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Agency through Otherness: Portraits of Performers in Circus Route Books, 1875-1925 Main Menu Introduction Introduction to the book and information about ways to navigate the content. The American Experiment: Circus in Context Circus performers and American history timeline Routing the Circus: The Things They Carried Circus Routes Map, 1875-1925 Ethnological Congresses and the Spectacle by Rebecca Fitzsimmons Outsiders in Demand: Chinese and Japanese Immigrant Performers by Angela Yon and Mariah Wahl Shattering Gender Roles: Women in the Circus by Elizabeth Harman Side Show Sounds: Black Bandleaders Respond to Exoticism Annexed Circus Musicians by Elizabeth C. Hartman Native Performance and Identity in The Wild West Show by Mariah Wahl Showmen's Rests: The Final Curtain Circus Cemetery Plots by Elizabeth C. Hartman List of Performers Performers covered in this exhibit Acknowledgements Creative Commons License

Bibliography & Further Readings

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Looking for a Particular Citation?

Each footnote reference in this exhibit book links to a Citation Page for that source. To get a complete listing of all citation pages in this book, type "citation page" in the Search, located in the top Navigation bar.

Below is a separate Bibliography & Further Readings for each individual chapter in this exhibit.

Ethnological Congress and the Spectacle

Bibliography

Adams, Rachel. Sideshow U.S.A.: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination. (University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Bogdan, Robert. Freak Show : Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
Bouissac, Paul. Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1976).
Davis, Janet M. The Circus Age: Culture & Society Under the American Big Top (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); and Janet M. Davis, “The Circus Americanized,” in The American Circus, ed. Susan Weber, Kenneth Ames, and Matthew Wittmann (New York, NY: Bard Graduate Center, 2012).
Garascia, Ann McKenzie. “Freaking the Archive: Archiving Possibilities With the Victorian Freak Show,” (doctoral dissertation, University of California Riverside, 2017).
Gerber, David A. “The ‘Careers’ of People Exhibited in Freak Shows: The Problem of Volition and Valorization,” in Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body, ed. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1996), 38-54.
Linfors, Bernth. Early African Entertainments Abroad : from the Hottentot Venus to Africa’s First Olympians (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2014).
May, Whitney S. “Spectrality and Spectatorship: Heterotopic Doubling in Cinematic Circuses” in The Big Top on the Big Screen: Explorations of the Circus in Film, ed. Teresa Cutler-Broyles (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2020), 31-46.
McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York, NY: Routledge, 1995).
Murray, Marian. Circus! From Rome to Ringling (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1956).
Poignant, Roslyn. Professional Savages: Captive Lives and Western Spectacle (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004).
Rosaldo, Renato. Culture & Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993), p.30-32.
Stambler, Benita and Jennifer Lemmer Posey. “The Oriental India Poster: Transnational Imagery and Ethnographic Representation in the American Circus,” Early Popular Visual Culture 13, no. 1 (2015): pp. 1-20, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2014.987877.
Tromp, Marlene. “Empire and the Indian Freak: The ‘Miniature Man’ from Cawnpore and the ‘Marvellous Indian Boy’ on tour in England,” in Victorian Freaks: The Social Context of Freakery in Britain, ed. Marlene Tromp (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2008).
Wittmann, Matthew. Circus and the City: New York, 1793-2010 (New York, NY: Bard Graduate Center, 2012).

Outsiders in Demand: Chinese and Japanese Immigrant Performers

Bibliography

Shattering Gender Roles: Women in the Circus

Bibliography

Adams, Katherine H. and Michael L. Keene. Women of the American Circus: 1880-1940. (McFarland, 2012).
American Etiquette and Rules of Politeness. Standard Pub. Co, 1883. doi: https://doi.org/10.5479/sil.355437.39088005845243.
Find A Grave. "Dolores “Dolly” Vallecita Hill". https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/169704482/dolores-hill.
Chapman, David L. and Patricia Anne Vertinsky. Venus with Biceps: a Pictorial History of Muscular Women. (Arsenal Press, 2010), 33.
Childress, Micah. “Life Beyond The Big Top: African American and Female Circusfolk, 1896-1920.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15 (2016): 176-196. https://doi:10.1017/S1537781415000250.
Day 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.
Find A Grave. "Dolores “Dolly” Vallecita Hill". https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/169704482/dolores-hill.
Footlight Notes. "Mlle. Zittella, English circus performer, strongwoman, singer and burlesque entertainer, San Francisco, circa 1880". 2013. https://footlightnotes.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/cabinet-photograph-of-mlle-zittella-zittella/
Harper, Kimberly. “Ella Ewing.” https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72123047/ella-ewing-circus-vs-regular-travels/.
History.com. Gilded Age. A&E Television Networks. Last Updated April 3, 2020. https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/gilded-age.
The Human Marvels. "Annie Jones – The Esau Woman". https://www.thehumanmarvels.com/annie-jones-the-esau-woman/.
The Human Marvels. “Grace Gilbert the Redheaded Bearded Lady.” https://www.thehumanmarvels.com/grace-gilbert-the-bearded-lady/.
Kelly, Kate. "First Woman Tiger Trainer/Tamer: Mabel Stark (1888-1968)". Heroes & Trailblazers, Influential Women, Inspirational Women. https://americacomesalive.com/mabel-stark-1888-1968-known-first-woman-tiger-trainertamer/.
Rare Historical Photos. “The First Female Bodybuilders and Strongwomen Showing off Their Gains, 1900s.” Last modified May 23, 2018. rarehistoricalphotos.com/first-female-bodybuilders-1900s/.
Taber, Frances Wentz. A Carnival & Circus History 1902 - 1942. Florida: 2002. 15-17.

Side Show Sounds: Black Bandleaders Respond to Exoticism

Bibliography

Abbott, Lynn and Doug Seroff. Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, "Coon Songs," and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
Berresford, Mark. That's Got 'Em! The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012.
Button, Marilyn D. "Cornish, Samuel." In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Oxford Reference. Date Accessed 2 December 2020. https://www-oxfordreference-com.libproxy.lib.ilstu.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780195138832.001.0001/acref-9780195138832-e-129.
Carroll, Frederick James. "Race News: How Black Reporters and Readers Shaped the Fight for Racial Justice, 1877-1978." PhD diss., College of William & Mary, 2012. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-ptak-p544.
Childress, Micah. “Life Beyond The Big Top: African American and Female Circusfolk, 1896-1920.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15 (2016): 176-196. https://doi:10.1017/S1537781415000250.
“Eph Williams: The Legend of the Tent.” Daily News, May 4, 1997. https://www.newspapers.com/image/475733789.
Greene, Debra Foster. "Just enough of everything: The St. Louis Argus - an African American newspaper and publishing company in its first decade." Business History Conference 4 (2006). https://thebhc.org/sites/default/files/greene.
Ratzlaff, Aleen J. "Illustrated African American Journalism: Political Cartooning in the Indianapolis Freeman." In Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press, edited by David B. Sachsman, 131-140. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2009.
Rouzeau, E. T. "Show-owner's wife airs views on tolerance: Says southern prejudice far less dangerous than said northern tolerence." The Pittsburgh Courier (1911-1950), March 14, 1942. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40067092/.

Native Performance and Identity in The Wild West Show

Bibliography

Boorn, Alida S. "Oskate Wicasa (One Who Performs)" (hereinafter "Oskate Wicasa"), Central Missouri State University, (2005).
Davis, Janet M. The Circus Age: Culture & Society Under the American Big Top (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); and Janet M. Davis, “The Circus Americanized,” in The American Circus, ed. Susan Weber, Kenneth Ames, and Matthew Wittmann (New York, NY: Bard Graduate Center, 2012).
Ellis, Mark R. "Reservation Akicitas: The Pine Ridge Indian Police, 1879-1885." South Dakota State Historical Society. Vol 29, no 3. Fall 1999.
Maddra, S. Hostiles?: The Lakota Ghost Dance and Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2006.
McNenly, Linda Scarangella. Native Performers in Wild West Shows: From Buffalo Bill to Euro Disney.
Moses, L. G. Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1883–1933. University of New Mexico Press.1996. ISBN 9780826316851.
Petition for the removal of Agent Valentine McGillicuddy, published in the San Francisco Examiner (28 August 1882).
Rangel, Pablo A. Racialized Nationality: Mexicans, Vaqueros, and U.S. Nationalism in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
Witmer, Linda F. "Carlisle Indian Industrial School (1879 - 1918)". Cumberland County Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2013-05-29. Accessed 2021-04-02. https://web.archive.org/web/20130529090354/http://journals.historicalsociety.com/ftp/ciiswelcome.html.

Showmen's Rests: The Final Curtain

Bibliography

Childress, Micah. “Life Beyond The Big Top: African American and Female Circusfolk, 1896-1920.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15 (2016): 176-196. https://doi:10.1017/S1537781415000250.
Circus Solly. “Under the Marquee.” Billboard, February 22, 1919, page 31. https://archive.org/details/sim_billboard_1919-02-22_31_8/page/n30/mode/2up
Grossman, Ron. “Circus graveyard: Showmen’s Rest and the Hagenbeck-Wallace tragedy of 1918.” Chicago Tribune, August 12, 2016. https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-circus-train-showmens-rest-flashback-perspec-0814-jm-20160810-story.html
Hildreth, Walter D. “The Showmen’s League of America: A brief review of its past and a look into the future.” Billboard, December 22, 1917. https://archive.org/details/sim_billboard_1917-12-22_29_51/page/164/mode/2up
Interstate Commerce Commission. Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Safety covering the investigation of an accident which occurred on the Michigan Central Railroad at Ivanhoe, Ind., on June 22, 1918. W. P Borland, Chief, Bureau of Safety. August 8, 1918. https://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+1+(byhits+(general+(anyof+circus)))) (Accessed April 3, 2021.)
Lytle, Richard M. The Great Circus Train Wreck of 1918: Tragedy Along the Indiana Lakeshore. South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2010.

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Agency through Otherness: Portraits of Performers in Circus Route Books, 1875-1925 Angela Yon
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