Day: January 8, 2012

Pt Barnum was certainly one of history’s greatest showmen and had some of the most profound quotes such as the following.

“More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing in nothing, than by believing too much”

PT Barnum aka Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891)

Here is a bit of history about the circus that he backed and acquired his name.

The Barnum & Bailey Circus (The Greatest Show on Earth)

In 1875, Dan Castello and William Cameron Coup persuaded Barnum to lend his name and financial backing to the circus they had already created in Delavan, Wisconsin. It was called “P.T. Barnum’s Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome”. The moniker “Greatest Show on Earth” was added later.

Independently of Castello and Coup, James Anthony Bailey had teamed up with James E. Cooper to create the Cooper and Bailey Circus in the 1860s. The Cooper and Bailey Circus was soon Barnum’s chief competitor, exhibiting “Columbia,” the first baby elephant ever born in the United States.[1] She was born in March 1880 in Philadelphia, to “Babe” and “Mandarin”, and later euthanized in November 1907 for aggressiveness.[citation needed] Barnum attempted to buy the elephant, and eventually agreed to combine their shows in 1881.[1] In 1882, the combined “Barnum & Bailey Circus” was successful with acts such as Jumbo, advertised as the world’s largest elephant. Barnum died in 1891 and Bailey then purchased the circus from his widow. He continued touring the eastern United States until he took his circus to Europe. That tour started on December 27, 1897 and lasted until 1902.

In 1884, five of the seven Ringling brothers had started a small circus about the same time that Barnum & Bailey were at the peak of their popularity. Similar to dozens of small circuses that toured the Midwest and the Northeast at the time, the Ringlings moved their circus from town to town in small animal-drawn caravans. Their circus rapidly grew and they were soon able to move their circus by train, which allowed them to have the largest traveling amusement enterprise of that time. Bailey’s European tour gave the Ringling brothers an opportunity to move their show from the Midwest to the eastern seaboard. Faced with the new competition, Bailey took his show west of the Rocky Mountains for the first time in 1905. He died the next year and the circus was sold to the Ringling Brothers.