Barringer,+Sarah

Section A: Plan of Investigation

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the extent with which the 1920s’ Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus had a proper environment with correct values for children. The investigation will cover the social and home life of children living outside of the circus, taking into consideration poor and middle class families. The investigation will also cover the life of a circus performer in the 20s, with reference to how children would later be involved in the circus in the 50s. The merit the circus possesses will be considered from the point of view of two types of families from the 1920s, the conservatives who looked to the past and liberals, who embraced emerging values. The sources //Circus Queen and Tinker Bell, the Memoir of Tiny Kline// and //American Decades: 1920-1929// will be evaluated according to their origins, purposes, values, and limitations. A conclusion will be drawn about the benefits and misgivings of the values and stability present in the circus and if these would be appropriate for children.

Section B: Summary of Evidence

The 1920s were a time of changing family values. Children were no longer considered young adults. They were thought of as “emotionally ‘priceless,’ their value measured in the parents’ joy in a child’s smile.”1 Though there were remnants of the patriarchal family, child and parent began to progress towards standing on equal footing with each other.2 The new attention given children meant they were no longer expected to work from a young age. Child labor laws even began to forbid it.3 Instead, the emphasis turned towards education and, as societal hierarchy gained a new base in intelligence, school enrollment rose dramatically.4

In and around schooling, children spent more of their time in recreational or entertaining activities.5 They listened to the radio, drove around town as they got older, and attended movies and sporting events.6 Participating in sports took up a significant amount of children’s time as the American public “‘seated [athletics] on the American throne.’”7 The new-found freedom led youth to look away from the family, creating worlds with fashions and behaviors completely separate from those of adults.8

However, the 20s was the brink of these new family values and many still believed in traditional roles. John Watson’s philosophy of strict child rearing was widely popular despite its push against the new nurturing family.9 Fundamentalist Christians were especially concerned with the slackening of religious values and many parents were shocked and disturbed by the worlds teenagers had created.10 The increase in families with cars allowed teenagers privacy as well as an escape from their parents, allocating unsupervised dating.11

Despite the economic prosperity of these families and the new belief that children were “above financial consideration,” some could not afford to send their children to school.12 Often the financial support families needed to send their children went to other places.13 In 1929, 59 percent of America did not meet the “minimal level of ‘health and decency.’”14 To them, employment was a luxury and a steady income was not necessarily guaranteed.15

Life in the circus was much more stable economically, if not physically. All expenses, beyond some clothing and medical bills, were paid by the circus.16 Otherwise, every performer received a salary for other costs. In the 1920s, the circus was behind the times in everything save technology. A strict hierarchy between workers and performers and performers and performers yet remained.17 Dating—though it did proceed subtly outside of the circus tent—drinking, and—for women—smoking were taboo.18 Flappers and ‘new women’ were not accepted.

Every day was physically difficult, consumed by practice and performance. The circus had two or three shows every day except Sunday. The time between the matinee and evening show was used “for practicing new tricks and perfecting old ones”19 and at the end of the evening performance, people climbed onto the train and fell asleep as it moved on to the next town, save on the rare days when a circus remained in the same town for more than a day.20 Unless more than one night was needed to travel between towns, the next morning, performers walked off the train to set up their acts in time to start the next performance.21

However, despite the constant time pressure, the circus was never wanting for entertainment. They always had at least one team sport running the course of the show, be it softball or football or baseball.22 A handful of performers played music and Sundays were a day of leisure when the ladies slept in late, where romantic interests might be followed or outings to the town would be arranged to watch the newest moving picture.23

Circus people have always had a strong family bond, perceiving “themselves to be removed from the rest of the society.”24 Performers travel with the same people year round and as long as people remain with the same circus, they will travel with the same people for many years. Through mutual work and constant attention to one another’s needs, “circus people become an extension of one’s own family.”25 They are prepared to step in, even to the point of annoyance, should someone be injured or in trouble.26

Be it noted though that in the 1920s, children were not allowed in the circus.27 They would have been sent to a boarding school, if it could be afforded, or to a relative or friend. Children at the circus would have had to work, as they would later in the 50s, causing education to be a difficulty. Because their parents worked long hours, caring for the child could be a struggle and educating the child themselves would be impossible. The best remedy was, if the money was available, to hire a tutor.28 However, that money was not always readily available and children in the circus would have to be treated as adults.

Section C: Evaluation of Sources

Kline, Tiny. //Circus Queen and Tinker Bell, the Memoir of Tiny Kline.// Ed. Janet M. Davis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Print.

The origin of Circus Queen is that it was written by Tiny Kline and published in 2008.29 The purpose of the autobiography was to explain performers “living facilities, and their moral code and social behavior while trouping.”30 The value of this is that it ranges across the many years of Kline’s experience; from her time trouping as an amateur to a professional and the respect and work she gets and does during those times. Kline expresses the family atmosphere of the circus and the people she can or cannot rely on. Another value is her description of her living quarters and the various tents built for dressing and eating as well as the activates that take place inside. A limitation, however, is Kline’s lack of breadth of knowledge in the direction of men’s activities and those of married couples, though she does mention some of the information she learns from her friends that are married. She admits that as circus folk go, she is less social and more rebellious than most, which can give a skewed view on social life.

Baughman, Judith S., ed. //American Decades: 1920-1929.// New York: Gale Research Inc, 1996. Print.

The origin of //American Decades// is that it was written by Judith Baughman and published in 1996.31 The purpose is to cover the everyday lives and changing values of the American people during the 1920s. The purpose of the most relevant chapters to this topic were on the increasingly sought-after education system, increase in technology and the efficiency produced by these devices, and the increasingly informal and loving family atmosphere. The value is that explains the new, but very prominent, emphasis on the need to educate children and treat them children. Another value comes in the attention Baughman gives to family values and how the new ability and belief in caring for children above everything else relates to education and the rebellious attitudes of ‘new’ women. A limitation is that the source is an encyclopedia, which deals with generalities. It gives a sweeping overview of home life instead of giving day to day details. It also can simplify complicated issues so the general reader can understand it in only a couple paragraphs.

Section D: Analysis

The conviction of the circus’s ability to have a good atmosphere for children is heavily dependent on what is considered to be the right environment for a child. No two parents will consent to the same answer, although many will agree on some overarching values. The two most prominent family types in the 1920s were the conservatives and the liberal new families.

Conservative families would have continued to believe that children were small adults. Though child labor laws were beginning to appear, conservatives would have continued to want their children work when possible.32 Even if work wasn’t feasible, their want for hard-working children would have spilled into education, which became so popular that even many conservative families must have been taken up and enrolled their children. Liberal families considered school essential for children, both as a fundamental need and a social distinguisher.33

Therefore, many families, conservative and liberal, would be extremely uneasy about sending their children to the circus, where they would have little time to be education. Even in the 1950s it was a struggle for families in the circus to find education for their children.34 In 1920, few had the money necessary to hire a personal tutor and, as education had only recently become a necessity, they were not in high supply.

However, conservative and liberal families would differ in their opinion about the lack of time children had. The conservatives would readily agree with the training children had. Liberals on the other hand, who thought of children as free spirits who should be loved and not burdened, would blanch at the work children did at such an early age.35 The amount of work parents in the circus would have to take part in as well would also make it difficult for them to spend time with their children outside of training.36 Though the conservatives would most likely be neutral on this point, liberals would be horrified. The new values called for parents to spend quality time with their children as often as possible, something difficult to achieve in the circus.

One of the few values the circus possessed that liberals would probably agree with would be the communal atmosphere.37 Performs always looked out for each other. But this would have been much waylaid by the circus’s intrusive grapevine. In the 20s, family life was beginning to turn inward.38 Neighbors would still greet each other, but one shouldn’t pry into another’s business. The close-quarters of the circus would have rendered privacy nearly impossible and destroyed much of the good impression liberal families had of the communal atmosphere.39

They would have also been adverse to surviving hierarchy and quickly-become archaic values. The best performers dictated rules to those on the lower rungs and conversation between performers and workers was strictly forbidden.40 But, above anything else, the conservatives would be delighted by an institution that retained all the regulations that belonged to past generations.

But ultimately, regardless of other factors, many conservatives would immediately be against the circus for simply being the circus. Not a hundred years prior there was a strong stigma against the circus in churches, where many priests condemned circuses, and among the general populace.41 Simply being a showman was not well thought of in the mid-1800s.42 Though P.T. Barnum cleaned up the circus’s morals and activities, and by 1920 the circus had certainly cleaned out most of the riff raff and illegal activities, it was still looked upon with caution if not scorn by conservatives.43 Liberal families would not share this prejudice even if they did not agree with many of the circus’s values.

But, without consideration to any of its standards, the circus is a steady place to live nine months out of the year.44 Even if the salary provided isn’t enough to buy anything beyond some cheap clothing, food and shelter are provided. Most conservatives and liberals alike would agree they would rather see their child enter the circus than watch them starve.

Section E: Conclusion

Neither the conservatives nor the liberals would be particularly pleased to see their children partake in the circus, let alone be raised there. The conservatives might have to grudgingly admit that the circus held onto standards and traditions from the 1800s, which they hoped to impress on their children themselves, but most would find the circus scandalous and immoral. Liberals, though not nearly as hostile, could hardly agree with the circus’s standards and traditions from the 1800s and would rather their children received an education. The only people who would find the circus suitable would be those that lived in poverty, and most likely they would learn to distain the circus as soon as they had the money to afford it.

Section F: List of Sources

Barnum, Phineas Taylor. //The Life of P.T. Barnum.// New York: Redfield, 1855. Print.

Baughman, Judith S., ed. //American Decades: 1920-1929//. New York: Gale Research Inc, 1996. Print.

Davis, Janet M. //The Circus Age: Culture & Society Under the American Big Top//. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Print.

Gebel-Williams, Gunther. //Untamed//. New York: Siggun Corporation, 1991. Print.

Hanson, Erica. //A Cultural History of the United States: Through the Decades, The 1920s//. San Diego: Lucent Books Inc, 1999. Print.

Kelly, Emmett, and F. Beverly Kelley. //Clown//. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954.

Kline, Tiny. //Circus Queen and Tinker Bell, the Memoir of Tiny Kline//. Ed. Janet M. Davis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Print.

Mishler, Doug A. "Circus in America." //The Guide to United States Popular Culture.// Ed. Ray B. Browne and Pat Browne. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001. 172-3. Google Books. Web. 29 Sept. 2010. .

Endnotes

1 Baughman, Judith S., ed. //American Decades: 1920-1929.// New York: Gale Research Inc, 1996. Print. p.279 2 Ibid p.269 3 Ibid p.279 4 Ibid p.132, 129 5 Ibid p.269 6 Hanson, Erica. //A Cultural History of the United States: Through the Decades, The 1920s//. San Diego: Lucent Books Inc, 1999. Print. p.83 7 Ibid p.277 8 Baughman p.281 9 Ibid p.279 10 Hanson p.54 11 Baughman p.281 12 Ibid p.279 13 Ibid p.130 14 Ibid p.277. Quoted as from a 1929 Brookings Institution study 15 Ibid p.277 16 Gebel-Williams, Gunther. //Untamed//. New York: Siggun Corporation, 1991. Print. p.209 17 Davis, Janet M. //The Circus Age: Culture & Society Under the American Big Top.// Chapel Hill: Universtiy of North Carolina Press, 2002. Print. p.62 18 Kline, Tiny. //Circus Queen and Tinker Bell, the Memoir of Tiny Kline.// Ed. Janet M. Davis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Print. p.142, 94, 127 19 Kelly, Emmett, and F. Beverly Kelley. //Clown.// New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954. Print. p.90 20 Kline p.93 21 Ibid p.43 22 Kelly p.266 23 Kline p.243, 194 24 Davis p.72 25 Gebel-Williams p.120 26 Kline p.52 27 Ibid p.102 28 Gebel-Williams p.218 29 Kline was in a Hungarian dance troupe and joined the hippodrome from 1911 to 1916 when she came to America. In 1916, she was hired by the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which was to be combined with the Ringling Brothers Circus in 1919. She worked in the Greatest Show on Earth as a statue girl and later a star aerialist for many years and finally retired from circus life in 1938. 30 Kline p.35 31 Baughman is the author of the ten volume //American Decades// series, along with several other books on literature including //The Essential Bibliography of American Fiction// series. 32 Baughman p.279 33 Ibid p.129, p.279 34 Gunter 202 35 Baughman p.278 36 Kline p.44 37 Ibid p.52 38 Baughman p.269 39 Kelly p.132 40 Kline p.118, p. 126, p.175 41 Barnum, Phineas Taylor. //The Life of P.T. Barnum.// New York: Redfield, 1855. Print. p.179 42 Ibid p.214 43 Mishler p.172 44 Gunther p.209