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Hagenbeck-Wallace Wild Animal Circus : the Carl Hagenbeck world-famous performing elephants



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  • Cole Bros. Circus : Cole Bros. Circus presents quarter-million pound act of performing elephants the most colossal trained animal display ever presented

    Cole Bros. Circus : Cole Bros. Circus presents quarter-million pound act of performing elephants the most colossal trained animal display ever presented

    Visual Materials

    Image of elephants performing in circus rings, with elephants forming a pyramid led by an animal trainer in the foreground and elephants walking on their hind legs in background

    priJLC_ENT_000099

  • Cole Bros. Circus

    Cole Bros. Circus

    Visual Materials

    Image of elephants performing in circus rings, with elephants forming a pyramid led by an animal trainer in the foreground and elephants walking on their hind legs in background; "Cole Bros. Circus" panel pasted over "Robbins Bros. Circus" title; date sheet for a June 18, [1936], show promoting "Ken Maynard's Wild West" in New London, Connecticut, pasted below image.

    priJLC_ENT_000094

  • Cristiani Bros. Circus : world's largest

    Cristiani Bros. Circus : world's largest

    Visual Materials

    Image of four elephants standing on their hind legs with a female circus performer, and a ring with performing elephants and a male animal trainer and female performer in the background; date sheet for an August 20-30, [1959], show in Los Angeles, California, pasted below image.

    priJLC_ENT_000160

  • Image not available

    Hagenbeck-Wallace trained wild animal circus. (Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus)

    Visual Materials

    This collection contains more than 650 printed items that relate to circuses in the United States from the 1850s to the 1990s. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations produced for or pertaining to circuses, their tours and shows, staff and performers, acts and exhibits, and animals. Materials are arranged in three series: small-size prints and ephemera (11 x 14 inches or less); large-size prints and ephemera (more than 11 x 14 inches); and broadsides and handbills. The collection has 206 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic posters containing brightly colored images of featured circus acts, performers, and animals that were typically posted outdoors in advance of the circus coming to town. Small-size items in the collection number more than 320 and are comprised mainly of advertising and promotion ephemera and business documents such as trade cards, programs and souvenir books, route cards, envelopes, tickets, songsters, and printed billheads and letterheads. The 130 broadsides, handbills, and related advertisements consist primarily of long, narrow broadsides printed on newspaper paper in black ink using letterpress type that advertised upcoming circus shows and were intended to be distributed by hand, left in stacks in public places, or posted on walls, fences, or in windows in advance of the circus's arrival in a town. This collection provides a resource for studying the history of the American circus and its impact on popular entertainment and advertising in the 19th and 20th centuries. As graphic materials, the items offer evidence of the development of printmaking techniques and trends, and of the artists, engraves, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creation of these prints.

    priJLC_ENT_000114

  • The Barnum & Bailey musical elephant prodigies

    The Barnum & Bailey musical elephant prodigies

    Visual Materials

    Image of a central image of five elephants playing horn instruments with female circus performers also playing horns while standing on the elephants' backs, with four vignettes of the elephants in various performances, captioned "Entirely New Elephant Performances," "The Gallant Pachyderms," "A Swiss Bell Quintet," and "The Grand Overture," and a small vignette of a head-and-shoulders portrait of elephant trainer Harry J. Mooney.

    priJLC_ENT_000059

  • Cristiani Bros. Wild-Animal Circus : amazing leaps over a big herd of elephants

    Cristiani Bros. Wild-Animal Circus : amazing leaps over a big herd of elephants

    Visual Materials

    Image of a row of elephants with a stop-motion-like view of a tumbler flipping in the air above; date sheet for a September 14, [1959], show in Santa Monica, California, pasted below image.

    priJLC_ENT_000102