Download or read book The Greatest Show on Earth written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures. *Highlights Barnum's entertainment career and transition into the circus. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. "We bring you the circus - that Pied Piper whose magic tunes lead children of all ages into a tinseled and spun-candied world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter; whirling thrills; of rhythm, excitement and grace; of daring, enflaring and dance; of high-stepping horses and high-flying stars. But behind all this, the circus is a massive machine whose very life depends on discipline, motion and speed - a mechanized army on wheels that rolls over any obstacle in its path - that meets calamity again and again, but always comes up smiling - a place where disaster and tragedy stalk the Big Top, haunts the back yard, and rides the circus train - where Death is constantly watching for one frayed rope, one weak link, or one trace of fear. A fierce, primitive fighting force that smashes relentlessly forward against impossible odds: That is the circus - and this is the story of the biggest of the Big Tops - and of the men and women who fight to make it." - Opening remarks from the film The Greatest Show On Earth!, a drama set in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Americans have loved traveling circuses for generations, and none represent the country's love for entertainment quite like the most famous of them all, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The five brothers who started a circus in Wisconsin, as well as P.T. Barnum, have had their names become synonymous with the circus, so it's only fitting that the manner in which these men entered the business and the merging of their traveling circuses together also make for great stories. Circus promoters have long been viewed as somewhat shady hucksters, but none could top P.T. Barnum, who used a blend of traditional circus entertainment, freak show exhibits, and outright hoaxes to create "The Greatest Show on Earth". Barnum introduced America to Jumbo the Elephant, one of the most legendary acts in the history of the circus, as well as "exhibits" like Joice Heth, an elderly African American woman Barnum advertised as a 161 year old who nursed George Washington. He also notoriously perpetrated hoaxes with General Tom Thumb and claimed to have a live mermaid, so it's no surprise that Barnum is often apocryphally quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." While he didn't actually say that, he said something similar: "Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public." Around the same time that Barnum was operating the Barnum & Bailey's circus, the Ringling Brothers were engaging in more traditional circus activities in Wisconsin. As their traveling circus became better known in the late 1880s, it was advertised as the "Ringling Brothers United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal European Menagerie, Museum, Caravan, and Congress of Trained Animals". The Ringling Brothers were eventually successful enough that they were able to buy Barnum's circus after Barnum had already died, and they merged the traveling circuses together in 1919. The Greatest Show on Earth: The History of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus examines the origins of the famous circuses, the background of the important individuals involved, and their merger into the most famous circus of all. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about "The Greatest Show on Earth" like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book The Circus Kings written by Henry North and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-08-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Circus Kings, first published in 1960 and authored by a nephew of the original Ringling Brothers, is a fascinating insider's account of circus life and lore. From humble beginnings in Baraboo, Wisconsin, the Ringling family would go on to create "The Greatest Show on Earth," delighting audiences across America. Along the way, however, were the behind-the-scenes financial struggles, tragedies such as fires and labor strikes, legal battles, and changing entertainment tastes. Henry Ringling North ran Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from 1936 to 1967, along with his older brother, John. Included are 18 pages of photographs.
Download or read book Truevine written by Beth Macy and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.
Download or read book Battle for the Big Top written by Les Standiford and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Les Standiford takes us under the big top and behind the curtain in this richly researched and thoroughly engaging narrative that captures all of the entrepreneurial intrigue and spirit of the American circus.” —Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Devil in the Grove Millions have sat under the “big top,” watching as trapeze artists glide and clowns entertain, but few know the captivating stories behind the men whose creativity, ingenuity, and determination created one of our country’s most beloved pastimes. In Battle for the Big Top, New York Times–bestselling author Les Standiford brings to life a remarkable era when three circus kings—James Bailey, P. T. Barnum, and John Ringling—all vied for control of the vastly profitable and influential American Circus. Ultimately, the rivalry of these three men resulted in the creation of an institution that would surpass all intentions and, for 147 years, hold a nation spellbound. Filled with details of their ever-evolving showmanship, business acumen, and personal magnetism, this Ragtime-like narrative will delight and enchant circus-lovers and anyone fascinated by the American experience.
Download or read book Ringmaster written by Kristopher Antekeier and published by Dutton Adult. This book was released on 1989 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Untamed written by Gunther Gebel-Williams and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 1991 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life story of a world-class German circus performer.
Download or read book Barnum written by Robert Wilson and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Robert Wilson’s Barnum, the first full-dress biography in twenty years, eschews clichés for a more nuanced story…It is a life for our times, and the biography Barnum deserves.” —The Wall Street Journal P.T. Barnum is the greatest showman the world has ever seen. As a creator of the Barnum & Baily Circus and a champion of wonder, joy, trickery, and “humbug,” he was the founding father of American entertainment—and as Robert Wilson argues, one of the most important figures in American history. Nearly 125 years after his death, the name P.T. Barnum still inspires wonder. Robert Wilson’s vivid new biography captures the full genius, infamy, and allure of the ebullient showman, who, from birth to death, repeatedly reinvented himself. He learned as a young man how to wow crowds, and built a fortune that placed him among the first millionaires in the United States. He also suffered tragedy, bankruptcy, and fires that destroyed his life’s work, yet willed himself to recover and succeed again. As an entertainer, Barnum courted controversy throughout his life—yet he was also a man of strong convictions, guided in his work not by a desire to deceive, but an eagerness to thrill and bring joy to his audiences. He almost certainly never uttered the infamous line, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” instead taking pride in giving crowds their money’s worth and more. Robert Wilson, editor of The American Scholar, tells a gripping story in Barnum, one that’s imbued with the same buoyant spirit as the man himself. In this “engaging, insightful, and richly researched new biography” (New York Journal of Books), Wilson adeptly makes the case for P.T. Barnum’s place among the icons of American history, as a figure who represented, and indeed created, a distinctly American sense of optimism, industriousness, humor, and relentless energy.
Download or read book The Circus Age written by Janet M. Davis and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-10-15 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Ringling written by David C. Weeks and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 1993-10-01 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Nicholas Ringling's years in Sarasota spanned the final quarter-century of his life. On Florida's west coast, as the Ringling's Circus became "the greatest show on earth," he collected Baroque paintings, European decorative art, and Italian statuary, built the ostentatious mansion Ca'd'Zan, developed and marketed most of the barrier islands around Sarasota Bay, and became the focus of a confusing pastiche of acclaim, misconception, and suspicion. Sarasota's Ringling Museum is his priceless cultural legacy to the people of Florida and the world of art--an inheritance at risk for the ten years that Ringling's estate was in probate. The author of this first intensive look at Ringling's presence in Sarasota sets the man against the backdrop of Florida from World War I through the land boom and the turbulent twenties into the depression years and Ringling's lapse into obscurity. Illustrated with nearly fifty black-and-white photographs, many never before published, this is the chronicle of a man, as the foreword claims, "who was not afraid to think or live on a grand scale, who knew what he wanted from life, and from art."
Download or read book The Circus Fire written by Stewart O'Nan and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed author of Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of tragedy and heroism—the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. It was a midsummer afternoon, halfway through a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus performance, when the big top caught fire. The tent had been waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline; in seconds it was burning out of control. More than 8,000 people were trapped inside, and the ensuing disaster would eventually take 167 lives. Steward O'Nan brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of survivors, O'Nan skillfully re-creates the horrific events and illuminates the psychological oddities of human behavior under stress: the mad scramble for the exits; the perilous effort to maneuver animals out of danger; the hero who tossed dozens of children to safety before being trampled to death. Brilliantly constructed and exceptionally moving, The Circus Fire is history at its most compelling.
Download or read book The Circus written by Earl Chapin May and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1932 edition.
Download or read book The Hartford Circus Fire written by Michael Skidgell and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019-04-08 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through firsthand accounts, interviews with survivors and a gripping collection of vintage photographs, author Michael Skidgell attempts to make sense of one of Hartford's worst tragedies. Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the "Greatest Show on Earth" quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, the tent collapsed on those still struggling to escape below. A total of 168 lives were lost, many of them children, with many more injured and forever scarred by the events. Hartford and the surrounding communities reeled in the aftermath as investigators searched for the source of the fire and the responsible parties.
Download or read book Ringlingville USA written by Jerry Apps and published by Wisconsin Historical Society. This book was released on 2013-01-07 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ringling Brothers began their business under the most modest of circumstances and through hard work, business savvy, and some luck created the largest, most famous circus in the world. They became wealthy men, one 50 cent admission ticket at a time. Ringlingville USA chronicles the brothers' journey from immigrant poverty to enduring glory as the kings of the circus world. The Ringlings and their circus were last studied in depth over four decades ago. Now, for the first time, the brothers' detailed financial records and personal correspondence are available to researchers. Jerry Apps weaves together that information with newspaper accounts, oral histories, colorful anecdotes, and stunning circus ephemera and photos, many never before been published, to illuminate the importance of the Ringlings' accomplishments. He describes how the Ringling Brothers confronted the challenges of taxation, war, economic pressure, changing technology, and personal sorrows to find their place in history. The brothers emerge as complex characters whose ambition, imagination, and pure hucksterism fueled the phenomenon that was the Ringling Brothers' Circus.
Download or read book CIRCUS DOCTOR written by J. Y. HENDERSON and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tents Tigers and the Ringling Brothers written by Jerry Apps and published by Wisconsin Historical Society. This book was released on 2006-09-06 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the life of the Ringling brothers as they created the most spectacular circus in America.
Download or read book Reggie written by Donald Hepner and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-06-12 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fall of 1968 Reggie Montgomery attended and graduated from the first clown college in the United States. In 1969 he performed throughout the country with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was the first black clown in history of the modern circus in the United States. This book tells the story of Reggie as a clown, including his successes along with the racial barriers he faced and the racial discrimination he suffered.
