Saturday, January 31, 2009

Ringling Bros. Worlds Greatest Shows #10


Scan11260, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Corral menagerie.

Posted by Buckles at 1/31/2009 06:06:00 AM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buckles may be able to answer this one - -

Why do we see so many photos of elephants in the center of menageries around this time? It seems to have been done on both Forepaugh-Sells and Ringling.

Off hand I think most of the pics of such on RB that I’ve seen are in sidewalled menagerie set ups like this one. However, I have some of F-S with the bulls down the middle of the menagerie tent.

It would seem to be rather dangerous with folks behind the animals as well as in front. Cleaning up behind them would also have been more difficult. Also when they had to be taken out, they had to cross the public walkway and find a way between the cages around the perimeter.

If you look closely at the very back of this photo you can see that Egyptian flavored hippo den (facing the camera). It, like the rhino wagon with proscenium arch, was built for the 1903 season.

31 January, 2009 14:47
Buckles said...

I have wondered about that myself.
Not only is this arrangement clumsy but it invites the elephants rub on the center poles and chew on the fall ropes.
The only thing I could imagine, is that it might make it easier and quicker to spot and remove the cages.

31 January, 2009 15:26
Anonymous said...

Any idea where these photos were taken? Looks as if menagerie is in a street. Perhaps, those are the backs of the buildings shown, but they sure look, to me, they might well be the fronts.

31 January, 2009 15:55
Anonymous said...

Ringling at Vancouver, British Columbia, August 16, 1913. The cages are in their parade order. You can see a much rebuilt cottage cage of 1898 leased-John Robinson heritage, #76 lion cage in white, tiger cage #65 with the Roman soldier [one of which is preserved]. This season was covered in a "Bandwagon" article by Fred Pfening Jr., supplemented with later comments by Richard J. Reynolds III.

Maybe a changed date or lack of a suitable lot in the big city forced the show to use this cramped site. There probably wasn't room to set up the menagerie, thus the sidewall. Good thing it didn't rain.

Otto Ringling once suggested that the show should buy a nice plot of land in every major city, so that there'd always be a lot to hold them. Too bad they didn't take up the idea.

01 February, 2009 09:31

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