President\u27s Note

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, the nation\u27s biggest and best-known circus, will retire all of its elephants to sanctuary by the end of 2018

Economic Feasibility Study for Circus World

Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey was considering the development of a new winter headquarters near Orlando, Florida for its travelling units. The company was also considering a major circus themed attraction, tentatively called “Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus World referred to hereafter as Circus World that would feature circus shows and many other interesting and interesting facets of the Circus World both modern and historic that could not be presented by the travelling circus units. In 1972, Ringling retained the Economics Research Associates (ERA) to study the economic feasibility of Circus World, develop planning guidelines for its implementation, and analyze potential sites for it in the Orlando area. The resulting report gives ERA’s analysis of development. The report has the following sections: 1) introduction, 2) summary of major conclusions, 3) market analysis, 4) projected attendance and attendance patterns, 5) development of project planning guidelines, 6) financial evaluation, and 7) site location. The report includes 42 tables

History: The Birth of America in 1882

This article concerns a New York Times story about the birth of the female Asian elephant calf, named America, at the winter headquarters of the Greatest Show on Earth in Bridgeport, Connecticut on February 2, 1882. Phineas T. Barnum, one of the owners of the show, and one prone to self-aggrandizing bluster, claimed that America was the second elephant ever born in captivity. America was born only to months before the arrival in New York of the most famous circus elephant of all time, Jumbo, on Easter Sunday, 1882, and only two years before the origin of a small wagon circus run by the five Ringling (originally, Rüngeling) brothers from Baraboo Wisconsin

Animal abuse in the United States\u27 circus industry: A comparative case study analysis

The topic of animal abuse is a widespread, controversial issue within the United States. Animal abuse and neglect is commonly associated with food industry animals and domesticated animals; however, animal abuse is a problem within other industries, such as the circus industry. In particular, the circus industry is notoriously known by animal advocates for continuous violations to animal protection laws that hinder its animals’ welfare. Pressure by animals rights organizations and a growing public sentiment against the exploitation of circus animals, the industry has seen various changes in recent years including more stringent USDA enforcement and a transformation to programs that exclude animals entirely (most notably Cirque de Soleil). Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Cole Bros. Circus, and Carson & Barnes Circus have all experienced these changes while maintaining their animal performers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the prevalence of animal abuse in the industry and to draw conclusions to how the growing anti-animal movement is impacting the circus and vice versa with how a circus’s actions impact public perception via three comparative case analysis. This study seeks to determine where the circus industry stands in regards to animal involvement and what the future looks like

Aspirational circus glamour: rethinking the circus grotesque through female aerialists of the interwar period

This is the final version. Available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this record.In this article, the author challenges the designation of circus and circus disciplines, including aerial performance, as grotesque (Bakhtin 1984; Russo 1994). The term ‘glamour’ was used in interwar newspaper reports and more accurately describes circus in this period. The fundamental difference between the two concepts relies on the experience generated in the audience: glamour is aspirational whereas the grotesque provokes derision. It is likely they have been confused by scholars because both rely on transformation, excess and transgression. The author discusses these three principles to conclude how circus glamour works differently from the grotesque, including how glamour pushes at the boundaries of what is acceptable within the dominant culture rather than upturning the established order. The most aspirational of circus stars of the 1920s was the female aerialist whose aerial movement inspired a positive fantasy within audience members. By analysing aerial action alongside newspaper reports, memoirs, and publicity images that glorified aerialists Lillian Leitzel and Luisita Leers, the author argues that aerialists generated and were protected by affluent circus glamour.Doctoral research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number 1357957] and was supported by the STR’s Anthony Denning Award 2015

Aerial Stars: Femininity, Celebrity & Glamour in the Representations of Female Aerialists in the UK & USA in the 1920s and Early 1930s

The research conducted in this doctoral thesis was rewritten and published as ‘Female Aerialists in the 1920s and early 1930s: Femininity, Celebrity and Glamour’ by Routledge in November 2021. The book expands the ideas in this thesis by incorporating new scholarship, additional primary sources and new information on the aerialists Barbette and Winnie Colleano. It also includes new information on the contemporary significance of these artists that takes in changes in the industry and includes analysis of the celebrity singer and aerialist P!nk. The book is available via the DOI in this recordFemale solo aerialists of the 1920s and early 1930s were internationally popular performers in the largest live mass entertainment of the period in the UK and USA. Yet these aerialists and this period in circus history have been largely forgotten by scholars. I address this omission by arguing these stars should be remembered for how they contributed to strength being incorporated into some stereotypes of femininity. Analysing in detail Lillian Leitzel, Luisita Leers and, to a lesser extent the Flying Codonas, I employ a cross-disciplinary methodology unique to aerial scholarship that uses embodied understanding to reinvigorate archival resources. This approach allows me to build on the wider scholarly histories of Peta Tait, drawing important conclusions about the form including how weightlessness is constructed and risk is performed. In the introduction I re-evaluate the nostalgic histories of circus to establish circus’ and aerialists’ popularity in this period, before exploring how engagements shaped careers. Chapter 1 considers the difference in experiencing aerialists in the USA and UK by bringing together previously unrelated data on circus, variety and vaudeville venues. Aerialists made good celebrities because their acts, located above audience members’ heads, challenged the conventional relationship between ticket prices and sightlines. Chapter 2 explores how the kinaesthetic fantasy evoked by experiencing aerial action created glamour and how glamour had the power to reframe femininity in the 1920s. Glamour and celebrity have often been confused and Chapter 3 distinguishes the two before considering what characterises aerial celebrity. Reconfiguring Joseph Roach’s public intimacy as skilful vulnerability allows me to analyse how risk was gendered and performed in relationship to skill. The gendering of risk leads me to consider what in society contributed to aerial stardom by drawing upon Richard Dyer’s argument that celebrities embody a cultural ambiguity. Female aerialists reframed their femininity in a similar way to women who aspired to the modern girl stereotype in wider society. In the final chapter I expand on the activity of the modern girl, comparing strategies used by young exercising women to female aerialists. This enables me to draw conclusions about how witnessing these stars tapped into national ideas of citizenship, and to designate aerialists as the first to use the power of glamour to make muscular femininity acceptable.AHR