The Circus Girls, 1949

There’s something about this photo story that I dug out of the LIFE archives that makes me want to pack up my website and join the circus. Shot by the acclaimed photographer Nina Leen in 1949, we find our sassy subculture of circus girls in Sarasota, Florida, dubbed “the home of the American circus”. You…

Meet the Fallen Queen of the Moulin Rouge

The world knew her as la Goulue — literally, “the Glutton” — because her appetite for mischief was bar-none in Belle Epoque Paris. It was a nickname she earned in high-kicks and unmatched can-can skills, but it was won at a high price. Today, her rise to the top as “the Queen of Montmartre” has become…

The Black Aerialist Who Dazzled Gilded Age Paris

A diminutive Black woman hung upside down from a trapeze as two men pushed and shoved a 200 pound cannon to the center of the circus ring. She grasped a chain on the cannon and hung it on a hook held between her teeth. At a signal, she was hoisted aloft. The audience watched with…

The Circus is in Town

A troupe of elephants and a zebra walk down 33rd Street in Manhattan in 1968 to mark the arrival of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. What a sight that would have been. As a great animal lover, the idea of the circus makes me all kinds of uncomfortable. But then again, the things…

Down the Rabbit Hole into a Parisian Wonderland

Paris might already have its own Euro Disneyland, but I know a little place, away from the crowds that’s more like the real thing. If Alice had just chosen a bright yellow door at the end of the rabbit hole and if the Mad Hatter had in fact been a legendary clown from Soviet Russia (I’ll…

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The Picasso of Circus Art

History didn’t know what to do with Fred G. Johnson. On the one hand, he was just another hard-working Chicago teen in the signage business, and far from a classically trained portrait artist. Yet, there weren’t many in the sign painting game making banners for “Bearded Brenda” or “Huey the Pretzel Man”; “Josephine the Electric Girl”…

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Meet Lucy, America’s Oldest Surviving Roadside Attraction

If you build it, they will come. That was the logic behind American real estate magnate James V. Lafferty when he embarked on the most Edwardian PR stunt ever: to build a gigantic elephant. (Apparently it was a thing). The idea was to catch folks’ interest with it, and then lure them inside to show…

Tale of the Human Firecracker’s Hotel

Maybe you’ve heard of Gibsonton (aka Showtown), the winter haven for carnival performers near Tampa, Florida, home to side-show performers like Priscilla the Monkey Girl and the Alligator Man, where post office counters were lowered for the convenience of little people. Less well-known, though, is El Jobean, which catered more to circus folk—and required an…

And now, the Bikini Bobbers of the Summer of 1961

Today, in totally random photo stories fished out of the internet, we have this rather inexplicable contraption that seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of bobbing buxom babes in bikinis around to the amusement of the passing crowd. It looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen, but hey, it was 1961– who needs safety to spoil…

The French Fartist who Headlined at the Moulin Rouge

I can imagine the Moulin Rouge had some pretty exotic acts in its heyday, but entertaining an audience with rhythmic flatulence? Surely our ancestors had a little more class! Meet Joseph Pujol, professional fartist and one of the most popular and highly paid stage performers in Europe prior to World War I. Posters all over Paris billed…