Loans from the Barnum Museum illustrate the breadth of his endeavors, from his early years with Barnum’s American Museum to his triumphant entry into the circus business in the early 1870s. Lent, were transforming the circus business in the United States, no figure was more important to the New York’s emerging popular entertainment industry than Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891). Although a succession of influential impresarios, such as Dan Rice and Lewis B. By mid-century, more permanent circus venues featuring a mix of equestrian, animal, and acrobatic acts were established. In the decades that followed, a variety of transitory circuses and menageries sprang up to entertain the burgeoning population.
This story began in the fall of 1793, when John Bill Ricketts, a Scotsman, opened the first circus on Greenwich Street with performances that primarily consisted of displays of equestrian skill. The exhibition begins by looking at how the advent and growth of the American circus paralleled New York City’s rise as a cultural capital during the nineteenth century. By the turn of the twentieth century, New York City was its most important market and the place where cutting-edge circus performances and exhibitions were introduced to the nation. From humble beginnings, the circus grew into the most popular form of entertainment in the United States. Through a wide variety of ephemera, images, and artifacts, the exhibition documents the history of the circus in the city, from the seminal equestrian displays of the late eighteenth century through the iconic late nineteenth-century American railroad circus to the Big Apple Circus of today.
“A compelling look at how New York City influenced and inspired this iconic form of American popular entertainment.”įrom September 21, 2012, to February 3, 2013, the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture (BGC) will present Circus and the City: New York, 1793-2010, an exhibition that uses New York City as a lens through which to explore the extraordinary development and spectacular pageantry of the American circus.
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