What’s this?

BY LAURA WOLFF SCANLAN

The first circus in America was held in 1793 in Philadelphia and attended by George Washington. But it wasn’t until the nineteenth century, with the arrival of the railroad and the marketing prowess of impresario P. T. Barnum, that circuses became the most popular form of public entertainment, performing in small towns across the country.

“The circus was the all-rolled-together, live entertainment equivalent of television, radio, movies, National Geographic, Las Vegas, the rodeo, and the zoo,” says Sara Johnson, director of the Southern Ohio Museum and Cultural Center in Portsmouth. When the circus arrived in town, regular life paused. Locals would turn out at dawn to greet the arrival of wagons carrying lions and tigers, while a parade of jugglers and clowns and ornate horses pranced down the street. At the train depot, townspeople would spend hours watching exotic animals descend from the railroad cars. On the midway and under the big top, spectators watched sword swallowers, tightrope walkers, trapeze artists, and trained lions.

“It delivered what must have seemed like the whole world to the ordinary, humdrum doorsteps of small-town America for a thrilling, exotic, electrifying day or two,” says Johnson.

Through January 6, 2010, the Southern Ohio Museum hosts “Sawdust and Spectacle: Under the Big Top in Small Town America,” tracing the history of the traveling circus from its heyday in the late nineteenth century to its decline in the 1930s. The exhibition features works from Portsmouth native Clarence Carter and other Ohio artists, as well as vintage posters, sideshow banners, and toys. Events include lectures, a book discussion, a film series, educational programs, a public presentation by arts troupe Cirque d’Art Theatre, and Sonny King spinning stories of his childhood summers on the rails and under the big top with his father.

	Circus Detour by Paul Travis, 1945. —Private collection

With the onset of World War I, the Great Depression, and new technology, the circus’s popularity began to wane. “The entertainment voids that the circus filled during its golden age were eventually satisfied on a daily basis with the advent of radio, television, and movie houses,” says Johnson.

Yet Johnson believes the circus still holds the power to evoke wonder. “Because of this project, I suddenly can’t get enough information about this amazing phenomenon known as the traveling American circus. Like audiences a century ago, I am wide-eyed with disbelief and curiosity, stunned by its stories and bedazzled by its magic. I have fallen completely under its spell.”