Spectacles

1970 · 85356 — Washington DC New York Slocum: Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows Inc. and Slocum House Exclusive Publisher 1970. Presumed first edition/first printing thus. Wraps. Good. Ira Shareff Photographer. Format is approximately 10.25 inches by 13.5 inches. Unpaginated approximately 100 pages. Illustrations many in color. This 100th anniversary production was entitled The Circus of a Lifetime. Includes articles on "From Canvas to Concrete"; "The First One-Hundred Years of The Greatest Show on Earth"; The Way it Looks Back There; and Bobby Kay shows you how To Put on Make-Up. Caroline and Martin have colored on the Hey Kids! You can color this page. From Wikipedia: "Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. In 1871 Dan Castello and William Cameron Coup persuaded Barnum to come out of retirement to lend his name know-how and financial backing to the circus they had already created in Delavan Wisconsin. The combined show was named "P.T. Barnum's Great Traveling Museum Menagerie Caravan and Hippodrome". As described by Barnum Castello and Coup "had a show that was truly immense and combined all the elements of museum menagerie variety performance concert hall and circus" and considered it to potentially be "the Greatest Show on Earth" which subsequently became part of the circus's name. Independently of Castello and Coup James Anthony Bailey had teamed up with James E. Cooper to create the Cooper and Bailey Circus in the 1860s. The Cooper and Bailey Circus became the chief competitor to Barnum's circus. As Bailey's circus was outperforming his Barnum sought to merge the circuses. The two groups agreed to combine their shows on March 28 1881.12 Initially named "P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth And The Great London Circus Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United" it was eventually shortened to "Barnum and Bailey's Circus". Bailey was instrumental in acquiring Jumbo advertised as the world's largest elephant for the show. The company was started in 1919 when the circus created by James Anthony Bailey and P. T. Barnum was merged with the Ringling Brothers Circus. The Ringling brothers purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907 but ran the circuses separately until they were finally merged in 1919. In 1957 John Ringling North changed the circus from using their own portable tents to using venues such as sports stadiums that had the seating already in place. In 1967 Irvin Feld bought the circus but in 1971 he sold it to Mattel. He bought it back in 1982. The moniker "Greatest Show on Earth" was added later." Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, Inc. and Slocum House [Exclusive Publisher] paperback