Tuesday, July 28, 2009

From Chris Berry


It's now been 128 years since "P. T. Barnum's Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome" played its first date back in April of 1871, but more amazing to me is the fact that it has now been 90 years since the season of 1919 when the Ringling Bros combined their show with the Barnum & Bailey circus! With an estimated 75,000 Americans now 100 years old or older - there are a lot of people still living who, though their memories may have dimmed, might have seen that first combined Ringling-Barnum circus. Some of them no doubt on hand for performances during late July of 1919 as the new combined show was traveling throughout Ohio and lower Michigan - the trains arriving in Detroit for a two-day stand 90 years ago today - July 28, 1919.

This poster is another great example of existing artwork being modified to announce the combined show of 1919. This particular bill is a two sheet (approx 56"x42"). The top one-sheet of the clown graphic was originally copyrighted and used by Ringling Bros during the 1915 season. When the combined shows were announced, the artists at Strobridge created the "Barnum & Bailey" lettering for the bottom half and blended some shading so that the two lithos could be fixed together - announcing the title of the larger "Greatest Show on Earth" on an even larger poster.

Posted by Buckles at 7/28/2009 10:21:00 AM

9 comments:

Ole Whitey said...

Chris:

Show them that Sells-Floto litho you have using this same artwork.

I assume it was from long before the two shows were under the same ownership?

How do you like it out west?

28 July, 2009 11:20
Richard Reynolds said...

Note that Ringling is called a “Circus” but B&B is not.

This calls to mind complaints occasionally aired to the effect that nowadays RBBB eschews the word “circus” when it ought to be proud of it.

Rarely, if ever, did B&B call itself a circus in it advertising. Always the GSOE. Even its equipment was painted as “Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth.” Little wonder, since it had used that trade name since 1872, and it was so brand identified in the mind of the public that it did not need to add “circus.”

In fact Barnum himself is said to have been of the view that he did not want his show pegged a "circus" because of the negative connotations that word conjured up in the minds of much of the 1870s public. In his mind his enterprise was grander than a “circus.”

As it ascended the size and success ladder, the separate Ringling show abandoned much of its use of “circus” in favor of the phrase “World’s Greatest Show.” That was a rather transparent coat tailing on the famous name of its rich eastern rival - -one that, today, would have the intellectual property lawyers out in force.

Even after the merger and the resulting RBBB, we find more use of the phrase “Combined Shows” than “Combined Circus,” at least on the rail cars and wagons. A review of my own photo collection (admittedly not as comprehensive as that of others), indicates that “Combined Circus” was used only in the early years of Gumpertz rule beginning in 1933.

So, as far as name branding goes, there is really no need for the present RBBB to call itself a circus, no more than Coca Cola needs to explain that its famous drink is a soda pop.

Re equipment - - I find it interesting that in the pre merger days, many Ringling baggage wagons had no title at all on their sides whereas those of B&B were more apt to bear the name and famous slogan. Perhaps we see the Ringlings’ famous frugality at work here.

When I saw the show beginning in 1937, almost all the RBBB baggage wagons carried the full title on their sides. What a lot of hand painting that entailed!

28 July, 2009 13:10
4pawfan said...

May have taken a while to realize the valve of these moving billboards traveling from the runs to the lot. The public wouldn't question which circus was in town that day with "Ringling Bros.and Barnum & Bailey" painted on the sides of them. You will also see the railroads adding more signage to their freight cars from the 1900's to the 1920's also.

28 July, 2009 15:06
Chris Berry said...

In response to Richard's comment about "Combined Circus" vs. "Combined Shows"...from an outdoor advertising perspective you're absolutely right. The posters took on the "Combined Circus" moniker during the Gumpertz years in the early 30s. I have often wondered if it was a legal decision based on the fact that the original corporation was in receivership during that period and maybe "Combined Circus" was a new entity created to separate the company from its past financial problems. Meantime, the posters that John Ringling North commissioned from Strobridge for the 1938-39 seasons (Gargantua, Frank Buck, Pilades, Hubert Castle, Terrell Jacobs, Nepal, etc) all say "Combined Shows". Those posters printed by Strobridge were the last lithos ever produced for Ringling-Barnum that carried the "Combined Shows" title. It should be noted that also during the seasons of '38 and '39 there were still a variety of Erie Lithos with the "Combined Circus" title (both window and wall work) that was carried on the car. In the 40s and 50s "Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus" (without "Combined") was used on the posters - or just the title "Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey". The subtitle "The Greatest Show on Earth" has also been used in a variety of forms on posters - but most visually over a rendering of a globe..usually in blue, but occasionally in red or yellow.

28 July, 2009 17:49
Anonymous said...

World's Greatest Shows was implemented in 1891, long before the brothers ever thought about buying the Greatest Show on Earth.

The RBBB incorporation caused by Kelley et al in 1932 may explain in some ways the change from Combined Shows to Combined Circus in the title. "Combined Shows" has a better ring to it than "Combined Circuses," which would have been the other choice for 1919. By 1932 it was all one and the same show, so they went with simple the singular "circus."

29 July, 2009 08:49
Anonymous said...

As Reynolds points out, "circus" has been an identifying term that was denied by many showmen, including Barnum, with euphemisms abounding throughout the 19th century. Yet, ticket buyers knew exactly what they were going to see in the ring---what they wouldn't see in their local communities---and if they didn't their post-performance actions usually spoke loud and clear. Today, "circus" can mean almost anything to the public, from a carnival to a legislative political body, or a Jim Rose operation to something on stage by Britney Spears. That's a real problem for anyone building their brand, and future, on the word "circus."

Also consider that it was the "World's Greatest Shows" and the "Greatest Show on Earth" being combined in 1919, neither subtitle including the word circus; thus, "Combined Shows" also made more sense than "Combined Circuses."

Feld/RBBB considers itself to be an "arena show," a brand separate and apart from a "circus." Thus, abandonment of the ring, the very item that originated the name for the genre, has been abandoned without a second look. The same for Soleil, which may never had had a ring (the experts can chime in), and only in rare instances trained animals (yes, in Europe, at least once).

Considering extended title paint jobs, the all time worst candidates include: the 1881-1887 P. T. Barnum' Greatest Show on Earth and the Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and so on; the 1909-1913 Two Bills "Show" with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Combined With Pawnee Bill's Great Far East; the 1935 Hagenbeck-Wallace and Forepaugh-Sells outfit; the 1937-1938 Al G. Barnes Sells-Floto combination; and surely others the boys that specialize in paper history will offer up.

For the most modernistic and novel title simplification, I'd nominate Sells-Floto in 1914-1915, when baggage wagons were without titles, bearing only a red bullseye, indicative of the star attraction in the persona of William F. Cody. The itinerant painters hired to apply paint weren't challenged in Denver in those two years.

"Billboard reefers" that decorated the railroads for a number of years with their visual beauty came to an end under federal law. They were about the only railroad vehicles, other than specialty trade and commerce cars that ever approached the grandiose artwork applied to pictorial-style railroad advance cars.

29 July, 2009 10:01
Anonymous said...

Don't have my law book close at hand, but "Capitive Service" cars could keep their Billboard type frt cars. Example being "Swift Meats", "Kellogg",etc. The railroads couldn't place advertising on general service cars. These rules may also apply to trucks today.

29 July, 2009 12:02
Richard Reynolds said...

I examined the John Kelley papers in the Parkinson Library including the incorporation documents for the new (July 1932) RBBB corporation.

The full correct corporate name was “Ringling Bros.- Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, Inc." - - not Circus

29 July, 2009 13:41
Anonymous said...

I just saw the RBB&B Blue show last night. While the offical spiels avoid 'circus' ("May all your days be Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey days!"), several of the songs written just for the show, and sung by the Ringmaster & his backup singers, refer to the performance as a Circus.

30 July, 2009 16:01

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