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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Barnum & Bailey clowns 1900's #2
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12 comments:
These two photos are a great comparison to see together.
Very good job here with these two pictures Buckles. Maybe more before and after pictures would be interesting.
THANK YOU!
Interesting that no one in the photo is wearing slapshoes. The earliest pictures I've seen of clowns in "Clown Shoes" are of Slivers Oakley and Al Miaco.
Al may have also invented the beach ball rear-end so closely identified with Felix Adler.
By the 20s everyone seems to be wearing them so they must have come abought just after the time this photo was taken.
Anyone know for certain just who it was who introduced the "rrrrreally big shoes"?
These guys look like tumblers and appear to be dressed alike as tho they were ready to do comedy knock-about act in a display.
This might account for no slap shoes.
OK, folks, let's have a little help with this one. They were up there in Rochester, NY, for many years. I'm trying to say they were Griffin Theatrical Shoes. Is that the name? Clowns bought from them for decades. They never liked the shoes from Lester, in Chicago. Hubert Castle bought wirewalking shoes from Rochester. It seems they closed or changed hands, or what did they do?
I don't know what happened to Griffen but my guess is that they are no longer in business.
The big shoe dealers now are Wayne and Marty Scott (for the pros and those in the know) out of Howie-in-the-Hills, FL, Clown-So-Port in Oconomowoc, WI and Spear's Novelty Shoe Co. in Springfield, MA.
Pat, I get the MOOSEBURGER news letters. I know you must be familier with them. I think I read something about those large shoes there. I only save elephant and tiger news letters so I am not too sure just when I read this info.
The earliest use of the oversize clown shoes is attributed to the English-born clown Billy Hayden, who first performed in 1865 with Pablo Fanque's circus, supposedly worked for Brnum, and then spent many years in France. Several sketches of him in various style oversize clown shoes appear in an 1890 book, Acrobats and Mountebanks. Hayden was the pioneer talking clown and developed the large bustle which, in one turn, had a dwarf clown inside so his bustle ran away from him. Like Felix Adler, he kept a pet performing pig.
The Griffin Theatrical Shoe Co. was located in Rochester and established in 1882 by James R. Griffin. His son Raymond and later a grandson both continued the business of making acrobatic and wire-walking boots as well as comedy boxing gloves. In 1980, I had the founder's great-grandson at the Smithsonian demonstrating the craft of clown shoe making. By then it was a side job for the young fellow who wanted to at least keep alive the family tradition but he was, as I reall, about two years behind on orders. I remember that some of the clowns who participated in the program I produced (including veterans Lou Jacobs, Mark Anthony, and Bobby Kay) were all eager to check on the status of orders for themselves and friends! I imagine Griffin is long out of business.
Dick Flint
Baltimore
Just an FYI if anyone is interested.Griffins grandson is named John Buckholtz,Jr - it still shows an address at 628 Seneca Rd
Rochester NY 14622. That was the original workshop but I do not know if they are still making shoes.
Buckles if you think it inappropriate to have an address posted, pull it and just give it to Pat Cashin for legitimate inquiries. Thanks
clc
Anon,
Thanks for the info! I'm headed to Rochester this weekend for the NY Fair Convention and will look him up.
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