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Milner Library

Circus & Allied Arts Collection

Crowd of customers moving towards a tent labeled 'You are now enering the greatest show on earth. Main Entrance.'

Milner Library’s Circus and Allied Arts Collection ranks among the largest special collections of its kind, documenting the fascinating history of the circus and related popular entertainments, such as carnivals, sideshows, carousels, medicine shows, music halls, and vaudeville. In addition to over 8,000 books, the collection includes photographs, posters, programs, route books, correspondence, business records, band scores, assorted media, and realia.

The Circus and Allied Arts Collection can be accessed in the Special Collections Reading Room on the 6th floor of Milner Library. A growing selection of sub-collections is also available online, with more items being digitized every day.

Explore Digitized Materials

  • black and white relief print of a circus

    Barnum & Bailey Circus Programs

    These ephemeral programs provide fascinating examples of P.T. Barnum and the Bailey Brothers' brilliance in building and marketing what would come to be known as the "Greatest Show on Earth."

  • black and white photo of a woman in a circus costume

    Charles Clarke Circus Photos

    The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus of the 1920s comes alive through these hundreds of photos documenting the spectacle and mundanity of life for circus folks.

  • black and white photo of a woman sitting on a trapese.

    Circus Films

    Witness the tremendous movement of the circus and experience intimate, unscripted moments with some of the sawdust circle’s brightest stars in this unique historical footage.

  • illustration of a clown sitting with a book that says 'Season of 1899'

    Circus Route Books

    A distinctive artifact of circus culture, route books served as an important record of the day-to-day operations of the industry’s biggest shows as they crisscrossed the country each year.

  • illustration of a clown on a blue background

    Gamma Phi Circus Programs

    The oldest collegiate circus in America, Gamma Phi was founded in 1929 as a gymnastics fraternity by Illinois State Normal University’s Director of Physical Education Clifford "Pop" Horton. Since 1932 it has staged an end-of-semester performance each spring to showcase the traditional circus arts and demonstrate exciting new innovations in acrobatics and design.

  • illustration of a woman holding a whip surrounded by lions, tigers, and cheetahs

    Heralds and Handbills

    Typically vertically oriented and covered in dense, black text, these posters were often tacked up on telephone poles by advance men to announce coming attractions. Relatively few heralds survive to the present day as they were often cheaply produced and quickly discarded.

  • photo of Buffalo Bill

    The Life and Legacy of Buffalo Bill

    William Frederick Cody, more commonly known as Buffalo Bill, embodies the romance of an illusory Western frontier. This collection explores the enduring influence of Buffalo Bill on American culture and our persistent fascination with one its greatest showmen.

  • Handwriting on the back of a postcard

    Manuscripts at Milner

    From daily diaries and circus travelogues to medieval religious texts and ledgers detailing the operations of Illinois State Normal University in its infancy, this collection gathers together some of Milner Library’s many unique exemplars of handwritten codex-format texts.

  • photo of two women in circus costumes holding hands

    Musselman Family Photographs

    During the 1920s and 30s the Musselman family of Bloomington, Illinois traveled the world together as the stars of Bob Fisher’s Fearless Flyers, a headlining flying return trapeze troupe. Robert Musselman (stage name: Bob Fisher), his wife Frances, and their daughter Maxine memorialized their unusual career through hundreds of snapshots capturing life on the road, above the stage, and in the muddy backyards of circuses near and far.

  • photo of a woman in circus costume flanked on either side by clowns

    Passion for Circus: The Photography of Sverre Braathen

    Circus superfan Sverre Braathen (1895-1974) spent much of his leisure time with camera in hand, capturing candid photos of shows large and small across America. Today, the saturated colors of the thousands of Kodachrome slides he created speak to the exuberance and spectacle of the circus industry during its waning years in the middle of the 20th century.

  • illustration of P.T. Barnum

    P.T. Barnum Letters and Ephemera

    Explore the world and writings of legendary showman Phineas Taylor Barnum, the man who revolutionized entertainment in 19th-century America. Many of these documents deal with Barnum’s American Museum, his failed real estate speculation venture in Denver, Colorado, and his relationship with “Swedish nightingale” Jenny Lind.

  • sequined circus costume

    Ueckert Circus Wardrobe Collection

    This digital collection showcases an unparalleled assemblage of circus costuming, accessories, and props dating from the 1880s to the early 2000s. Check back frequently as we continue adding new pieces!

  • illustration of a large ship with smoke stacks on water

    Ward Family Postcards

    The Flying Wards were a Bloomington, Illinois-based aerial act playing circuses, parks, fairs, and vaudeville stages across America from about 1903 into the 1930s. This collection offers a peek into Eddie and Jennie Ward's travels as they collected postcards at their destinations and sent short updates home to family members.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Magazine Index

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Magazine Index contains all of Milner Library's holdings for this circus. The collection, which spans the years 1919 to 2009, includes multiple editions of each program published including Road Programs and Madison Square Garden Programs from 1919-1969 and Red Unit and Blue Unit Programs from 1970-2009. Over 4,000 articles have been indexed. These can be searched for by serial titles, issues, article titles, authors, article types, and index terms.

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey programs are full of incredible information about each year's circus. Subjects of the articles include biographical information about the performers and circus management, descriptions of acts, information about circus life, advertisements, historical information, and words of appreciation for the circus written by fans. Many famous writers, actors, and musicians contributed content to these programs including Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, Bing Crosby, Burt Lancaster, and many more.

Browse the Circus Magazine Index

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