The Intelligence of the Old-time Circus Managers

The Intelligence of the Old-time Circus Managers. His Business Ability Was Way Above Par And, For Enterprise, He Was In Advance Of The Majority Of The Mercantile Community; In His Way, An Explorer And Pathfinder. Billboard, November 9, 1907. Published a month after Day’s death.

The old-time circus managers were, as a whole, men of character and more than ordinary ability and conducted their business honorably and aboveboard. Their travels at home and abroad gave them an education not to be found in books. Exploiters and explorers, they assumed risks and profited thereby. They faced dangers on the seas and in the wilds and the Star of Empire never moved so far west that it failed to have a circus wagon hitched to it. And these same old-time circus managers showed the American flag on a center pole in about every inhabitable spot on earth and still pined for the showman’s unrequited, insatiable desire - ”new territory.”

The old-time circus managers in this country, it may be said, discovered advertising. Who ever took any noticeable space in a newspaper until after the circus made the experiment and demonstrated the profit and the possibilities? Who appropriated the poster to his purpose and adopted it as almost solely his own? The old-time circus manager. Who first, last and all the while believed in printing ink, in the distribution of the handbill, not only locally but for miles and miles around the place of exhibition? The old-time circus manager. Who first employed men of literary ability to prepare their announcements and secure publicity in the newspaper? The old-time circus manager.

And while these same old-time circus managers were ever alert and venturesome, the representative merchants and men of commercial interests were a rather slow lot and not a bit ready to risk their dollars in enterprise or exploitation. In fact, the old-time merchant believed it was beneath his dignity to advertise; so he sat in his counting room and waited for customers to come, as his father and grandfather had done before him. The merchants were a half century behind the circus managers of the time in appreciating and appropriating the increasing methods of publicity discovered and developed by the showmen.

Even the theatrical managers were slow to learn or pattern after the tenters; and it was decades after before the slumbering directors of the drama woke up and realized that the world had moved and that they had not moved with it. The theatrical manager, in time, came to follow in the wake of the circus manager but his step was slow and he was ever very far behind in the promotion of publicity.

The cheapening of the process of poster printing by the discovery of the use of the pine block gave a general impetus to circus business and advertising. Joseph Morse, the inventor, had his hands full, as he was both artist and engraver.

And now, something of the manner of men who were the pioneers in the circus business in the United States and developed it as fortune favored and capital accrued. They were not an uncouth, ignorant lot, did not wear loud clothes, chew plug tobacco, and unloose an oath every other word as they have often been pictured in imaginative literature. They were men of affairs; and as for practical knowledge of the general condition of finance and trade throughout the country, they were the best posted people in the land. It would never do to take a circus into a section that was not prosperous; and the old-time circus manager rarely made any mistakes in the selection of profitable territory.

And now let some of these heroes of the sawdust arena of yore pass in review: Turner, who left the shoe-maker’s bench to become an innovator in the circus line and induct P. T. Barnum in the sawdust; Barnum, the writer, the humorist, lecturer, and most famous of showmen; Nat Howes, who put the top on the tent; Seth B. Howes, who sent out the first golden chariot drawn by twenty horses. This same Mr. Howes was always the prime mover in the organization of large enterprises and an extensive importer of wild animals. He was also instrumental in touring a magnificent American circus in England with the cream of the Yankee performers in the ring.

The first of the “Flatfoots,” the progenitors of the later tribe who succeeded to the heritage, were financiers of great ability. They set out to monopolize the menagerie business and came well nigh doing it. They also aimed to syndicate the shows. June, Titus & Angevine and their associates were making good progress with the scheme when the panic of 1837 made the merging of interests impossible. And this was many years before the time of Rockefeller, Hill, Gould, and Harriman.

General Rufus Welch went in strong for expensive spectacles. In his tours, “the world was an oyster;” and he visited many lands and also made a venture in the importation of wild animals in opposition to the “Flatfoot“ trust. Lewis B. Lent, a manager of culture, travel, and wide information, founded the famous “kid glove show,” the New York Circus. Levi J. North accumulated a fortune in the ring and on the road, built an amphitheatre in Chicago in 1856, and became an alderman of that growing burgh. P. T. Barnum represented Bridgeport in the Connecticut legislature and also served his city as mayor. “Old” John Robinson ran for mayor of Cincinnati but failed of election.

Dr. Gilbert B. Spalding was one of the brightest of the old-timers. He invented the use of quarter poles, eleven tier seats and extra front seats; and with his associate, Charles J. Rogers, put a “Floating Palace” on the Mississippi River and also the water minstrel hall, called “The Banjo.” Rogers, who was originally an equestrian, was a polished gentleman of the old school but not so aggressive as his pushing, demonstrative partner.

Isaac A. VanAmburgh, the Lion King, got his fill of glory at home and abroad. Stone, Rosston & Murray were managers of worth and gentlemen in all that word implies. Hyatt Frost was a sterling character, a wit, humorist, and versifier who could find lots of fun in an ink bottle. O. J. Ferguson, many years an associate with Mr. Frost and the VanAmburgh party, [was] a linguist and a show writer of no mean ability. Col. Dan Rice, the most popular clown, who, having no early advantage of education, under the inspiration of Van Orden, the press agent, took to the books and made good his deficiencies.

John J. Nathans, during his career as manager and performer, visited a good part of the world and for many years participated in many ventures in about every land under the sun. He was one of the latter day “Flatfoots,” headed by Avery Smith, whose name was never used in connection with any show of which he was part owner. George Fox Bailey of Danbury, Conn., [must also be mentioned]. The Turners made Danbury a circus town and Mr. Bailey - not to be confounded with James A. Bailey, the great - was the son-in-law of a Turner. When the “Flatfoots” ran the Barnum show, George F. Bailey was the manager.

Many managers [who] have made the “last stand” and for whom the band has played “Home, Sweet Home” - for they are at rest - might be classed as old managers. Adam Forepaugh, Ephriam, Allen and Peter Sells, W. C. Coup, several of the younger associates of P. T. Barnum, and even James A. Bailey are not to be included in this important reminder of those who actually created the American circus. The circus as it was born in a topless tent, without seats, and exhibiting but once a day, grew under the skillful directions of its managers to become the great popular amusement for decades, whose one ring was plenty. [Then], the prodigious innovations of millionaire managers had not been made to present at every performance, at enormous expense, an army of performers in the presence of a world of people.

Taking into consideration all the conditions, the original American circus managers, under the lead of the Turners, the Howes, Raymond & Waring, [and] the “Flatfoots,” made rapid progress in the enlargement and the improvement of the tent show. At the outset, the population of the entire country was small. But few cities of any size existed; and New York, Boston, and Philadelphia were little better than large towns. The masses were not in possession of much “cash money;” barter was in vogue in many localities. The people were close fisted, being bred that way, and the larger majority of them puritanical and narrow minded. One might as well be frank about it and out with the truth. Pleasure and recreation was a sin and it was better to weep in woe than to rejoice and be glad.

“The entrance of the theatre is the gateway to hell,” said the preacher who inveighed against amusements, “and the ring of the circus is the bottomless pit itself.”

As to faces, they were worn long and the preachers and Pharisees set the fashion.

Occasionally a newspaper man was under the rays of the “blue light” and declined to advertise the circus; and then, full of Christian charity, preceded the appearance of the show with a venomous libel.

In estimating the ability of the first circus managers, it may be said that they succeeded for two reasons: (1) They were smarter than their fellow men then on earth. (2) They knew how to advertise and were about the only persons living who did. And when they were up against each other, as for instance the fierce wars of Dan Rice and Dr. Spalding, it was diamond cut diamond.


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William L. Slout and Circus Historical Society, Inc.