Part 483: The Ringling Brothers
Creating scenery for circus spectacles was just some of the many projects that kept Thomas G. Moses busy at Sosman & Landis. In yesterday’s post, I examined the 1905 Ringling Brothers’ spectacle, “The Field of the Cloth of Gold” by Sosman and Landis. Moses created the designs for Ringling Brothers’ production about King Henry VIII of England. Their grand circus spectaculars were also known as a “specs.”
I grew up in the Midwest, and was well aware of both the Ringling Brothers’ Circus and their summer home in Baraboo, Wisconsin. We even ventured to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to see the great circus parade with other circus enthusiasts. The Milwaukee Circus Parade was an event where dozens of ornate circus wagons were paraded through the streets, including one massive wagon pulled by a forty-horse hitch team. It was easy to understand the excitement of those witnessing the arrival of the circus during the early twentieth century.
I also encountered the history of the Ringling Brothers circus while evaluating the Scottish Rite scenery collection in Madison, Wisconsin. On my first day off, I visited the Wisconsin historical society and discovered a book about the Ringling Brothers -“Tents, Tigers and the Ringling Brothers” (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2007). It written by Jerry Apps and contained obscure tidbits of information concerning the logistics of the massive touring show. Apps provided a conversational record about this famous circus family and their early adventures; I was intrigued with the family. The Ringling brothers were just a few of the many famous personalities who Moses worked with during the early twentieth century.
So let’s travel back to 1869 when Thomas G. Moses was thirteen years old and living in Sterling, Illinois. That same year there were seven future circus stars living in McGregor, Iowa. Their father was August Frederick Rüngeling who owned a harness shop. The oldest son was Al Ringling (16), followed by Gus (15), Otto (11), Alf (6), Charles (4), John (3) and Henry (almost 1 year old). The two eldest sons helped their father in his harness-making shop. As soon as each child reached the age of ten, they began helping out in the shop and entered the family business. At the same time, Moses was also working for his father’s business – a tannery.
As many Midwestern children, the Ringling brothers first encountered circuses transported by riverboats. Circuses followed rivers, stopping by towns on major waterways. It was a riverboat circus that inspired the Ringling boys to set up their first circus. The event was to be a circus performed by children for other child. The initial price of admission being 10 straight pins, and was later increased to a penny. Their children’s circus shows took place in an old neighborhood barn where the brothers created a series of exhibits. One was a caged bullfrog with the sign, “From Timbuctoo. Captured at great risk from the depths of a far-away swamp from which no other frog collector ever emerged alive.”
In the early years, Al Ringling explored his acrobatic abilities. By the age of 20 he was a tightrope walker. When he was not working in the wagon and blacksmith shop in Brodhead, Wisconsin, he would string a rope between two buildings and perform his act for local passersby. Juggling was also added into this early routine. By 1879, Al gained additional circus experience when he went to work at Parson and Roy’s Great Palace Show. His brother John also began working with a circus at this time.
It was Al who came up with the idea of starting a performance troupe, and during the fall of 1882 proposed the idea of a hall show. The plan was to perform their variety acts in performance halls until they had raised enough money to purchase a circus tent. By this time Charles Ringling had become a skilled violinist and Alf played several other instruments that included the trumpet and tuba.
The Ringling’s first show was in Mazomanie, Wisconsin, about 25 miles away from Madison. There, Edward Kimball and three other actors from Baraboo joined the endeavor to form “the Ringling Brothers Classic and Comic Concert Company.” The price of admission was fifty cents for adults and twenty-five cents for children. Their first show opened on November 27, 1882. Unfortunately, it resulted in a loss of $12.90 – today’s equivalent of almost $320.00. However, they continued to perform their acts across Wisconsin, putting on a show every night. Their standard hall performance included an introductory opening followed by a coronet solo, short play, violin duet, vocal duet, and a longer play. One of the troupe’s longer performances was titled “A Cold Bath, or as Failure a Great Success.”
From 1882-1883, the Ringling Brothers put on 107 shows that winter. They performed six days a week, with each show opening in a different town. Al Ringling had previously worked for the “Yankee Robinson Circus,” and managed to convince the owner to help them start a circus; Robinson was 66 years old and became one of the featured acts.
At this same time, Moses was also branching out on his own. He had traveled extensively with Joseph S. Sosman from 1881 to 1882, with the firm provided scenery for seventy-four theaters all across the country. It was in 1882 that Moses would leave Sosman & Landis to partner with Lem Graham and form their own scene painting studio. Graham later founded the Kansas City Scenic Co.
For the Ringlings, Brother Otto would soon join the team and now the five Ringling Brothers would form the Ringling Brothers circus during 1883-1884. Al, Alf, Charles, John and Otto combined their efforts to secure enough income to purchase their first tent. That same year, Moses would board with the widow of Dan Castello, the famous circus clown, in Racine, Wisconsin, while he was working in the area.
To be continued…
