Download or read book Trouble Under the Big Top written by Jürgen Banscherus and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2007 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Circus Zampano comes to town and strange things start happening during the juggling act, Klooz is hired to investigate.
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 Elephant Story written by Les Harding and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The newspapers called him "Overshadowing Monarch Mastodon," "Behemoth of Holy Writ" and "Prodigious Mountain." He was the main event at the greatest show on earth: Jumbo, at around 6-1/2 tons and almost 12 feet tall, the biggest elephant anyone had ever seen. Jumbo's mere presence in the Barnum, Bailey and Hutchinson circus guaranteed an additional $3,000 a day in box office receipts. More of an exhibit than a performer, Jumbo was simply paraded around the three rings. But still the people came, just to marvel at the size of this monster pachyderm. This work traces Jumbo's capture in East Africa, his life in the London Zoo, the controversy over his sale for $10,000 to American showman P.T. Barnum, his journey across the Atlantic, his life as the most famous attraction in Barnum's circus, and his tragic death in a railway accident in Canada in 1885.
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 Big Top Burning written by Laura A. Woollett and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Literacy Association Award Winner for Intermediate Nonfiction 2016 Eureka Children's Book Honor 2016 On July 6, 1944, thousands of fans made their way to Barbour Street in Hartford, Connecticut, to see the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performance. Not long after the show's start, a fire broke out and spread rapidly as panicked circus-goers pushed and scrambled to escape. Within 10 minutes the entire big top had burned to the ground, and 167 people never went home. Big Top Burning recounts the true story of one of the worst fire disasters in US history. It follows the tragic stories of the Cook family—including children Donald, Eleanor, and Edward, who were in the audience that day—and 15-year-old Robert Segee, a circus employee with an incendiary past. Drawing on primary sources and interviews with survivors, author Laura Woollett guides readers through several decades of investigations and asks, Wasthe unidentified body of a little girl nicknamed"Little Miss 1565" Eleanor Cook?Was the fire itself an act of arson—anddid Robert Segee set it? Young readers are invited to evaluate the evidence and draw their own conclusions. Combining a gripping disaster story, an ongoing detective and forensics saga, and vivid details about life in World War II–era America, Big Top Burning is sure to intrigue any history or real-life mystery fan.
Download or read book Murder Under the Big Top written by Heather Haven and published by Wives of Bath Press. This book was released on 2019-04-14 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Silver IPPY for Best Mystery Novel 2014. Up and coming circus performer, Jeri Deane, finds a young clown strangled inside a beloved lion's cage. The town sheriff's threat to close down the Big Top won't stop her from finding his killer. Beneath the spangles and sawdust of the canvas sky, Jeri uncovers deceit, treachery, and secrets more dangerous than any death-defying trick in the circus. Even she has much to hide. If the Big top survives the season, will she be able to face her own hidden past? Heather Haven is the daughter of real-life Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus folk. Her mother was a trapeze artist/performer and father, an elephant trainer. Heather brings the daily existence of the Big Top to life during World War II, embellished by her own murderous imagination.
Download or read book The Big Tent written by Gregory J. Renoff and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many people, the circus, with its clowns, exotic beasts, and other colorful iconography, is lighthearted entertainment. Yet for Greg Renoff and other scholars, the circus and its social context also provide a richly suggestive repository of changing attitudes about race, class, religion, and consumerism. In the South during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, traveling circuses fostered social spaces where people of all classes and colors could grapple with the region’s upheavals. The Big Tent relates the circus experience from the perspectives of its diverse audiences, telling what locals might have seen and done while the show was in town. Renoff digs deeper, too. He points out, for instance, that the performances of these itinerant outfits in Jim Crow-era Georgia allowed boisterous, unrestrained interaction between blacks and whites on show lots and on city streets on Circus Day. Renoff also looks at encounters between southerners and the largely northern population of circus owners, promoters, and performers, who were frequently accused of inciting public disorder and purveying lowbrow prurience, in part due to residual anger over the Civil War. By recasting itself as a showcase of athleticism, equestrian skill, and God’s wondrous animal creations, the circus appeased community leaders, many of whose businesses prospered during circus visits. Ranging across a changing social, cultural, and economic landscape, The Big Tent tells a new history of what happened when the circus came to town, from the time it traveled by wagon and river barge through its heyday during the railroad era and into its initial decline in the age of the automobile and mass consumerism.
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 The Greatest Shows on Earth written by Linda Simon and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2014-11-12 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beautifully illustrated and filled with rich historical detail and colorful anecdotes, this is a vibrant history for all those who have ever dreamed of running away to the circus, now in paperback. “Step right up!” and buy a ticket to the Greatest Show on Earth—the Big Top, containing death-defying stunts, dancing bears, roaring tigers, and trumpeting elephants. The circus has always been home to the dazzling and the exotic, the improbable and the impossible—a place of myth and romance, of reinvention, rebirth, second acts, and new identities. Asking why we long to soar on flying trapezes, ride bareback on spangled horses, and parade through the streets in costumes of glitter and gold, this captivating book illuminates the history of the circus and the claim it has on the imaginations of artists, writers, and people around the world. Traveling back to the circus’s early days, Linda Simon takes us to eighteenth-century hippodromes in Great Britain and intimate one-ring circuses in nineteenth-century Paris, where Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso became enchanted with aerialists and clowns. She introduces us to P. T. Barnum, James Bailey, and the enterprising Ringling Brothers and reveals how they created the golden age of American circuses. Moving forward to the whimsical Circus Oz in Australia and to New York City’s Big Apple Circus and the grand spectacle of Cirque du Soleil, she shows how the circus has transformed in recent years. At the center of the story are the people—trick riders and tightrope walkers, sword swallowers and animal trainers, contortionists and clowns—that created the sensational, raucous, and sometimes titillating world of the circus.
Download or read book Big Top Bandit written by John Sazaklis and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2021 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Come one! Come all! Barnstorm's Big Top Circus is in town, and Scooby and the Mystery Inc. gang can't wait to see it! But thanks to the Ghost Clown, things under the big top are a big mess. Can Scooby-Doo and the gang put an end to all the funny business and save the circus? Find out in this early chapter book.
Download or read book Ben s Adventures written by and published by . This book was released on 2019-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fall of the Big Top written by David Lewis Hammarstrom and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-11-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once an eagerly awaited spectacle, the traveling circus--that miracle of red wagons, trumpeting elephants and spangled trapeze artists that slipped into town at dawn and disappeared by midnight--has all but vanished from the American landscape. This work explores circus history from 1793 to the present and addresses the forces of modern culture (such as the popularity of Cirque du Soleil, and pressure from the animal rights movement) that are pushing big top shows toward what the author calls "circus ballet." Numerous photographs and in-depth interviews conducted with show owners, performers and directors enrich the narrative. Overall, the book reveals a sobering contrast between circuses of yesterday and today, even as it honors the outstanding performers who created, and have sustained, the enduring appeal of the circus.
Download or read book Life Is in the Transitions written by Bruce Feiler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller! A pioneering and timely study of how to navigate life's biggest transitions with meaning, purpose, and skill Bruce Feiler, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, has long explored the stories that give our lives meaning. Galvanized by a personal crisis, he spent the last few years crisscrossing the country, collecting hundreds of life stories in all fifty states from Americans who’d been through major life changes—from losing jobs to losing loved ones; from changing careers to changing relationships; from getting sober to getting healthy to simply looking for a fresh start. He then spent a year coding these stories, identifying patterns and takeaways that can help all of us survive and thrive in times of change. What Feiler discovered was a world in which transitions are becoming more plentiful and mastering the skills to manage them is more urgent for all of us. The idea that we’ll have one job, one relationship, one source of happiness is hopelessly outdated. We all feel unnerved by this upheaval. We’re concerned that our lives are not what we expected, that we’ve veered off course, living life out of order. But we’re not alone. Life Is in the Transitions introduces the fresh, illuminating vision of the nonlinear life, in which each of us faces dozens of disruptors. One in ten of those becomes what Feiler calls a lifequake, a massive change that leads to a life transition. The average length of these transitions is five years. The upshot: We all spend half our lives in this unsettled state. You or someone you know is going through one now. The most exciting thing Feiler identified is a powerful new tool kit for navigating these pivotal times. Drawing on his extraordinary trove of insights, he lays out specific strategies each of us can use to reimagine and rebuild our lives, often stronger than before. From a master storyteller with an essential message, Life Is in the Transitions can move readers of any age to think deeply about times of change and how to transform them into periods of creativity and growth.
Download or read book Under the Big Black Sun written by John Doe and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to hardcore punk as it's never been told before. John Doe of the legendary band X and co-author Tom DeSavia have woven together an enthralling story of the legendary West Coast scene from 1977-1982 by enlisting the voices of people who were there. The book shares chapter-length tales from the authors along with personal essays from famous (and infamous) players in the scene. Through interstitial commentary, John Doe "narrates" this journey through the land of film noir sunshine, Hollywood back alleys, and suburban sprawl. Illustrated with 50 rare photos, this is the story of the art that was born under the big black sun.
Download or read book Under the Big Tree written by Ellen Agler and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Powerful stories of the debilitating effects of neglected tropical diseases throughout the world, highlighting the successes and challenges of those fighting to eliminate them. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect over one billion of the world's poorest people. More than 170,000 people die from NTDs each year, and many more suffer from blindness, disability, disfigurement, cognitive impairment, and stunted growth. Yet NTDs are treatable and preventable, and the annual cost of treatment is incredibly low. In Under the Big Tree, public health leader Ellen Agler and award-winning writer Mojie Crigler tell the moving stories of those struggling with these diseases and the life-saving work that can be—and has been—done to combat NTDs. They introduce readers to people from all walks of life—from car washers in Lake Victoria and surgeons on motorbikes to under-resourced local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and Big Pharma scientists—as they chronicle what has been called the largest public health program in the world. On the one hand, the solutions are simple: deliver medication to people who need it and leverage local systems to offer prevention, treatment, and education. On the other hand, solutions are complex: navigating local and national politics, delivering treatment to some of the most remote, vulnerable communities, and coordinating global and local donors, international NGOs, thousands of health workers, and millions of citizens. Drawing on interviews with major players in the NTD world who share their cutting-edge research and frontline experiences, Under the Big Tree is a moving introduction to the science, the tactics, and the partnerships working to address these terrible diseases that affect the most vulnerable people in the world. With a foreword by Bill Gates, this book fascinates, inspires, and gives readers concrete steps for further engagement.
Download or read book Agnes Under the Big Top written by Aditi Brennan Kapil and published by Samuel French, Incorporated. This book was released on 2012 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Agnes Under the Big Top: A Tall Tale " explores the intersecting lives of several immigrants in a US city. It is a magical tale of hope and disappointment, identity and reinvention, narrated by an itinerant subway busker. Against the subterranean rhythms of a subway train, a Liberian home care worker, a former Bulgarian ringmaster and his wife, an Indian call center escapee, and a bed-ridden American woman, find and redefine themselves in today's America.
Download or read book Under the Big Top written by Josh McMullen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the Big Top examines the immensely popular big tent revivals of turn-of-the-twentieth-century America and develops a new framework for understanding Protestantism in this transformative period of the nation's history. Contemporary critics of the revivalists often depicted them as anxious and outdated religious opponents of a modern, urban nation. Early historical accounts likewise portrayed tent revivalists as Victorian hold-outs, bent on re-establishing nineteenth-century values and religion in a new America. In this revisionist work, Josh McMullen argues that, contrary to these stereotypes, big tent revivalists actually participated in the shift away from Victorianism and helped in the construction of a new consumer culture in the United States. How did the United States became the most consumer-driven and yet one of the most religious societies in the western world? McMullen shows that revivalists and their audiences reconciled the Protestant ethic of salvation with the emerging consumer ethos by cautiously unlinking Christianity from Victorianism and joining it to the new, emerging consumer culture. Under the Big Top helps to explain the continued appeal of both the therapeutic and the salvific worldview to many Americans as well as the ambivalence that accompanies this combination.
