Word: barnumism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...world with a carnival in which he acted in blackface. Director Browning must have enjoyed making Freaks. It is one of the most macabre pictures ever filmed and it doubtless contains more misfits of humanity than were ever gathered together in the combined shows of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey (see p. 18). A man without legs walks on his hands. A woman without hands eats with her feet. A Negro with no limbs at all lights a cigaret with his teeth. Siamese twins have courtships...
...trumpet split the air, gates swung wide. Past the slim, tail-coated form of Ringmaster Fred Bradna lumped a big bull elephant to herald the 166th year of American circus and the 13th season of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, which no longer needs to bill itself as "The Greatest Show on Earth." For John Ringling, sole survivor of Barnum & Bailey and the seven brothers Rüngeling of Baraboo, Wis., it was his 54th season of showmanship, which began with a pin-show in an Iowa barn and now undisputedly monopolizes U. S. circus entertainment. The monopoly consists...
Three Rings, Two Stages. Though the freaks were there, they wore a casual, civilized air. For the ballyhoo of the late great Phineas Taylor Barnum is gone from the circus when it exhibits in Manhattan. It returns only in the smaller towns, increasing in intensity as the size of the towns decreases. Last week's spectators were content to sit quietly and watch the main show, going in three rings and on two stages continuously for three and one-half hours. Chief attractions...
...Such Bombastic Fiction brought fame to said Barnum...
...ringmaster, Otto sold the tickets, Charles wrote the mouth-filling polysyllabic advertisements. John, who used to play the bass viol and drive the lead wagon over dusty prairie roads, became the router, the greatest transportation expert in the circus business*. He lost his brothers and his mustache. He absorbed Barnum & Bailey and in time every important circus in the U. S. so that today every trained lion in the country must jump through hoops when John Rungeling cracks the whip. And he has assembled the largest private art collection in the U. S. with the exception of Willlaim Randolph Hearst...