The Life She Was Given

The modern circus draws inspiration from many forms of entertainment, including the Circus Maximus of ancient Rome, where horse-drawn chariots raced along a large track and gladiators battled wild animals, and Philip Astley’s horseshows in the Royal Amphitheatre in 18th-century England. It wasn’t until the 18th century that performances associated with the circus, including acrobatics, clowning, and menageries, came together under one roof to form the entertainment audiences know today. In the 19th century, important Industrial Revolution inventions like the steam engine helped to turn the circus into a wildly popular attraction, as trains could carry the show from town to town.

For the better part of a century, the circus reigned as the most popular form of entertainment in the US. After the financial crash of 1907, two major circus companies merged, creating the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, dubbed “The Greatest Show Earth,” which toured as two separate acts for over a decade and enjoyed a monopoly. Entire towns would celebrate the circus arriving in town, with schools shutting down and banks closing so that townspeople could attend parades and watch the big top tent being set up. As Janet Davis explains, “for isolated American audiences, the sprawling circus collapsed the entire globe into a pungent, thrilling, educational sensorium of sound, smell and color, right outside their doorsteps” (Davis, Janet M.