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An inquiry into the development of audience seating in the American circus reflects the premise that rises in researching any mundane subject: its very commonness was beneath contemporary mention. There seem to be no outright descriptions, and because seating was presumably made by show employees, there is no commercial source through which to trace its manufacture. We know when it began to be mentioned in advertising and we have an idea of the extent of its use by various shows, but we don’t know what it looked like or how it was assembled.
Through the “regressive” method of research, that is, by moving backward in time from the earliest source we have, and assuming that changes occur only as frequently as necessary, we can start with the popular bleacher-type seats of the nineteenth-century shows. Bleachers, so-called because of their resemblance to bleaching boards used by cloth manufacturers, are a fairly simple piece of furniture. They have been essentially the same for a hundred years. We assume that the “tiered seats” referred to in circus ads of the 1830s were quite similar. If they were not, we think there would have been references to the changes.
Given the problem of erecting a rising structure for seating that could be put up and taken down in a short time by unskilled workmen, we would suppose that a mechanic from whatever society one chose would arrive at a solution very near to the well-known bleachers. The precise solution arrived at by the American showman has eluded us. We have clues to the actuality, nevertheless.
One of the first indications is the use of the theatrical terms pit and box by the early tented circus. In the wooden arenas of the infancy of the genre the pit was the area surrounding the ring and had no seats as a rule. The boxes were outside the pit, surrounding and raised above it. The boxes had benches in them. Thus the terms were distinguishable by whether or not there was seating. You paid less in the pit, but you had no seat.
Transferring these terms to the tented circus is a simple matter if one realizes that originally seats were erected on only one side of the ring; the remaining space in the tent was the pit. Seats were reserved for women and children and the ads so warned. We find references to “the ladies’ side,” meaning the seats.
Several non-contemporary sources tell us that the earliest seating was simply planks placed between boxes, one-level seating. This makes sense, but none of these sources are scholarly enough for us to accept them without question.
J. Purdy Brown, the man who first used a canvas tent for circus performances, advertised in 1826 that he had “covered seats” for the comfort and convenience of his audience. Carpeting or some other material had been laid on the board seats. In no way does it intimate anything other than one-level furniture.
By the same reasoning, we assume that Carley, Purdy & Wright’s Menagerie of 1830 promised no more when they said there would be seats for ladies at their show in Marietta, Ohio, on September 18 of that year.
The earliest advertisement we have found that seems to describe tiered seating appears in the Greenville Mountaineer (South Carolina) on 23 July, 1830. It reads: “. . . seats will be so constructed as to allow every individual a fair opportunity of witnessing the exhibition without crowding or other inconvenience. Front seats reserved for ladies.” This was in an ad for Finch, Miller & Co.’s menagerie. It not only sounds as if those in the rear can see over those in front, but that ladies were being spared climbing over others. Important, too, is the phrase “will be so constructed.” This tells us that the seats will be put in place by show employees.
In 1831 Yeaman’s Circus advertised that they had “permanent and convenient” seats for ladies. Neither of the adjectives tells us anything specific. Brown & Bailey, in 1833, said they would “erect” seats, implying, obviously, that it was part of their preparation for showing.
Three menageries advertised the number of seats they had during the 1833 season. Both Purdy, Welch & Co. and Purdy, Welch, Macomber & Co. announced that “300-400 seats will be erected.” J. R. & Wm. Howe & Co. promised 400 to 500 seats. These figures are important as they imply some structure, not one-level seats. To have 400 seats on one side of a 42-foot ring (if that was its size) would necessitate tiering them. We hesitate at the ring size, because these menageries were presenting trained monkeys on ponies, not human equestrians, so the ring need not have been sizable.
There are so many descriptions of constructing the ring and so many references to the daily purchase of a center pole in the 1830s that we assume if seats were built each day from “scratch” we would find notice of it. Comments such as “seats will be prepared for the convenience of spectators,” or “the proprietors have constructed commodious seats” seem to us to avoid that question. However, in 1835, June, Titus, and Angevine’s unit of the Zoological Institute said they had 1,000 portable seats. The seats, then, were brought to the lot with the other equipment. In the same year French, Hobby & Co. advertised elevated seats covered with cloth. And for the clincher, an 1835 Macomber, Welch & Co. poster in the Richard W. Flint collection illustrates tiered spectators on one side of the ring. Unfortunately, the poster shows no details. It would appear that the spectators were in ten-high rows, but other perspectives in the drawing are mishandled, so the height may represent artistic license.
Hyatt Frost, 50 years after the event, said he visited Howes, Sands & Co.’s Circus in 1835 and saw four-tier seats, a most welcome description for our purposes. From all these 1835 notes we can at least assume that by then bleachers, or a rudimentary form of what we now call bleachers, were in common use.
Nathan Howes commented in his 1836 advertisements that his seats were constructed on a safe and improved plan. This would seem to indicate that safety was a concern; perhaps there had been seat collapses. The first such accident we have located occurred in Elmira, New York, on June 16, 1838. The Gazette of that city reported that during the performance of Buckley, Rockwell, Hopkins & Co.’s circus “a young man by the name of Smith, son of Job Smith of Southport, had his leg broken by the falling of the seats. The proprietor of the establishment gave the unfortunate young man the liberal sum of eighty dollars.”
Another such incident is in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of June 15, 1842. It tells us that at Rockwell & Stone’s performance of the day before, “a slight accident occurred by the giving way of the box seats, which was occasioned by the softness of the earth on which the props were placed.” As we know, modern bleachers make use of wooden blocks to prevent the jacks from sinking. Rockwell & Stone’s seating apparently did not, though we don’t know if they used what are now called jacks.
An interesting aspect of this Buffalo report is that the bleachers are referred to as “box seats.” The theatrical division, pit and box, was still current 17 years into the tented circus era.
By 1840 something had changed to the extent that Fogg & Stickney could announce, “the seats are so arranged as to make a few hours spent in witnessing the performance a pleasure instead of pain, as has heretofore too often been the case.” This could mean that the seat boards were wider than usual, or covered with carpet, or even that they had backs on them. They also promised that there were seats for all who might honor the exhibition with their presence. We take this to mean that the seats fully encircled the ring, perhaps for the first time.
References to the provision of seats cease after 1840, so, whatever the arrangements, they were too common for comment. All shows provided seats; thus there was no advantage in advertising them. We may consider as well that the seats were similar by this time as no one advertised any improvements.
In the 1840s audiences might average 1,000 persons. Most tents were in the range of 150-foot round-tops. Raymond & Waring advertised 1,500 seats in their 1845 menagerie; Stone & McCollum, 800 seats in their circus. The latter also said that the pit entirely circled the arena in front of the dress circle. Apparently, the seats were raised so that viewers could look over the heads of the standees, an awkward arrangement at best. However, it reflected the pre-tent arena and may have been a solution based on that former arrangement. It indicates that more pit tickets than box tickets were being sold.
In this same year of 1845, Welch & Mann charged 25 cents “to all parts of the arena” with no half-price tickets being offered. Democratic seating, to be sure, but more important, it is seeming proof that the seats completely surrounded the ring. To further that idea, their sister show, Welch, Mann & Delavan, advertised circular seats, meaning a circle of seats, we think, and definite proof that there was no standing room.
In 1847, Rockwell & Co. advertised “seats for every visitor,” and offered “reserved seats” as well. This raises the question of what reserved seats could be in a one-ring format. The Eaton, Ohio, Register of August 26 answers: “The “reserved seats” is the nicest piece of imposition in the concern, being nothing better than the others—a little worse, we think - the only difference being that they have a strip of dirty carpet upon them.”
This circus and that of Gilbert R. Spalding both advertised reserved seats in 1847, as did Stone & McCollum in 1846. No longer having a two-price admission based on whether one stood or sat, the showmen turned to a distinction in the seats themselves in order to have some extra income.
Somewhere in the development of bleachers as circus seats began the practice of painting them blue. One still sees that color in the tented circus. We have not found where or why or by whom this practice was begun. The earliest practitioner we have note of is John “Pogey” O’Brien. In 1869 he built a large brick building in Frankford, Pennsylvania (now part of Philadelphia), which he used as winter quarters and wagon shop. There is a non-contemporary reference to his having the seats and standards painted blue in the course of winter work at that location. (the reference to O’Brien’s use of blue paint is found in a paper read before the Historical Society of Frankford by Thomas Creighton on 17 November 1919).
When the showmen abandoned the concept of the wooden arenas in favor of tented, traveling shows, they took on the responsibility for a “train” of show equipment. They had wagons, baggage stock, teamsters, and a tent, none of which appeared in the performance. When the seating arrangements reached a certain (as yet unknown) size, a crew of workmen was added. Their only duty was to erect and disassemble the seating each day. This division of labor in the circus, necessitated by the size of the physical plant, was one of the symptoms that led to the great changes in operational methods in the mid-twentieth century. Dependent as they were on a vast pool of unskilled labor, the circus could no longer function in the traditional pattern once that pool disappeared.
CHS webmaster J. Griffin, last modified December 2005.