Charles H. Day’s Ink From A Circus Press Agent: An Anthology of Circus History, compiled and edited by William L. Slout
Copyright © 2005 by William L. Slout. All rights reserved.
The press agent of way back represented the circus. It was the circus manager who discovered the publicity promoter and the best use of advertising. It was related that at an early date a high-class English arenic organization appeared under cover in New York and that the exhibition was accompanied by a gentleman of literary gifts, of the famous Cooke family, who still hold prominent places in equestrian amusements on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. Cooke’s mission was to “look after the newspapers.”
The press agent best known to fame was the original and impressive individual, Phineas Taylor Barnum. He was initiated into the business by the Turners, pioneer circus managers, who early in their career made Danbury, Conn., their headquarters and place of residence. Later, Barnum represented the Bowery Theatre, New York. Years afterward, while conducting the American Museum, he gave his personal attention and pen to booming his enterprise and was in close touch with the famous journalists, James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, and Gen. Webb. During Barnum’s entire career he was ever writing or suggesting and was particularly strong in cards, statements and proclamations. As to the work of his enlisted professional writers, he was an excellent judge and a severe critic. One season, when the big show was under the direct management of James A. Bailey, a great amount of copy for publication of distribution matter was prepared in New York by two of the best arenic scribes in the business and the entire mass of manuscript was forwarded to Bridgeport for the inspection of the head of the Greatest Show on Earth. The two writers had written without consultation, and each had cut loose with his best assortment of adjectives and assertions. The copy came back forthwith with the significant hint:
“Please lie with some sort of uniformity.”
John Tryon, a printer, became a circus manager and his own press representative and bill writer, and he was one of the best bill writers that ever edited a program. (Some of the work of Seth B. Howes has never been surpassed.) For many years he boomed the arenic enterprises of James E. Kelley and associates, remaining in New York and preparing the advertising ammunition which was supplied the advance of the several enterprises. In event of opposition, Mr. Tryon appeared on the spot to thwart the enemy.
Dr. Richard P. Jones was in high repute with circus managers and, of a winter, he was in demand to boom the minstrels, the men in black being warm competitors. Jones was learned in many things and, being diminutive, was familiarly known as the “Little Doctor.” It was he who invented the famous Adam Forepaugh trademark of “4-Paw,” used by that showman to so much advantage.
Charles Gayler was a versatile man of commanding presence. He was educated for the law but got into the sawdust through writing for the “Flatfoots“ for many years. Gayler was novelist, dramatist and journalist and made himself famous in fitting J. K. Emmett, the Dutch comedian, with several German plays.
Jabes Johnson was a humorist who wrote as U. B. Dam. He went out to California when the Golden State was new with Nixon & Castello.
William Adams was a fine writer - no better in the lot. Fortunately for himself, he joined the staff of the New York Sun and for years he was the right-hand man of Charles Dans. No proposal ever tempted him to again go with the red wagons. On his death, Mr. Dans paid him a particular tribute. He wrote of him as a journalist: “We have known as good, but none better.”
Fred Lawrence was a writer of ancient memory, who for decades served the “Flatfoots“ and was connected with Adam Forepaugh for many seasons. As good as they made them, Fred was a pessimist of direct type and was always filled with foreboding and a tale of woe. When he prophesied bad business, the show turned away people. His prognostications always amused Adam Forepaugh, if verbal. If written, he delegated a deputy to read the communications. One day Fred turned up with the show in an Ohio town and met the manager at the front door.
“What are the prospects?” asked Forepaugh.
“Bad. You can’t get a plug of Gravely tobacco in town.”
Chester Clarence Moore was a typesetter in Albany. He was credited with writing some red hot stuff for a scarifying sheet called The Lash. Dr. Spalding had a quarrel on with Dan Rice. The Doctor got Moore to write Rice down. Rice hired Moore to write up “Pills.” And thus the war waged until the duplicity of Charles Clarence Moore was discovered. Moore was a practical joker, regardless of consequences. A delegation of Irishmen visited the New York Circus to hire the spotted horses for a Saint Patrick’s Day parade. “Chet” impersonated Mr. Lent and promised them the horses. There was the deuce to pay when the party came after the calico steeds on Saint Patrick’s Day in the morning.
George J. Guilford served the “Flatfoots“ and “Old” John Robinson for many seasons. Guilford could write but was born tired and remained fatigued all his days. Peter Sells was wont to illustrate George’s failings with an anecdote. Meeting him in Cincinnati one day, the scribe of the sawdust struck the arrival for the loan of a twenty. Peter was agreeable and produced the note. The lethargic Guilford did not clutch it with the anticipated avidity, he only drawled: “Put it in my vest pocket, please.”
William C. Crum was a cousin of Dan Rice and wore spinach on his chin the same as the Colonel. He attempted the role of performer while with Rice and was so popular in the company that they threw a pillow into the ring for him to alight on in somersaulting. He was a religious fanatic and while with Adam Forepaugh attempted to cut out the manager’s Sunday advertising.
A. P. Newkirk was humorous and original and could keep his end up in a circus war. The VanAmburgh party thought highly of him.
Fred Hunt was one of the old guard. He wrote an extended biography of Dan Rice, the Colonel supplying the facts and footing the bill, but [it] never saw print.
Charles Stow, poet and epigramist, was at one time editor of Dan Rice’s newspaper, the Cosmopolite, published at Girard, Pa. For years Stow was James A. Bailey’s favorite bill writer.
William W. Durand, before he wrote circus literature, was city editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, under the control of the talented George D. Prentiss. Durand was a close contractor for advertising space. One day he ran up against an unusually tough customer, who claimed [a] seven thousand circulation.
“What did you say was the name of your sheet?” William W. inquired.
“Truth,” was the reply.
“Change it,” exclaimed Durand.
John A. Wood wrote his circus literature with a view of attracting the attention of the farmer and was quite happy in the rural vein.
John H. Murray informed the writer that there was a Charles Day, press agent, in the business years before Charles H. came to the front.
This relation appertains to the ancient and honorable, only, and does not include even that lively young fellow, “Tody” Hamilton, who, with his brother Jack, appeared later on. The press agents of way back were a clever lot, although their thrifty employers looked upon them as [being] regardless of the value of money and disinclined to put aside a dollar for a rainy day and, as a class, so many grown up children with the literary gift.
The scribes rode over the pike with the route agent and principal contractor ahead of the “good old wagon show” and endured many hardships in fatiguing journeys in all sorts of weather. In the eastern and middle sections of the country the drives were not so long and were endurable; but, in the sparsely settled South and the new West, patience and fortitude were put to the test. The hotel accommodations of the day were primitive and the best of taverns was none too good.
The managers of the shows were ever hunting up new territory, the country was expanding westward, and the circus kept close on the heels of the tenderfoot. The red wagon was never far behind the prairie schooner of the pioneer and the newspaper man was prompt to get to the front and grow up with the country.
Winters, some of the shows went South and the press agents took a course of course hog and hominy instead of hibernating at Bartlett’s Hotel in the New York Bowery or Sam Miller’s Showman’s Home in Philadelphia.
On tour, the first of the press agents encountered many dangers of the crude highways, especially when benighted in storm and stress of the elements. Little [did they] dream that there would come a day when the press agent of the tent show would glide along the rail in a palace advertising car instead of plugging over the road in a top buggy. The early scribes were fulfilling their mission in blazing the way that greater things might grow out of their earnest endeavors in behalf of the show they loved to extreme infatuation. As one of the enthusiasts exclaimed:
“I had rather advertise the circus than edit the London Times.”
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without written permission of William L. Slout and the Circus Historical Society, Inc.
Last modified December 2005.