Wisconsin Circus Woes and the Great Dan Rice
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200318_EP 5/20/05 10:57 AM Page 18 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY Missouri Historical Society Courtesy of the author In this daguerreotype portrait taken in 1848, Rice’s eyes reveal intelligence and a penchant for mischief; both were crucial to creating clever commentaries As this February on current events. 1860 courier for Wisconsin Circus Woes Dan Rice’s Great Show attests, his audiences got the and the Great Dan Rice usual circus fare of “Educated Mules,” “Anecdote Song and By David Carlyon Story,” and an “Unequaled Troupe,” as well as ircus is regularly told in tales of sweetness and light, and Wisconsin’s cele- a grand spectacle, brated past fills that sentimental bill. In the 1870s, Dan Castello and William “The Magic Ring.” CC. Coup started a show in Racine before heading east to call on P. T. Bar- num, not yet a circus man, to ask for the use of his name to create Barnum & Bailey. Glory—and stories—followed. In the 1880s, the Ringling brothers emerged from Baraboo, and storied glory followed them too. Of course, not all is glorious. Fred Dahlinger Jr. and Stuart Thayer’s Badger State Showmen gives a taste of the tribula- tions that attend circuses, as does Milton J. Bates’s article, “The Wintermutes’ Gigan- tic Little Circus,” which appeared in the Autumn 2003 issue of this magazine. Trouble 18 S UMMER 2005 200318_EP 5/12/05 8:45 PM Page 19 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY hit especially hard in the nineteenth century. Self-anointed Taylor—circuses didn’t have “band chariots” in 1848—nor arbiters of morality condemned the circus, accidents on the lot did “on the bandwagon” start with him. He did not invent were common, star animals died, corrupt or greedy or biased pink lemonade. The most appealing yarn yokes Dan Rice and local officials made life miserable for touring ventures, calami- Abe Lincoln as pals but it’s a fantasy. Intended to boost Rice, ties interrupted travel over terrible roads in pitch-dark night or these fictions had the opposite effect, shrinking him to fit the on the age’s unsafe boats, and talking clowns generated contro- emerging stereotype of clown as a sentimental symbol, pro- versy, while sex and violence ran through it all. That entire cat- viding “comic relief” (another stereotype) from daily troubles alogue of calamity landed on another famous circus man but otherwise divorced from real life. during his Badger State tours. A generation before the Rin- The real Dan Rice did not need the boost of sentimental glings’ first exhibition or Barnum entered the world of circus, fictions. The same W. C. Coup who enticed Barnum into cir- Wisconsin went the whole hog piling afflictions on the great cus life called Rice “the greatest clown America ever saw Dan Rice. [and] the most famous circus performer in America.” Born on The great who? January 25, 1823, to Elizabeth Crum and Daniel McLaren in Circus fans may take offense at the question but beyond Manhattan, when it was still mostly a bucolic island, he the world of circus, Dan Rice has fallen into obscurity. Possi- headed west by himself when he was barely in his teens. bly the most famous man in 1860-America, he is now virtu- Landing in Pittsburgh, he worked around horses (leading to ally unknown. General histories skip him. Scholars of another tale, that he was a prize-winning jockey) and became performance confuse him with the blackface performer, T. D. friends with locals, including Stephen Foster. He got his start “Jump Jim Crow” Rice. Even circus histories pass along in “the show business” presenting a “Learned Pig.” Rising Ricean tall tales, fictions repeated so often they became from those porcine roots, he attracted thousands upon thou- accepted as fact. To set the record straight, Rice did not use sands of Americans during a fifty-year career as a clown who his bandwagon to parade presidential candidate Zachary encompassed song-and-dance, whiteface pratfalls, blackface minstrelsy, and what would today be called stand-up comedy; a “Shaksperian jester” who mixed ribaldry and poetry; and a master showman who produced grand spectacles on the country’s stages and introduced some of the age’s most remarkable trained animals. Yet, there was more. Refinement is now a self-evident, albeit vague, concept, but it was novel in the 1800s as the emerging middle class sought to situate itself above crude culture. Poets, preachers, and politicians all advocated “aspiration”—as did Rice, who combined a touch of all three. He grew to national favor as he insisted he was no mere clown but the “American Humorist” who “aspired to higher things,” in what he insisted was no mere circus but “Dan Rice’s Great Show.” (His press agent later worked for Barnum & Bailey, which capitalized on Rice’s world- renowned title to label itself “The Greatest Show On Earth.”) And more: To fully appreciate Rice’s reach, it is important to recognize that circus was then primarily adult fare, and per- formance of all kinds was a public conversation with the audi- ence, a cross between a talk radio and a sporting event. In that boisterous dynamic, Rice became a public figure beyond per- formance, as his “hits on the times”—political commentary— evolved into legitimate attempts at public office. To call a politician a clown is now a joke; in 1864, Republicans thought differently. Rice campaigned—from the circus ring—for the Pennsylvania State Senate as a Peace Democrat. He lost, but criticizing Republicans, their Civil War policy, and Lincoln, Houghton Library, Harvard he ran ahead of the national ticket in Pennsylvania. He also This composite sketch displays many of the roles Dan Rice played flirted with the nomination for Congress in 1866, but eventu- as a circus performer. His abilities as a public speaker, clown, ally turned it down. His campaigns concluded with a brief and animal trainer helped propel him to the top of his profession. foray as an early presidential candidate in 1867. S UMMER 2005 19 200318_EP 5/20/05 10:59 AM Page 20 W ISCONSIN M AGAZINE OF H ISTORY t was those politics that complicate another Rice legend: that The amusingly excessive venom continued on June 24 and he was a model for Uncle Sam. Although the name “Uncle July 1. Behind the attacks lurked frustration. The people ISam” emerged in the early nineteenth century, it wasn’t until ignored the advice for they liked circus and they especially 1869 that Thomas Nast drew the character that continues to be liked Rice. Therefore, it was not surprising that this editor also recognizable. Nast, however, was an ardent Republican who sneered at the people. He insisted that his opinion was “hon- would never have consciously used such a Democratic stalwart estly entertained and frankly expressed”—sincerity as the tra- as a model. Yet, blend the two costumes Rice wore most often in ditional excuse for rancor—so those “who don’t like it ‘can the ring, clown stripes with stars and the formal wear of a mid- lump it.’” dle-class gentleman, include his renowned top hat and mustache- This attack was unlikely to have bothered Rice. Circuses less goatee, and it’s the Uncle Sam that Nast drew and we know regularly drew criticism. Anyway, feuds fueled Rice’s fame. today. Add the fact that the popular, touring Dan Rice was prob- His strength as a performer lay in his skill in addressing pub- ably seen by more Americans than anyone else of his era was, lic issues, and if those issues included himself, so much the and he becomes the closest this country has come to an embod- better. From the tiny Times of Kenosha to Horace Greeley’s iment of Uncle Sam. mighty New York Tribune, a recent Of course, fame does not prevent feuding foe, Rice welcomed journalistic setbacks, which Wisconsin fed Rice tantrums. Grist for his comic mill, they in—as slang of the day put it—lots and boosted business as people rushed to gobs and mortal slathers. hear his retorts. His booming voice, It began in 1858, in Kenosha, when winning humor, and wide popularity 35-year-old Rice brought a circus to the gave him a reach greater than most state for the first time. Even as aspiration antebellum newspapers. was becoming the national model, After Kenosha, Rice took his circus would-be arbiters disagreed about who to Racine, then to Milwaukee for a qualified as “high-minded.” While Rice’s June 24–25 stand, and more trouble. A public pitch of “aspiring to something circus lot was a hazardous place. Ani- higher” appealed to the multitudes who mals caused injury, wagons tipped, crowded to hear him, a few regarded the bleachers collapsed, and tents often circus as unrefined. His rowdy, populist tumbled. During a performance in Mil- appeal made him even more suspect, as waukee, a wild storm knocked the tent “decorum” lurched from neutral down. Cozy nostalgia pictures old-time description to civic, even moral, ideal. circus in a small tent seating a few hun- One who objected was the editor of the dred but the era also had mammoth Kenosha Times. Judging the “American tents holding thousands. Other than a Humorist” an American disgrace, he Shelburne Museum, VT few big city buildings, these huge can- published one of the most delicious Excelsior, Rice’s prized white horse, was an vas enclosures, set up and taken down attacks in Rice’s half-century of public important attraction in Rice’s shows and daily, were the largest structures on the life.