The Fitzgerald Brothers' Circus : spectacle, identity, and nationhood at the Australian circus

Abstract

Mobilising a diverse range of previously untapped primary sources that includes metropolitan and regional newspapers from Australia and New Zealand, colonial newspapers from Asia, pictorial evidence, manuscript letters, and performance ephemera, this book tells the story of the FitzGerald Brothers’ Circus, the first truly national and international circus of the Australasia region. Operating during a period of immense social and political change that encompassed events such as the emergence of the Australian Labor Party, widespread fiscal depression, crippling droughts, Australia’s Federation, the Boer War, and other international events that impacted Australia’s homeland culture, the FitzGerald Bothers’ Circus was regaled as the ‘national circus’ by people from both sides of the Tasman Sea. This book illuminates the circus’s role in shaping popular ideas about nationhood and the significance of the FitzGeralds’ Circus to Australian and New Zealand cultural history. Bringing to light the social, educational, scientific, political, and identity discourses that the circus articulated through its productions during a twenty-year period, this book makes a strong case for the coercive power of popular entertainments upon popular opinion. It also fills a gap in our understanding of how Australians and New Zealanders spent their leisure time, what enthralled and excited them, and what made them laugh