Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Visual Materials
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Image of an elephant race in a tented circus arena with three men in Indian dress riding elephants and holding spears.
priJLC_ENT_000138
Visual Materials
Image of a circus menagerie with spectators viewing fenced and caged zoo animals including elephants, hippopotamus, polar bears, ostriches, seals, and zebras; "World Toured" globe logo at bottom right corner; "Cole Bros. Circus" panel pasted over another name printed on poster, presumably the Robbin Bros. Circus; date sheet for a June 18, [1936], show promoting "Ken Maynard's Wild West" in New London, Connecticut, pasted below image.
priJLC_ENT_000098
Image not available
Visual Materials
This collection contains more than 650 printed items that relate to circuses in the United States from the 1850s to the 1990s. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations produced for or pertaining to circuses, their tours and shows, staff and performers, acts and exhibits, and animals. Materials are arranged in three series: small-size prints and ephemera (11 x 14 inches or less); large-size prints and ephemera (more than 11 x 14 inches); and broadsides and handbills. The collection has 206 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic posters containing brightly colored images of featured circus acts, performers, and animals that were typically posted outdoors in advance of the circus coming to town. Small-size items in the collection number more than 320 and are comprised mainly of advertising and promotion ephemera and business documents such as trade cards, programs and souvenir books, route cards, envelopes, tickets, songsters, and printed billheads and letterheads. The 130 broadsides, handbills, and related advertisements consist primarily of long, narrow broadsides printed on newspaper paper in black ink using letterpress type that advertised upcoming circus shows and were intended to be distributed by hand, left in stacks in public places, or posted on walls, fences, or in windows in advance of the circus's arrival in a town. This collection provides a resource for studying the history of the American circus and its impact on popular entertainment and advertising in the 19th and 20th centuries. As graphic materials, the items offer evidence of the development of printmaking techniques and trends, and of the artists, engraves, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creation of these prints.
priJLC_ENT_004735
Visual Materials
Image of the head of an elephant and a smiling whiteface clown over a circus tent graphic.
priJLC_ENT_000086
Visual Materials
Image of a large circus tent with spectators viewing a menagerie of zoo animals in caged circus wagons and behind fences in a central arena; caged animals include seals, lions, tigers, polar bears, monkeys, and a tapir; the fenced animals include giraffes, elephants, a rhinoceros, hippopotamuses, gorillas, ostriches, antelope, bison, zebras, deer, and camels; center cage is labeled "Mr. and Mrs. Gargantua the Great"'; "The Greatest Show on Earth" globe logo at bottom right.
priJLC_ENT_000051
Visual Materials
Image of the head of an elephant and the face of a smiling whiteface clown over a circus tent graphic; date sheet for a May 9, [1968], show in Mesa, Arizona, pasted below image.
priJLC_ENT_000085