• Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Circus World: Roustabouts, Animals, and the Work of Putting on the Big Show

Circus World: Roustabouts, Animals, and the Work of Putting on the Big Show

Hardcover

Series: Working Class in American History

General DramaSocial Movements

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0252045866
ISBN13: 9780252045868
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: Jul 9 2024
Pages: 272
Language: English
From the 1870s to the 1960s, circuses crisscrossed the nation providing entertainment. A unique workforce of human and animal laborers from around the world put on the show. They also formed the backbone of a tented entertainment industry that raised new questions about what constituted work and who counted as a worker.

Andrea Ringer examines the industry-wide circus world--the collection of shows that traveled by rail, wagon, steamboat, and car--and the traditional and nontraditional laborers who created it. Performers and their onstage labor played an integral part in the popularity of the circus. But behind the scenes, other laborers performed the endless menial tasks that kept the show on the road. Circus operators regulated employee behavior both inside and outside the tent even as the employees themselves blurred the line between leisure and labor until, in all parts of the show, the workers could not escape their work.

1 different editions

Also available

Also from

Ringer, Andrea

Also in

General Drama