Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus

Predecessor circuses

In 1875, Dan Castello and William Cameron Coup persuaded P. T. 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 became the chief competitor, then they started looking at "Columbia," the first baby elephant born in the United States, in March 1880 in Philadelphia, to "Babe" and "Mandarin." Barnum attempted to buy the elephant. They eventually agreed to combine their shows on March 28, 1881. 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. Bailey 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 in Baraboo, Wisconsin. This was 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 brothers 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.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

The Ringlings purchased the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth in 1907 and ran the circuses separately until 1919. By that time, Charles Edward Ringling and John Nicholas Ringling were the only remaining brothers of the five who founded the circus. They decided that it was too difficult to run the two circuses independently, and on March 29, 1919, "Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows" debuted in New York City. The posters declared, "The Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows and the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth are now combined into one record-breaking giant of all exhibitions." Charles E. Ringling died in 1926, but the circus flourished through the Roaring Twenties.

John Ringling had the circus move its headquarters to Sarasota, Florida in 1927.

In 1929, the American Circus Corporation signed a contract to perform in New York City. John Ringling purchased American Circus, owner of five circuses, for $1.7 million.

In 1938, the circus made Frank Buck a lucrative offer to tour as their star attraction and to enter the show astride an elephant. He refused to join the American Federation of Actors, stating that he was "a scientist, not an actor." Though there was a threat of a strike if he did not join the union, he maintained that he would not compromise his principles, saying, "Don't get me wrong. I'm with the working man. I worked like a dog once myself. And my heart is with the fellow who works. But I don't want some ... union delegate telling me when to get on and off an elephant." Eventually, the union gave Buck a special dispensation to introduce Gargantua the gorilla without registering as an actor.

The circus suffered during the 1930s due to the Great Depression, but managed to stay in business. After John Nicholas Ringling's death, his nephew, John Ringling North, managed the indebted circus twice, the first from 1937 to 1943. Special dispensation was given to the circus by President Roosevelt to use the rails to operate in 1942, in spite of travel restrictions imposed as a result of World War II. Many of the most famous images from the circus that were published in magazine and posters were captured by American Photographer Maxwell Frederic Coplan, who traveled the world with the circus, capturing its beauty as well as its harsh realities.

North's cousin Robert took over the president of the show in 1943. North resumed the presidency of the circus in 1947.

The Hartford Circus Fire

The Hartford Circus Fire occurred on July 6, 1944, in Hartford, Connecticut, during an afternoon performance that was attended by approximately 7,500 to 8,700 people. It was one of the worst fire disasters in the history of the United States. Although the Hartford Fire Department responded quickly, the fire was fanned by the fact that the canvas circus tent had been waterproofed through a mixture of highly flammable paraffin and gasoline. During the ensuing panic Emmett Kelly, the tramp clown, threw a bucket of water at the burning canvas tent, and a poignant photograph of his futile attempt was transmitted around the world as news spread of the disaster. At least 167 people were killed in the disaster, and hundreds more were injured. Some of the dead remain unidentified to this day, even with modern DNA techniques.

Actor and theater director Charles Nelson Reilly, who was thirteen years old at the time, survived the fire and dramatized it in the film on his stage show, "The Life of Reilly". In a 1997 interview, Reilly said that he rarely attended the theater, despite being a director, since the sound of a large audience in a theater reminded him of the large crowd at the circus before the disaster.

In the following investigation, it was discovered that the tent had not been fireproofed. Ringling Bros. had applied to the Army, which had an absolute priority on the material, for enough fireproofing liquid to treat their Big Top. The Army had refused to release it to them. The circus had instead waterproofed their canvas using an older method of parrafin dissolved in gasoline and painted onto the canvas. The waterproofing worked, but as had been repeatedly shown it was horribly flammable. Circus management was found to be negligent and several Ringling executives served sentences in jail. Ringling Brothers' management set aside all profits for the next ten years to pay the claims filed against the show by the City of Hartford and the survivors of the fire.

Feld family

The post-war prosperity enjoyed by the rest of the nation was not shared by the circus as crowds dwindled and costs increased. Public tastes, influenced by the movies and television, abandoned the circus, which gave its last performance under the big top in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 16, 1956. An article in Life magazine reported that "a magical era had passed forever". In 1956, when John Ringling North and Arthur Concello moved the circus from a tent show to an indoor operation, Irvin Feld was one of several promoters hired to work the advance for select dates, mostly in the Detroit and Philadelphia areas. Irvin Feld and his brother, Israel Feld, had already made a name for themselves marketing and promoting DC area rock and roll shows. In 1959, Ringling Bros. started wintering in Venice, Florida.

In late 1967, Irvin Feld, Israel Feld, and Judge Roy Mark Hofheinz of Texas, together with backing from Richard C. Blum, the founder of Blum Capital, bought the company outright from North and the Ringling family interests for $8 million at a ceremony at Rome’s Colosseum. Irving Feld immediately began making other changes to improve the quality and profitability of the show. Irvin got rid of the freak show so as not to capitalize on others' deformations and to become more family orientated. He got rid of the more routine acts.

In 1968, with the craft of clowning seemingly neglected and with many of the clowns in their 50s, he established the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. A circus in Europe was purchased for $2 million just to have its star animal trainer, Gunther Gebel-Williams, for the core of his revamped circus. Soon, he split the show into two touring units, Red and Blue, which could tour the country independently. The separate tours could also offer differing slates of acts and themes, enabling circus goers to view both tours where possible.

The company was taken public in 1969. In 1970, Feld's only son Kenneth joined the company and became a co-producer. The circus was sold to the Mattel company in 1971 for $40 million, but the Feld family was retained as management.

After Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida, in 1971, the circus attempted to cash in on the resulting tourism surge by opening Circus World theme park in nearby Haines City, which broke ground on April 26, 1973. The theme park was expected to become the circus's winter home as well as to have the Clown College located there. Mattel placed the circus corporation up for sale by December 1973 despite its profit contributions, as Mattel as a whole showed a $29.9 million loss in 1972. The park's opening was then delayed until 000000001974-02-01-0000February 1974. Venture Out in America, Inc., a Gulf Oil recreational subsidiary, agreed to buy the combined shows in January 1974, and the opening was further pushed back to 1975. While the Circus Showcase for Circus World opened on 000000001974-02-21-0000February 21, 1974, Venture Out placed the purchase deal back into negotiations, and the opening of the whole complex was moved to an early 1976.

By May 1980, the company expanded to three circuses by adding the one-ring International Circus Festival of Monte Carlo that debuted in Japan and Australia. The Felds bought the circus back in 1982. Irvin Feld died in 1984 and the company has since been run by Kenneth.

Circus World was never successful, as its standard carnival-type rides were no match for Disney's state-of-the-art attractions and was out of the way. The circus sold the park to Arizona developer James Monaghan in 1984.

When in 1990 the Venice rail tracks could not support the show's train cars, the combined circus moved its winter base to the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. In 1993, the clown college was moved from the Venice Arena to Baraboo, Wisconsin. In 1995, the company founded the Center for Elephant Conservation (CEC).

Clair George has testified in court that he worked as a consultant in the early 1990s for Kenneth Feld and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He was involved in the surveillance of Jan Pottker (a journalist who was writing about the Feld family) and of various animal rights groups such as PETA.

After three years in Baraboo, the clown college operated at the Sarasota Opera House in Sarasota until 1998 before the program was suspended. On 000000001999-02-26-0000February 26, 1999, the circus company started previewing Barnum's Kaleidoscape, a one ring, intimate, upscale circus performed under the tent; designed to compete with similar upscale circuses such as Cirque du Soleil, Barnum's Kaleidoscape was not successful, and ceased performances after the end of 2000.

Nicole Feld became the first female producer of Ringling Circus in 2004. In 2009, Nicole and Alana Feld co-produced the circus. In 2001, a group led by the Humane Society of the United States, sued the circus over alleged mistreatment of elephants. the suit ended in 2014 with the circus winning $25.2 million in settlements. On March 3, 2015, the Circus announced that all elephants would be retired in 2018 to the CEC. The retirement date was subsequently moved forward to May 2016.

On January 14, 2017, it was announced that the circus will be closed in May 2017, and would lay off more than 462 employees between March and May 2017. Declining attendance combined with high operating costs and loss of the elephants are among the reasons for closing. On May 7, 2017, its “Circus Extreme” tour will be shown for the last time in Providence, Rhode Island. The circus's last performance will be its “Out of This World” tour at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on May 21, 2017, and will be its first (and only) performance at Nassau Coliseum following the Coliseum's 2015–2017 renovation.

Circus trains

Currently, the circus maintains two circus train-based shows, the “Circus Extreme” and the “Out of This World” tour. Each train is a mile long with roughly 60 cars: 40 passenger cars and 20 freight. Rolling stock belonging to the circus bears the reporting mark "RBBX". The Blue and Red Tours present a full three-ring production for two years each (taking off the month of December), visiting alternating major cities each year. Each train presents a different "edition" of the show, using a numbering scheme that dates back to circus origins in 1871 — the first year of P.T. Barnum's show. The Blue Tour presents the even-numbered editions on a two-year tour (beginning each even-numbered year), and the Red Tour presents the odd-numbered editions on the same two-year tour (beginning each odd-numbered year).

In the 1950s there was one gigantic train system comprising three separate train loads that brought the main show to the big cities. The first train load consisted of 22 cars and had the tents and the workers to set them up; the second section comprised 28 cars and carried the canvasmen, ushers and sideshow workers; the third section had 19 sleeping cars for the performers.

From 2003 to 2015 the circus also operated a truck-based Gold Tour presenting a scaled-back, single-ring version of the show designed to serve smaller markets deemed incapable of supporting the three-ring versions.

Animal care and criticism

Many animal welfare and animal rights organizations are opposed to the use of wild animals in circuses. Many of these groups actively campaign against circuses by staging protests outside of venues over alleged animal rights violations. The groups argue that animals used in the circus are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment during training, harsh conditions during transport, and a general lack of mental and physical stimulation.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey was investigated following the death of a lion who died from heat and lack of water while the circus train was travelling through the Mojave Desert. In 1998, the USDA filed charges against Ringling Bros. for forcing a sick elephant to perform. Ringling paid a $20,000 fine to settle the matter.

In 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture conducted an inspection of the circus's animals, facilities, and records, finding non-compliance with the agency's regulations. The company agreed to pay a $270,000 fine. As part of the settlement, the circus must employ a full-time staff person to ensure compliance with the United States Animal Welfare Act of 1966, and all circus employees who work with or handle animals must complete training regarding compliance with the Act within 30 days of when they are hired.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), PETA, and other animal groups sued the circus, alleging that it violated the Endangered Species Act by its treatment of Asian elephants in its circus. These allegations were based primarily on the testimony of a circus barn worker. After nine years of litigation and a six-week non-jury trial, the Court dismissed the suit in a written decision, finding that the barn worker was not credible (ASPCA v. Feld Entm’t, Inc., 677 F. Supp. 2d 55 (D.D.C. 2009)). In 2012, the circus learned that the animal rights groups had paid the barn worker $190,000 to be a plaintiff in the lawsuit regarding the Asian elephants. The circus sued the animal rights groups under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, accusing them of conspiracy to harm its business and other illegal acts. The ASPCA agreed to pay the circus $9.2 million to settle the lawsuit.

In March 2015, Feld Entertainment, the parent company, announced it would stop using elephants in their shows by 2018, stating that the 13 elephants that were part of their shows would be sent to the circus's Center for Elephant Conservation, which at that time housed over 40 elephants. Feld stated that this action was not a result of the allegations by animal rights groups, but rather due to the patchwork of local laws regarding whether elephants could be used in entertainment shows. Subsequently, the retirement was moved up to 2016, and the final performances with elephants occurred on May 1, 2016, with "Red Unit" herd performing at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and the "Blue Unit" herd performing later in the day at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

Film

In 1952, Paramount Pictures released the Cecil B. DeMille production The Greatest Show on Earth, which traced the traveling show through the setup and breakdown of several performances. The film starred Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, James Stewart, and Emmett Kelly.

On August 17, 2011, 20th Century Fox announced that a biographical musical drama film entitled The Greatest Showman is in development with Michael Gracey set to direct, written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon, Hugh Jackman will play P.T. Barnum as well as produce it, with Michelle Williams portraying Barnum's love interest. Principal photography began in November 2016 with an expected release date of December 25, 2017.