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
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_004731
Visual Materials
Image of a gold oil lamp radiating rays of light; the poster advertises the production of the musical dramatic spectacle "Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp," based on the Middle Eastern folktale, at the Chestnut Street Theatre (or Chesnut Street Theatre) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, managed by Leonard Grover.
priJLC_ENT_001354
Visual Materials
Image of a procession of horse-drawn floats in a street pageant put on by the Barnum & Bailey greatest show on earth featuring representations of Europe, Africa, and America with statues and people in costume.
priJLC_ENT_004726
Image not available
Visual Materials
Image of the Dunbar Trio of aerialists in an advertisement for Barnum & Bailey circus; full length portrait of the trio at bottom left with illustrations of their feats in background; portraits of Barnum & Bailey at top right and left.
priJLC_ENT_005069
Visual Materials
Image of a parade procession of horse-drawn wagons in a street pageant put on by the Barnum & Bailey greatest show on earth featuring representations of fairy tales and nursery rhymes; brass band at center.
priJLC_ENT_004730
Image not available
Visual Materials
Image of an advertisement for Barnum & Bailey circus featuring two adult and one baby giraffe fenced in a pen indoors with several other animals in cages in the background; portraits of Barnum & Bailey at left.
priJLC_ENT_005070