For Tyler and Ryan…who loved the Circus so much they couldn't stop talking about it all the way home. They had lots of questions for me: Does the lion trainer ever get hurt, what was my favorite show, how long does it take to train the animals. And they wanted to know when the Circus was invented and my who. I didn't have all the answers but told them I would find out when we got home...so that's what I did and this is what I found out.
The history of the Ringling Brother and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American circus company. The company was started 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.
What distinguished the Ringling Brothers Circus from others was its honest and fair attitude toward the public. Unlike other small circuses of the time, Ringling Brothers would not allow ticket sellers to short change customers, nor did they allow games of chance such as Three Card Monte and shell games on their lots. This reputation for clean dealing and good value brought them success, and soon they were able to make the leap into the ranks of railroad circuses.
In 1889 two of the Ringlings went to Philadelphia where they purchased railroad cars and parade equipment from Adam Forepaugh, a venerable showman with a show on the road since 1864. With this change in transportation the circus was no longer limited to moving only 15 to 20 miles a night, and could now skip the really small towns that contained a limited audience in order to play larger towns day after day, therefore, greatly increasing the average revenue.
Barnum entered the circus business, the source of much of his enduring fame, at age 61, establishing "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome", a traveling circus, menagerie and museum of "freaks", which by 1872 was billing itself as "The Greatest Show on Earth". Barnum was the first circus owner to move his circus by train, and the first to purchase his own train. Given the lack of paved highways in America, this turned out to be a shrewd business move that enlarged Barnum's market.
He was born James Anthony McGuiness in Detroit, Michigan. Orphaned at the age of eight, McGuinness was working as a bellhop in Pontiac, Michigan when he was discovered by Fred Harrison Bailey (a nephew of circus pioneer Hachaliah Bailey) as a teenager. Bailey gave McGuiness a job as his assistant and the two traveled together for many years. James Anthony eventually adopted Bailey's surname to become James A. Bailey. Bailey later associated with James E. Cooper and, by the time he was 25, he was manager of the Cooper and Bailey circus. He then met with P.T. Barnum and together they established Barnum and Bailey's Circus (for which Bailey was instrumental in obtaining Jumbo the Elephant) in 1881. In 1919, Barnum and Bailey's joined with the Ringling Brothers to form the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
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