) would not enter circus history until 1871, but his influence on circuses—and their sideshows—had already begun. Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891) was operating a grocery business in New York when he learned about a remarkable slave, Joice Heth, who was reputedly 161 years old and had once served as the nursemaid of George Washington. Barnum went to see the slave, who was being exhibited in Philadelphia. Her owner offered to sell her for $3,000, but Barnum struck a bargain for a third of that, sold his store interest, borrowed some more cash, and on August 6, 1835, acquired the blind, partially paralyzed, toothless old woman. Thus was launched Barnum's career as a showman, and he was soon grossing $1,500 a week from Heth's exhibition. When New York crowds began to decline, Barnum took her on a tour through New England.
In his autobiography, Barnum (1927, 49) wrote of Heth that “she was very sociable, and would talk almost incessantly so long as visitors would converse with her. She sang a variety of ancient hymns,” he noted, “and was very garrulous when speaking of her protégé ‘dear little George,’ as she termed the great father of our country.” supposed proof of her authenticity and great age came from a bill of sale from Washington's father, Augustine Washington, dated February 5, 1727. Of course, the whole thing was a hoax, and when ticket sales declined, Barnum hit on a scheme. He knew that a little doubt would fuel controversy and thus boost sales, so he published an anonymous letter in the local paper claiming that Heth was a “curiously constructed automaton, made up of whalebone, India-rubber, and numberless springs,” and that her exhibitor was “a ventriloquist.”
After Heth suddenly died, Barnum permitted an autopsy, and the examining surgeon declared that she was probably no more than eighty years old. The New York Sun announced the next day (February 25, 1836) “the exposure of one of the most precious humbugs that ever was imposed upon a credulous community.” Barnum piled hoax upon hoax with the claim, via his assistant, that Joice Heth was still very much alive and well in Connecticut. supposedly as a prank, the autopsy had been performed on the corpse of a recently deceased old “Negress” from Harlem (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 20–23; Harris 1973, 20–26).
FIGURE 1.3. P. T. Barnum (1810–1891) became the world's greatest showman. This ad is from the New York Daily Graphic, October 17, 1873. (Author's collection)
Barnum next engaged a juggler, gave him the exotic name of Signor Vivalla, concocted a fake “rivalry” with another juggler, and soon converted lackluster ticket sales into serious profits. He signed his star and himself with a traveling circus and went on tour. Later Barnum struck off on his own, eventually acquiring—in addition to Vivalla—a group of entertainers. By 1841, however, he was back in New York and had resolved “that I would never again be an itinerant showman” (Barnum 1927, 55–89).
In late 1841 Barnum persuaded a backer to buy a floundering five-story museum and allow him to run it. Renamed Barnum's American Museum (figure 1.4), it began to consume Barnum's life. The entertainment enterprise had featured—in addition to stuffed animals and fossils—contortionists, a banjoist, a lady magician, a lecturer on animal magnetism, a tattooed man, and similar acts (Harris 1973, 40). Barnum began to add even more remarkable exhibits. One was the so-called Fejee Mermaid, which Barnum billed as “the greatest curiosity in the world,” although he surely recognized that it was bogus from the beginning. His museum naturalist proclaimed as much, but Barnum was impressed at how closely it could be inspected without obvious signs of artifice. It was, in fact, a monkey's body grafted onto a fish (figure 1.5).
The inevitable accusations of trickery brought Barnum increased notoriety. He featured the Fejee Mermaid in his museum and then sent it on tour, exhibited alongside many genuine curiosities. Eventually there was a public outrage over the fake in South Carolina, and Barnum admitted that it was “a questionable, dead mermaid,” telling his partner in the venture, Moses Kimball, “the bubble has burst” (Harris 1973, 22, 62–67; Kunhardt et al. 1995, 40–43).
Barnum's affair with the little mermaid taught him important lessons about human nature. Although the saying “There's a sucker born every minute” is attributed to him, there is no proof that he ever said it, and indeed, it seems a bit too harsh for Barnum's nature. Instead, he observed that many people enjoyed being fooled, and he often quoted the poem Hudibras: “Doubtless the pleasure is as great / Of being cheated as to cheat” (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 43; Keyes 1992, 6–7).
In a subsequent endeavor, Barnum schemed to have his bearded lady accused of being a man, and a publicized medical examination helped boost both Barnum's credibility and his cash receipts. When one visitor asked whether an exhibit was real or a humbug, the showman replied, “That's just the question: persons who pay their money at the door have a right to form their own opinions after they have got up stairs” (Harris 1973, 67, 77).
Barnum exhibited increasingly diverse oddities—such as albinos, giants, dwarfs, and the Highland Fat Boys—along with ballets, dramas, magic shows, and “scientific demonstrations.” When he learned of a five-year-old midget in Bridgeport, Connecticut, named Charles Sherwood Stratton, Barnum arranged for his indenture, dubbed him “General Tom Thumb,” and took him on successful tours on both sides of the Atlantic. In England Tom won the heart of Queen Victoria, who led him by the hand around Buckingham Palace (Barnum 1927, 133-50). Tom Thumb would make Barnum rich and famous beyond his own dreams.
FIGURE 1.4. Barnum's five-story American Museum—with its exhibits of curios and human oddities and performers—anticipated the modern sideshow. (Contemporary illustration)
FIGURE 1.5. Barnum's Fejee Mermaid, proclaimed “the greatest curiosity in the world,” was actually a fake. (Contemporary illustration)
His 1850–1851 tour, featuring the melodious soprano Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” was another Barnum triumph (even though, after the ninety-fifth concert, her lawyers and managers persuaded her to pay a $25,000 penalty and continue on her own) (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 48, 92–102).
Meanwhile, Barnum continued to operate his American Museum until, at midday on July 13, 1865, a fire in the museum's engine room spread and consumed the building:
Desperate efforts were made to save animals, costumes, and some of the more valuable relics, but almost nothing was salvaged except the day's receipts, placed hurriedly in an iron safe by the treasurer, Samuel Hurd. As the animals, including snakes and a tiger, tried to flee the inferno, spectators panicked and some were injured in the crush. The whale tank was broken in an effort to douse the flames in the floors below, and the whales themselves were burned alive. When the statue of Jefferson Davis in petticoats, so recently installed by Barnum, was thrown through the window, spectators caught it and hanged it on a lamppost in Fulton Street. A few rare coins, the fat woman, the learned seal, and some wax figures and small animals were saved, but a collection valued by Barnum at more than four hundred thousand dollars (and insured for only forty thousand dollars) was totally destroyed. (Harris 1973, 169)
Barnum rebuilt on another site (he sold the first property to the New York Herald for an inflated sum) and called it the New American Museum. It featured many of the standbys, including General Grant Jr., the midget; Noah Orr, the Ohio giant; and Adelaide Powers and Adah Briggs, the fat ladies. Comments one source, “For the most part, only the names had changed” (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 196.) Alas, the New American Museum was short-lived, succumbing to another fire in March 1868. Barnum considered it the end of his career as a showman.
Then came the “discovery” of the Cardiff giant in August 1869. Believed to be an ancient petrified male colossus, a mysterious statue, or a clever fake, the huge curio drew controversy as soon as it was unearthed on a farm at Cardiff, New York. Displayed in a tent, with ticket sales booming, it came to the attention of P. T. Barnum. He naturally sought to buy it, but when he was rebuffed, he fashioned a copy and displayed it in New York as if it were the genuine stone figure. Actually, this was a hoax of a hoax, since the true story soon emerged: The conception was that of George Hull, who obtained a block of gypsum in Iowa, shipped it to Chicago for carving and artificial “aging,” and then transported it by train to a depot near Binghamton, New York. From there it was hauled to the farm site and buried. One year later, it was uncovered by men hired, supposedly, to dig a well (Stein 1993, 13–14; Kunhardt et al. 1995, 214).
The Greatest Show
In the autumn of 1870 Barnum struck a deal with Dan Castello, owner of the Dan Castello Show, and its manager (and part owner) William Cameron Coup. Barnum was to be senior partner, financing the venture and reaping two-thirds of the profits. Thus was born “P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, Hippodrome & Circus.” This was the biggest circus ever in America, although the showman viewed it as a resurrection of his museum, taken on tour (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 222).
Barnum, now sixty years old, did not travel with the show. However, he contributed more than his name, lending his genius for publicity to the enterprise. He sent the massive 100-wagon caravan on the road in 1871, and by the next year, the multiple-tent show was being billed as “Barnum's Magic City.” The tents were arranged so as to funnel customers inside—past such forerunners of the sideshows as his museum and menagerie tents—and on to the big top (hippodrome) itself. By this time, Barnum was already heading his advertisements with the phrase destined for history, “The Greatest Show on Earth!” According to one authority, “The golden age of circus had begun!” (Loxton 1997, 25; Kunhardt et al. 1995, 222–24, 229).
Although small circuses had experimented with rail transport in the 1850s, Barnum's great show also began to travel by train. At first, Pennsylvania Railroad cars were used, but they soon gave way to flatcars. These were purchased by the circus and utilized a ramp (invented by Coup) that allowed whole circus wagons to be on-loaded.
FIGURE 1.6. P. T. Barnum teamed up with competitor J. A. Bailey to give new life to the Greatest Show on Earth. (Circus exhibit, Ontario Science Center)
As Barnum's show continued to expand, so did its name. In 1873 it became “P. T. Barnum's Great Travelling World's Fair Consisting of Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, Hippodrome, Gallery of Statuary and Fine Arts, Polytechnic Institute, Zoological Garden, and 100,000 Curiosities. Combined with Dan Castello's, Sig Sebastian's and Mr. Atelie's Grand Triple Equestrian and Hippodrome Exposition”—the “Triple…Exposition” meaning a three-ring arrangement (Loxton 1997, 28; Granfield 2000, 23).
By 1875 both Castello and Coup had retired, and for the next five years Barnum's circus was operated by a syndicate. (It consisted of four circus speculators who became known as the “Flatfoots” because they “put their foot down flat” in claiming exclusivity for certain areas. To maintain control, they formed partnerships or bought up circuses.) In 1880 Barnum became a partner with his chief competitor, James A. Bailey (figure 1.6), and their celebratory parade in New York the next year featured almost 400 performers, 350 horses, 20 elephants, and 14 camels, plus 4 brass bands.
The following year Barnum & Bailey trumpeted their new treasure, the giant elephant Jumbo. Captured in Africa and acquired by the London Zoological Society, the beast had become temperamental, and the society finally decided to accept Barnum's offer of $10,000. Jumbo's ill temper disappeared with circus life, and the eleven-and-a half-foot-tall, six-and-a-half-ton giant was beloved by millions. Then in 1885 he was accidentally killed by an unscheduled express locomotive in Ontario. Barnum grieved briefly; he then decided to make two exhibits from Jumbo's remains: one the skeleton, the other the stuffed hide. When he learned that the skin could be stretched, Barnum gave orders for the mounted specimen to “show as large as possible” (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 278-81, 298).
About this time, Bailey assumed full control, and half the profits, of the circus. In 1889 Barnum accompanied Bailey on another trip to England, where he again met the queen. He died two years later, on April 7, 1891. The Boston Herald summed up his life: P. T. Barnum was “the foremost showman of all time” (Loxton 1997, 29; Kunhardt et al. 1995, 344).
James A. Bailey remained abroad for a five-year tour, while another Barnum & Bailey company continued to tour in the United States. On his return, Bailey found that he had a serious competitor, the Ringling Brothers.
The brothers (sons of German immigrant August Rungeling, who Americanized his name) were fascinated by the circus shows they had seen touring by boat on the Mississippi. In the 1870s the oldest had become a tightrope performer with a traveling circus, and in 1882 he persuaded four of his brothers to join him in forming the Ringling Brothers Classic & Comic Concert Company. They added a trick pig and used paint to transform old farm wagons into circus wagons.
By 1890 the Ringlings were touring small midwestern towns with a dozen rail cars. Mid-decade saw them encroaching into Barnum territory: New England. In 1905 they bought half of Bailey's interest in another enterprise, the Forepaugh Circus. When Bailey died two years later, the brothers purchased the entire Barnum & Bailey show for $410,000. The shows were operated separately until 1919, when the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circuses were combined into the world's largest circus.
Carnivals and More
Rivaling the circuses were other traveling shows that proliferated after the Civil War. Among these were independent productions that not only lacked the circus's central arena but also were designed for ease of travel. Joe McKennon, in his Pictorial History of the American Carnival (1972, 1:22), states: “The attractions carried by these showmen were not elaborate or pretentious. A trained domestic animal, a living freak of nature, a den of snakes, an act of magic or sleight of hand, or any other single attraction that could be presented in a small enclosure for an admission of five cents. In this enclosure, usually a piece of canvas side walling, the act was presented on the bare ground.” Such shows are exactly the same type as the one that traveled along the East Coast in 1719 and featured the “Lyon of Barberry” (McKennon 1972, 1:20), as well as similar shows stretching even farther back in time. They are forerunners of later sideshows, called pit shows (discussed in chapter 3).
Another type of noncircus outdoor entertainment of this period was the so-called medicine show. The snake-oil peddlers (recalling the mountebanks of medieval fairs) used a number of tricks and stunts. The larger traveling shows, employing advance men to herald their arrival, entered town with circuslike fanfare, typically with a band leading the procession of wagons. Skits and other diversions were used to attract audiences, who eventually were treated to the “lecture” (which, when medicine shows expanded into radio, became the commercial). Assistants who moved through the crowds were often garbed as Quakers to lend an air of moral respectability. Native Americans were frequently recruited to promote the notion of “natural” medicines, which were given names such as Wright's Indian Vegetable Pills, Seminole Cough Balsam, and various Kickapoo cures (Holbrook 1959, 196–215; Munsey 1970).
The fascinating story of one such Indian is told in Tracking Doctor Lonecloud by Ruth Holmes Whitehead (2002). Born Germain Bartlett Alexis, a Nova Scotian of the Mi'kmaq Indian tribe, he was given the name “Dr. Lonecloud” by “Texas Charlie” Bigelow and Colonel John Healey, proprietors of the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company. Lonecloud joined up with Healey and Bigelow sometime around 1880. He was paid $7 a week and was given clothing to wear (Indian garb of “buckskin and feathers”). He said in his memoir: “In the show, I lectured, sold medicine, and acted on the stage. All those daring shots. Bursting an apple or potato by shooting it while it was swinging, cutting a card in two edgeways across the hall…. I’d shoot and snuff the ashes out of a cigar while it was being smoked.” Lonecloud also helped to concoct the Kickapoo medicines and label the bottles.
He worked for other shows as well and sometimes struck out on his own, touring the Maritime Provinces and presenting medicine shows. In one, his future wife played Pocahontas and he played Captain John Smith. Another time, he says, “I got up a show again. I had medicine and three or four Indians, and we put on a show of old Indian ceremonies like Corn Dance and Medicine Dance.” Among his nostrums was a hair strengthener. To prove its efficacy, Lonecloud would let another Indian grasp his hair and swing around on it—or so it seemed. Actually, he had concealed beneath the hair a leather strap, secured to his body so as to hold the man's weight. Once when Lonecloud ran out of the tonic, he simply substituted tea in the bottles (Whitehead 2002, 33–34).
In addition to the medicine shows were larger productions. In 1883 William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody began his Wild West, Rocky Mountain, and Prairie Exhibition. “Though a touring show,” explains Loxton (1997, 29), “it was not a circus but presented real-life cowboys and ‘Red Indians,’ recreating their battles and stage-coach holdups along with demonstrations of trick riding and shooting in an outdoor arena where as many as 300 horsemen rode en masse.” (Dr. Lonecloud says that he was with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show for a winter at Madison Square Garden and at Coney Island afterward [Whitehead 2002, 64].) The Cody show was widely imitated, and many circuses copied the trend with their own “Wild West” features.
But the circus's main rival among outdoor amusements was the independent carnival, with which it is sometimes confused. Actually, a carnival is a traveling outdoor amusement enterprise—usually including rides, concessions, games, and sideshows—arrayed around a broad walkway. When the carnival is an adjunct to a circus, fair, or exposition, it is termed a midway because, as its name implies, it is located between the entrance and the big top (or pavilion), where the main entertainers perform. Essentially, then, a carnival is only a midway, which can be taken on the road or rail by itself (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1960, s.v. “Carnival”; Taylor 1997, 94).
The modern carnival midway was an outgrowth of the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. (This world's fair had been conceived to celebrate Columbus's “discovery” of America in 1492, and it was dedicated on October 21, 1892.) When it opened on May 1, George Ferris's mammoth amusement wheel was unfinished, as were many other projects, and food and drinks were as poorly provided as they were outrageously priced. Crowds were small, but business picked up after Ferris's wheel began to operate and the bad press was countered. This exposition would change fairgrounds entertainment forever.
Dubbed the “White City” (figure 1.7)—because of its temporary buildings with gleaming plaster facades—the fairgrounds had a mile-long entertainment promenade called the Midway Plaisance (or pleasant midway). This was a string of mostly international “villages,” such as the Irish Village, the German Village, and so forth, along with Ferris's wheel, a model of the Eiffel Tower, an electric scenic theater, an Egyptian theater featuring dancing girls, a recreation of a Cairo street, and many other exotic and impressive features (Shepp and Shepp 1893). According to McKennon (1972, 1:37), “There were only two or three attractions on the midway that could be likened to anything known in outdoor amusement business in America prior to 1893.” In addition to the Ferris wheel, there was Hagenbeck's Wild Animal Show, but it was contained in a modern pavilion (Shepp and Shepp 1893, 490–91).
Nevertheless, the spirit engendered by the Midway Plaisance continued. Independent showmen and concessionaires came together for the first time to work out solutions to common problems. Why not, they asked, create a traveling midway that would play smaller cities and towns? A theater scenic artist named Otto Schmidt persuaded a backer to fund such a trial enterprise in 1893 and again in 1895. Because both attempts were abortive, however, “Schmidt is not credited with being the first full-fledged carnival operator” (McKennon 1972, 1:47). Though true, that is the equivalent of saying that because the Wright brothers got off the ground only briefly in 1903, credit for sustained flight should really go to Alberto Santos-Dumont. (Who? He was a Frenchman who flew several hundred feet in 1906 [Lincoln Library 1946, s.v. “Airplane”].)
FIGURE 1.7. The main entrance to the 1893 Chicago world's fair proclaimed admission to the “White City,” as shown on this souvenir postcard. (Author's collection)
In fact, Otto Schmidt was financially successful in Syracuse, New York, in 1895. His Chicago Midway Plaisance Amusement Company featured shows copied from the original Midway Plaisance, such as Streets of Cairo and an Irish Village, plus Bostock's Trained Animal Arena, Old Plantation Minstrels, three illusion shows, Lee's Congress of Wonders, and more. There were no rides, but Schmidt had a shooting gallery and various concessions. Schmidt also had a one-ring circus, but obviously his enterprise was based on the midway, not the circus, model. Therefore, his little circus was just another traveling collection of shows.
In 1896 Frank Bostock and the Ferrari Brothers—all of them animal showmen from England—put together a midway company. It included a carousel and other rides and successfully played several fairs in New England (McKennon 1972, 1:4–49).
FIGURE 1.8. Postcard view of the midway at New York's Syracuse Fair, circa 1910–1920. In the center background are banner lines, and at the right, a Wild West show. (Author's collection)
However, it was not the large agricultural fairs (figure 1.8) that led to carnivals’ success but the aptly named street fairs. They had been operating in North America possibly as early as 1871, but they were not organized. Then in 1898 the Order of Elks of Akron, Canton, and Zanesville, Ohio, determined to produce cooperative street fairs in their respective cities. They formed a midway committee chaired by hotel keeper Frank W. Gaskill. The events were so successful that Gaskill also launched a carnival week in Alliance, his former hometown, in late fall. Although it rained all week, Gaskill managed to make a profit anyway. He returned to Canton and began to create what would become the “first successful traveling collective amusement company” (McKennon 1972, 1:53). He reasoned, “If I can make money in a bad town with a bad show in bad weather, what can I do in a good town with good weather and a good show?” Gaskill enlisted a contracting agent to begin establishing a route for 1899 and hired two men to assemble the midway.
Gaskill's resulting Canton Carnival Company managed to keep going each week. Whereas Otto Schmidt had had to expend a week's construction time at each show site, Gaskill used an advance man to see that necessary materials and labor were provided by the show's local sponsor. The advance man supervised the erection of banner frames, platforms, and stages. Thus, showmen could take down a show on Saturday night, load the canvas and other properties in railroad cars, and, on arrival in the next town, set up in a few hours and begin selling tickets (McKennon 1972, 1:55).
FIGURE 1.9. Button advertising a Missouri carnival in 1915, when organized carnivals were developing and expanding. (Author's collection)
On the heels of Gaskill's carnival came another. George Chartier, an exalted ruler of the Elks who had worked with Gaskill on the previous year's trio of street fairs, followed just two weeks later with his Exposition Circuit Company. These carnivals were soon copied by Frank Bostock (whose animal show had briefly been with Schmidt) and a partner. The Bostock Mighty Midway Company employed in-your-face competition; it played the biggest venues the other two shows had promoted, renting adjacent fields and offering free front-gate admission. (Such cutthroat tactics prompted Gaskill and Chartier to begin securing exclusive or “shut-out” contracts in their booked cities.)
By 1903 there were 22 touring carnivals playing street fairs and other “promoted dates,” every one of them traveling by railroad (figure 1.9). By 1969 there would be more than 600, selling over 15 million admission tickets. That same year in Toronto, at the Canadian National Exhibition (where I was working as a magic pitchman), Patty Conklin's midway grossed nearly $1.75 million during its short season (McKennon 1972, 1:47, 53–61).
All these various shows contributed to the sideshow, but we must consider what the term really means. If it refers to a show that is off to the side—that is, subsidiary to the main one—then the circus can have sideshows but the traveling carnival cannot. P. T. Barnum, who was apparently among the first to use the term (his is the earliest recorded instance in the Oxford English Dictionary [1971]), suggested another meaning. In 1855 he wrote in his autobiography, “In attending to what might be termed my ‘side shows,’ or temporary enterprises, I have never neglected the American Museum.” The “temporary” aspect would allow for carnival sideshows, but what about permanent sideshows, such as those at Coney Island?
I think the solution is to recognize that sideshow has come to mean “a show with the characteristics of a sideshow.” Although none of the dictionaries I consulted ascribes to this definition, I commend it to them. The next chapter describes more particularly what these characteristics are, together with the sideshows’ place in their typical home, the midway.