Some links and notes regarding today’s webinar for the American Antiquarian Society, which can now be seen on YouTube:
The exhibition Circus and the City: 1793-2010 ran at the Bard Graduate Center from September 21, 2012 through February 2, 2013. Although the exhibition is long closed, you can still find the book out there.
The most comprehensive study of show culture in the eighteenth century is Peter Benes’ For a Short Time Only: Itinerants and the Resurgence of Popular Culture in Early America (2016).
The best single source on the early history of the American circus remains Stuart Thayer’s Annals of the American Circus, but see also my effort to place the origins and growth of the modern circus in a global context in The Cambridge Companion to the Circus.
A circus trunk interlude:
The Benjamin Brown collection at the William Clements Library offers a fascinating look at the career of a contemporary American showman.
I wrote an article about the formation of the Zoological Institute highlighting another example of their incredible promotional efforts via Jared Bell for Common-Place, which you can find here.
For more on printing and popular entertainment, consider joining and supporting the Ephemera Society of America and the Circus Historical Society!