Agency through Otherness: Portraits of Performers in Circus Route Books, 1875-1925Main MenuThe American Experiment: Circus in ContextCircus performers and American history timelineRouting the Circus: The Things They CarriedCircus Routes Map, 1875-1925Ethnological Congresses and the Spectacleby Rebecca FitzsimmonsOutsiders in Demand: Chinese and Japanese Immigrant Performersby Angela Yon and Mariah WahlShattering Gender Roles: Women in the Circusby Elizabeth HarmanSide Show Sounds: Black Bandleaders Respond to ExoticismAnnexed Circus Musicians by Elizabeth C. HartmanNative Performance and Identity in The Wild West Showby Mariah WahlShowmen's Rests: The Final CurtainCircus Cemetery Plots by Elizabeth C. HartmanList of PerformersPerformers covered in this exhibitBibliography & Further ReadingsBibliography and readings for each chapterAcknowledgementsAngela Yon72f2fd7a28c88ceeba2adcf2c04fee469904c6f1
Day by Day with Barnum & Bailey Season 1903-1904
12021-04-09T12:00:13-07:00Angela Yon72f2fd7a28c88ceeba2adcf2c04fee469904c6f1382942Citation Pageplain2021-04-23T06:42:28-07:00Angela Yon72f2fd7a28c88ceeba2adcf2c04fee469904c6f1Day by Day with Barnum & Bailey Season 1903-1904. Milner Library Circus Route Books Collection. 51. https://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/digital/collection/p15990coll5/id/9728/rec/3
Even less is known about the prolific Marie. Performing as a "fat" lady for the Barnum and Bailey Circus from 1903-1906, she was also described under many titles. “The English Fat Girl”, “Beautiful Marie”, and the “Human Mountain” were a few listed within the circus route books. Nothing is mentioned about her personal life outside of the circus, though a few interesting stories from life on the road were written. In one of these stories, Marie was paramount in alerting her other colleagues in the side show when the building they were sleeping in had caught fire, making sure everyone was awake and getting out safely.
"A world of normality with only one freak left alive would be a most uncomfortable one for the freak," is how the route book described the way in which the sideshow performers cared for one another. 8 Though a horrible way to describe the incident, it does give insight into the familial nature of the sideshow artists, living and working together as equals being ostracized from the rest of society.
