Thursday, August 28, 2008

Wooden Bull Tubs


Scan10628, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Good morning Buckles,
Thank you so much for sharing those great Fred Alispaw-Sells Floto photos they are the best.
Now i noticed in those old circus photos that they used a wood elephant tub like old barrels they used back then with the metal straps around them to keep them from coming part at the seams.
When did they start using the metal tub's like we have today????
Those wooden tubs better have been built heaver than heck to hold all that weight.
Thanks as always for the great photos we all enjoy.
Harry Kingston



"Here is a picture of the same elephants presented by the original trainer Chris Zeitz about 1905 when the show still used the Great Floto title.
These might even be the same tubs, notice the rope handle. No idea when metal tubs came into use, maybe the same time as steel railroad cars.
Smokey told me that the Adele Nelson elephants had tubs like these when they came to the Dailey Show. The bands were made of brass and Reed would have him shine them up before the act each day.
They were carried on top of the pole wagon and one morning while unloading, one of the big top hands tossed one down and shattered it. Ben was so mad he replaced them with double heavy iron tubs and told Ralph Noble, "See if you can break these!."
Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 8/28/2008 10:45:00 AM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You will see basically the same sort of wooden tubs with polished brass bands and rope handles in use with the Lockhart elephants on Ringling in the 1890s. One photo in the 1897 route book includes a gigantic tub about fout feet tall and five feet diameter at the base. Another smaller tub was placed on it to gain the height desired for the posing. The big tub had three or maybe four wooden attachments around the top circumference, presumably so that it could be sort of "square-rolled" into the ring and not just roll in circles. I doubt that any prop man, no matter his size and strength, could have held it canted at an angle and strongarmed it in and out of the ring by the hand over hand rolling on edge method that is commonly used today. Other elephant acts on Great London, Forepaugh and other shows in the 1870s and 1880s used giant tubs and stacked them to achieve the height desired. These are represented in newspaper, herald and courier engravings, and lithographs.

All this raises a question: what's the earliest photograph, of any type, of an American elephant act, posing in or out of the ring in other than a line?

28 August, 2008 20:16
Anonymous said...

When wooden (usually wine)barrels became less obtainable and varied too much in size metal props were made.
Adaline

28 August, 2008 21:21
Philip Astley said...

The Lockharts mentioned of Ringling's fame are Sam and Harry. George Lockhart, their elder brother, didn't use wooden tubs with his "Cruet" (the subject of my son's book "The Legend of Salt and Sauce") 1902-1904. He what looks like a metal wood construction. They were octagonal shaped and slightly oval. These were kept by the elephants next owner, Captain Joe Taylor. It wasn't until John Swallow purchased the elephants in 1922 from Taylor that the tubs were changed to the wooden barrell type, the subject of discussion. He then eventually changed these to the familiar looking elephant tubs of today. This was probably in 1934 when he and Ivor Rosaire created a new routine called The Tableau Act.

All of this is outlined in detail in our book "The Legend of Salt and Sauce".

Bertram Mills bought six elephants from Hagenbeck before World War II and these all came in wooden barrell type tubs, which they kept until the late '40s. I remember seeing one of these tubs and they were incredibly heavy and quite difficult to roll. In fact, they had hand holes in them so I presume they used to carry them in originally.

Jim Clubb

29 August, 2008 09:55

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