Saturday, February 01, 2014

Our Founder!


Posted by Buckles at 2/01/2014 09:15:00 AM

2 comments:

Chic Silber said...


Dan Rice (1823-1901) - President Lincoln's Court Jester
Dan Rice was the first truly great American clown

He and President Lincoln were good friends, He was called the President's court jester

Dan Rice was an accomplished animal trainer. He specialized in pigs and mules, which he trained and sold to other clowns

His costume consisted of red, white, and blue-striped tights, a star-spangled cloak, a top hat and chin whiskers

This regalia would later be associated with "Uncle Sam"

01 February, 2014 11:06
Unknown said...

Yes, Dan Rice (1823-1900) was America's first great clown. However his fascinating life is regularly swamped by old fictions, mistakes, and flat-out lies that get repeated in biographies and histories.

Rice was NOT friends with Lincoln. They may have known each other but Rice spent the early Civil War expanding his political commentaries in the ring into attacks on Lincoln and his "Black Republican" policies. He used those attacks, again in the circus ring, to appeal to Democrats and Southern-sympathizing Copperheads as he ran for the Pennsylvania State Senate. (He lost but ran ahead of the Democratic ticket.) Later Rice ran briefly for Congress, and briefly but legitimately for president of the United States.

The Lincoln fiction evolved out of two historical changes. First, as the North won the Civil War, Rice had to distance himself from his partisan attacks, which he did by claiming — falsely — that he'd counseled his good buddy Abe on the mood of the country. Second, the whole idea of clown shifted late century from an adult amusement, telling dirty jokes and talking politics, to kiddie fare. Once that shift occurred, it didn't seem plausible that a clown would have complained about a politician. Much more comfortable was the notion that Rice must have been Lincoln's friend.

Rice did present some of the most remarkable trained animals of his day. He started touring alone with a trained pig, and most of his circuses had a pair of comic mules. He added Excelsior, a stair-climbing horse; Old Put, the first trained rhinoceros since ancient Rome (correct, Mr. Reynolds?); and Lalla Rookh, an elephant claimed to walk a tightrope. (Buckles thinks not, I think so because no one at the time claimed that it was a humbug.) However it's not clear whether Rice trained those animals or, like Barnum, took credit for what others did.

Dan Rice was not a direct model for Uncle Sam. Thomas Nast, who drew the final form of the figure we know today, was an ardent Republican who would not have consciously used a famous Democrat like Rice for his model. On the other hand, Rice was a truly national figure, one of the few, and his costumes — both the striped tights as a clown, and his middle-class coat and tie as "The Great American Humorist" — coalesed in that image of Uncle Sam we know now, particularly with the grace note of the goatee, Rice's nationally famous trademark.

David Carlyon

02 February, 2014 11:19

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