Ringling_Barnum_KITTY_CLARK_&_HORSE_(1949)

Ringling_Barnum_KITTY_CLARK_&_HORSE_(1949), originally uploaded by bucklesw1. From Chris Berry Sixty Years ago today - Sept 19, 1949 - "The Greatest Show on Earth" rolled into Sacramento California for a late summer engagement under the Big Top. This poster, advertising that show, features the beautiful Kitty Clark (who I don't believe was with the show that season) and is based on a photograph by Maxwell Frederic Coplan, who also took the iconic photo of Lou Jacobs that was used as a poster to advertise Ringling-Barnum from 1944 until well into the 1970s. Coplan, along with circus advance agent Bev Kelley, also produced the circus picture book "Pink Lemonade" in 1945. In interesting note regarding the season of 1949. In the Route Book that year, Frank Braden correctly foretold the future of the show when talking about some of the innovations of that season, he wrote: "Another factor, one of long range Big Show policy, was the trend toward exhibitions in civic auditoriums, as in Oakland where the circus used the city's Auditorium Center — its Exposition Building to house the sideshow layout, the midway, the front door and the elephant lines, with the menagerie corralled between the building and the big top, looming large in the sun on its huge parking lot beyond. It was an unforgettable end-to-end layout, as grand a sight as San Francisco from the Bay, where again the show jammed the spacious Cow Palace for four days. Further manifestations of the indoor trend were the 2-day October engagement in San Antonio's brand new Coliseum, officially opened by the Big Show, with the city and the circus joining in state-wide fanfare, and the 6-day stand in St. Louis' Arena in early November, an important departure from routing precedent in that the circus detoured from Memphis to make it and then leaped backward to Nashville to resume its normal Fall itinerary." Here are some other statistics from that long-ago season: Length of Season, Exhibition Days, 214 Total Number of Performances, 415 Performances Given Indoors, 103 Madison Square Garden, New York, 65 Boston Garden, Boston, 12 Cow Palace, San Francisco, 10 Coliseum, San Antonio, 4 Arena, St. Louis, 12 Performances Given Under Canvas, 312 Length of New York Engagement, Days, 33 9 Day Stand, Chicago, 1 6 Day Stands, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, 3 5 Day Stands, Washington, Los Angeles, 2 4 Day Stand, San Francisco, 1 3 Day Stands, Providence, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Miami, 7 2 Day Stands, 12 1 Day Stands, 95