In 1913, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “Had to go back to Baraboo to get a new contract for more work. Total $13,695.00.” Today’s equivalent of $13,695.00 in 1913 is $355,183.28.
Later that year, Moses wrote, “When we were setting the Ringling scenery at the Coliseum, the big elephant stampeded and there was some excitement for awhile, but the trainer went after them and brought them back and made them go through all the tricks again.”
From 1905 until Al Ringling’s passing in in 1916, Thomas G. Moses completed several designs for the Ringling Bros. grand circus spectacles. Al Ringling worked with Moses to design scenery for their grand circus spectacles. The work that Moses mentioned in 1913 was for their Joan of Arc spectacle.
In 1913, newspaper advertisements across the country announced the Ringlings’ “newly added $500,000 spectacle of ‘Joan of Arc” (The Placer Herald, Rocklin, CA, 23 August 1913, page 3). The attraction was described in hundreds of articles, such as the “Pawnee Rock Herald” (Pawnee, Kansas, 17 July 1913, page 3). The “Pawnee Rock Herald” reported, “Ringling Bros. circus is attracting unusual interest this season because of its many new features and the new aspect given the show by the addition of the great spectacle ‘Joan of Arc”…There will be a new parade in the forenoon three miles in length. The menagerie is practically twice as big as it was last year and contains many specimens of strange animals. Audiences will be entertained by 375 of the greatest of Europe’s circus artists…The great feature of the show of course is the newly added spectacle ‘Joan of Arc,’ with a trainload of special scenery, costumes and stage properties and a cast of 1,200 characters. There is a ballet of 300 dancing girls, a chorus of 400 voices and an orchestra of 100 soloists.”
Of the spectacle, the article continued, “This is the greatest dramatic and spectacular production ever presented in America, enacted on a specially built stage bigger than a hundred ordinary theatres. It is made portable so that it can be erected in the main tent each morning. This great entertainment is given as an introductory to the regular circus performance and entails no extra charge of admission. John of Arc tells a masterful story from French history in a thrilling and dramatic way and with the wonderful illusion of tone of special scenery and stage devices. In the great battle scene the audience is held spellbound by the realism of the scene while the enactment of the coronation of Charles VII is beyond question the most sumptuous and inspiring stage picture ever seen.”
An article in the “Great Bend Tribune” announced the arrival of the advance men (Great Bend, Kansas, 5 July 1913, page 1): “Thursday night a huge eighty-foot car pulled into the Santa Fe station with a coat of bright red paint, it announced in blazing letters of gold, ‘Ringling Bros.’ World’s Greatest Shows Advertising Car No. 1’…Ringling Bros. have three advance cars, following one another a week apart. The no. 1 car goes to each town three weeks before the circus is due to appear. It carries twenty-seven men, consisting of twenty billposters and six lithographers, in charge of the veteran car manager, George Goodhart. A steam machine for making paste is carried on the car and every night the porter makes twelve barrels for use the following day. The head lithographer sees the dates are pasted on the lithos and the car manager lays out the work for each man to do. At 5:30 a.m. the men are called, breakfast is served at 6 o’clock, and at 6:30 the local livery teams are at the car ready to take the billposters to the outlying towns and through the city itself to plaster the billboards. The lithographers start with their bundles of lithos (in circus parlance called ‘hods’) to decorate the store windows, and by the time the supper hour arrives everybody knows the big circus is coming and enthusiastic and excited youngsters are busily engaged in planning a touch on ‘daddie’ for the price of a circus ticket. The men who do the country work also carry the show heralds for distribution. The next car is the excursion car. The No. 3 car will do the local work.”
As the Ringing Bros. trains crossed Kansas, the “Topeka Daily News” announced, “While numerous alarm clocks were tinkling under pillows of small boys throughout the city this morning, there arrived in the yards of the Rock Island Railroad four long trains, composed of 86 cars bearing the Ringling Brother’s circus” (“Topeka Daily News, “July 24, 1913),
One-half of an entire train was used for the costumes and scenery of the spectacle of “Joan of Arc.” Of the show, the article continued, “This spectacle, in a series of brilliant pantomime pictures, tells the dramatic story of the Maid of Orleans, the simple peasant girl who led an army to battle and restored Charles VII to the throne of France. The costumes and scenery are the most gorgeous and costly every used in a production of this kind, either under canvas or in a theater” (page 7).
The production was further described in the “Hartford Courant:”
“The play begins when Joan, just 16 years old, comes from her father’s pasture at Domremy at the command of the Archangel St. Michael to the court of Charles VII, at Chinon. In the light of a thousand torches she is brought into the presence of the King in the great palace which throngs with the nobles of France. The reception which the King gives to the peasant girl is filled with impressiveness and suspense. The second climax of the great spectacle is reached when Joan, dressed in armor, crossed the river of Orleans, and rides at the head if the French army into the gates of the beleaguered city. One of her heralds presents himself at the English camp. Respect to the messenger is sent to defy Talbot, and to declare from the girl that is any harm is done him it shall be retaliation on the English prisoners. Joan in shining armor appears on a tower facing the Tournelles, bidding the soldiers of Suffolk and Talbot to depart. This they refuse to do. At the head of the French knights and archers Joan rides between the towers of the besiegers and followed by the villagers who look on in wonder at the sight of a mere girl leading the armies of France. The stage version ends with the introduction of a great ballet of 300 beautiful dancing girls, a grand opera chorus, 600 horses and an ensemble o 1,200 people. The closing chapter of Joan’s life is too sad for this drama of gladness, through her capture, her imprisonment and her execution are told n a series of thrilling tableaus by means of tons of scenery and a great battery of electric mechanism” (17 May 1913, page 16).
To be continued…
