CircusThe Circus and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art are inextricably linked. John Ringling, one of the Ringling Brothers who merged their circus with the Barnum & Bailey Circus, was the founder of the Ringling Museum. In 1948, A. Everett Austin, the first Director of the Ringling Museum, established the Ringling Museum of the American Circus. Since that time it has continued to be at the forefront of documenting, preserving, and exhibiting the history of the circus.

Elephant and Clown at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Winter Quarters, Sarasota, Fla. M. E. Russell.

Courtesy of The Ringling Circus Museum

General CollectionClick the title to find it in the library catalog.

Sarasota and the CircusGrismer, Karl H. The Story of Sarasota: The History of the City and County of Sarasota,

Florida. Sarasota, FL: M.E. Russell, 1946

De Groft, Aaron, and David Chapin Weeks. A pictorial history of John and Mable Ringling. Sarasota, FL: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 2003.

John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. John and Mable Ringling in Sarasota: Newspaper Survey, 1911-1929. Sarasota, Fl: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 1984.

Matthews, Kenneth, and Robert McDevitt. The Unlikely Legacy: The Story of John Ringling, the Circus, and Sarasota. Sarasota, FL: Aaron Publishers, 1979.

The Ringling Brothers LegacyApps, Jerry. Ringlingville USA. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2005.

Buck, Pat Ringling. The Ringling Legacy. Sarasota, FL: PRB Enterprises, 1998.

Apps, Jerold W. Tents, Tigers, and the Ringling Brothers. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2007.

Plowden, Gene, and Roland Butler. Those Amazing Ringlings and Their Circus. New York: Bonanza Books, 1968.

Weeks, David. Ringling: The Florida Years 1911-1936. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993.

The Life of P.T. BarnumBarnum, P. T. The Life of P.T. Barnum. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Barnum, P. T., and Waldo R. Browne. Barnum's Own Story. New York: Dover Publications, 1961.

Barnum, P. T., and A. H. Saxon. Selected Letters of P.T. Barnum. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Fleming, Candace, and Ray Fenwick. The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P.T. Barnum. New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2009.

Garner, A. I. Spotlight on the American Circus: Its Fans, Performers & Owners. Harrisburg, Penn.: Renrag II Publishing, 2008.

Streissguth, Thomas. P.T. Barnum: "Every Crowd Has a Silver Lining". Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2009.

Circus HistoryAlbrecht, Ernest. The contemporary circus: art of the spectacular. Lanham, Md.:

Scarecrow Press, 2006.

Albrecht, Ernest J. The New American Circus. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995.

Culhane, John. The American Circus: An Illustrated History. NY: Henry Holt, 1990.

Hoh, LaVahn and William Rough. Step Right Up: The Adventure of Circus in America. White Hall, VA: Betterway Publication, 1990.

J. Dee Hill. Freaks & fire: the underground reinvention of circus. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2004.

Kotar, S.L. The rise of the American circus, 1716 – 1899. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2011.

McPherson, Douglas. Circus mania. London: Peter Owen, 2010.

Stevens, Geoff. Circus dictionary: over 1000 circus terms defined. Buntingford: Aardvark, 2004.

Thayer, Stuart. The Performers: A History of Circus Acts. Seattle, WA: Dauven & Thayer, 2005.

The Circus: Theory and Critical DiscourseBouissac, Paul. Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1976.

Bouissac, Paul. Circus as Multimodal Discourse: Performance, Meaning, and Ritual. 2014.

Stoddart, Helen. Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.

Tait, Peta. Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2005.

Rare Book CollectionPlease note that items in the Rare Book Collection require advanced notice for access. Please contact a librarian about accessing these materials.

The general Circus Collection and Rare Collection include works on the circus from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Books in this collection are considered rare because of either their age or scarcity. These books serve as a research source to circus scholars. To browse the Circus and Rare Collections, search the library catalog (lib.fsu.edu), then narrow results by “Library/Collection – FSU Ringling Museum,” then by “Library/Collection – Circus Collection, Rare.” You may also search for works in the Disend Collection and Tibbals Collection.

Periodicals Bandwagon. Columbus, Ohio: Circus Historical Society, 1957 - .

View online – click here

Spectacle: a quarterly journal of the circus arts. Edison, N.J.: Circus Plus Publications, 1997 - .

Online ResourcesCircopedia, online encyclopedia of the international circus.______________________________________________________________________

Museum ResourcesRingling Museum of Art, circus poster collection, over 4,000 imagesRingling Museum of Art, circus photographs.http://ringling.org/CircusMuseums.aspx

For further assistance please contact us at library@ringling.org.