Elephant Ann and how the Very First Circus Began

Elephant Ann and how the Very First Circus Began PDF Author: Jon Madian
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780843122602
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
While little Elephant Ann comes down with a cold, the villagers lovingly sew her a handkerchief from an array of beautiful bedsheets. They stitch and stitch until they create what finally becomes . . . the very first circus tent! Join clowns, acrobats, lions, tigers and the entire cast of whimsical characters in the magical tale of how the greatest show on earth may have begun.

Elephant Ann and how the Very First Circus Began

Elephant Ann and how the Very First Circus Began PDF Author: Jon Madian
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780843122602
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
While little Elephant Ann comes down with a cold, the villagers lovingly sew her a handkerchief from an array of beautiful bedsheets. They stitch and stitch until they create what finally becomes . . . the very first circus tent! Join clowns, acrobats, lions, tigers and the entire cast of whimsical characters in the magical tale of how the greatest show on earth may have begun.

Saving Anne the Elephant - The True Story of the Last British Circus Elephant

Saving Anne the Elephant - The True Story of the Last British Circus Elephant PDF Author: Claire Ellicott
Publisher: Kings Road Publishing
ISBN: 1786060752
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
When shocking images emerged of Anne, Britain’s last circus elephant, being beaten by one of her keepers, it sparked a national outcry. Undercover footage showed the gentle creature cowering in fear as the youth repeatedly inflicted violent attacks on her, making her wince in pain. The public was appalled and demanded that Anne be freed from the circus where she had spent nearly fifty-five years performing and be allowed to live out her final years in peace. I, a reporter at the Daily Mail, broke the story after the campaign group Animal Defenders International passed the newspaper the footage they had secretly shot. From then on, the paper, animal charities and experts worked tirelessly behind the scenes to save Anne and deliver her to safety. But there were fears for her health due to her crippling arthritis and old age and at one stage it was thought that she might have to be put down to ease her suffering. Thankfully the vets decided that they could treat her and she officially retired in 2011. It was agreed that Longleat Safari Park would be her new home and she settled in nicely. Meanwhile, her keeper is believed to have fled to his native Romania and her owner Bobby Roberts was prosecuted for animal cruelty the following year. The Daily Mail ran a funding appeal to build her a refuge at the park specifically designed for her needs and she moved in to Anne’s Haven a year ago. Since she was rescued, she has gone from strength to strength and the arthritis which caused her to drag her back legs has dramatically improved. Having recovered her mobility, she is able to play and go for walks with new-found energy. Now, at last, she has the chance to live out her final years in a happy and safe place.

Jumbo the Elephant

Jumbo the Elephant PDF Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781533561374
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of Jumbo's life written by his trainer, P.T. Barnum, and contemporary newspapers *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "I had often looked wistfully on Jumbo, but with no hope of ever getting possession of him, as I knew him to be a great favorite of Queen Victoria, whose children and grandchildren are among the tens of thousands of British juveniles whom Jumbo had carried on his back. I did not suppose he would ever be sold." - P.T. Barnum Modern views of animals range from hunters who pay big money to go on safaris in Africa to vegans who refuse to use even the wool or milk from a fellow creature, and as is the case with most controversies, most people fall in the middle, not wanting to kick a dog but still enjoying a good steak. However, in the early 20th century, the standards were much different, with animals seen as strictly property to be gathered and used with little to no consideration about their health or feelings. It was into this world that a little elephant later called Jumbo was born. He quickly learned the harsh realities of life when his mother was killed by hunters before his first birthday. Then he himself was taken from his sunny home and transported thousands of miles to soggy London, where he was expected to spend his days on display or earning his very limited keep by carrying small children for rides on his back. While he was fed hay, dry grass that was at least some substitute for the fresh greenery of the African plains, he was also fed both beer and hard liquor, oysters, cakes and candy, a diet that would have severely shortened his life had not a terrible accident ended it first. During this time his one faithful friend, a man named Matthew Scott, tried to do the best he could to care for the animal and even meet his emotional needs. However, even Scott was hampered by the times in which he lived, especially when the command came to walk an 11 foot tall Jumbo into a crate barely big enough to hold him and to travel with him in these cramped quarters for a two week trip across another ocean to yet another unfamiliar land. Ironically, it was that same trip that made Jumbo an international celebrity. Americans had loved traveling circuses for generations, and none represent the country's love for entertainment quite like the most famous of them all: the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Circus promoters have long been viewed as somewhat shady hucksters, but none could top P.T. Barnum, who used a blend of traditional circus entertainment, freak show exhibits, and outright hoaxes to create "The Greatest Show on Earth." In fact, Barnum had specialized in circus entertainment decades before traveling circuses were truly a national sensation, particularly thanks to the popularity of the Barnum American Museum in New York City. Barnum's museum offered something for everyone across its different halls, from poetic readings to animal exhibits, and all the while, Barnum was defiant when confronted by criticism, reminding people, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me." Jumbo was not a pet to P.T. Barnum but an investment, an attraction that soon paid off in a big way. But Jumbo was also beginning to suffer the effects of his poor lifestyle even as fate led him toward his death on a crowded railroad track. It's a story that saddens many today, but in the 1880s, it was more or less the way things were. Nonetheless, the influence Jumbo had was fitting given his size, leading not only to similar acts across various traveling circuses but also to adaptations of his story, perhaps most notably Disney's Dumbo in the 1940s. Jumbo the Elephant: The Life and Legacy of History's Most Famous Circus Animal looks at Jumbo's history, and the giant impact the elephant had on entertainment.

American Bookseller

American Bookseller PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Booksellers and bookselling
Languages : en
Pages : 1276

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Book Description


The Publishers Weekly

The Publishers Weekly PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Elephants on Relief?

Elephants on Relief? PDF Author: John-Stuart Fauquet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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The Greatest Show on Earth

The Greatest Show on Earth PDF Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781542768092
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
*Includes pictures. *Highlights Barnum's entertainment career and transition into the circus. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. "We bring you the circus - that Pied Piper whose magic tunes lead children of all ages into a tinseled and spun-candied world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter; whirling thrills; of rhythm, excitement and grace; of daring, enflaring and dance; of high-stepping horses and high-flying stars. But behind all this, the circus is a massive machine whose very life depends on discipline, motion and speed - a mechanized army on wheels that rolls over any obstacle in its path - that meets calamity again and again, but always comes up smiling - a place where disaster and tragedy stalk the Big Top, haunts the back yard, and rides the circus train - where Death is constantly watching for one frayed rope, one weak link, or one trace of fear. A fierce, primitive fighting force that smashes relentlessly forward against impossible odds: That is the circus - and this is the story of the biggest of the Big Tops - and of the men and women who fight to make it." - Opening remarks from the film The Greatest Show On Earth!, a drama set in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Americans have loved traveling circuses for generations, and none represent the country's love for entertainment quite like the most famous of them all, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The five brothers who started a circus in Wisconsin, as well as P.T. Barnum, have had their names become synonymous with the circus, so it's only fitting that the manner in which these men entered the business and the merging of their traveling circuses together also make for great stories. Circus promoters have long been viewed as somewhat shady hucksters, but none could top P.T. Barnum, who used a blend of traditional circus entertainment, freak show exhibits, and outright hoaxes to create "The Greatest Show on Earth". Barnum introduced America to Jumbo the Elephant, one of the most legendary acts in the history of the circus, as well as "exhibits" like Joice Heth, an elderly African American woman Barnum advertised as a 161 year old who nursed George Washington. He also notoriously perpetrated hoaxes with General Tom Thumb and claimed to have a live mermaid, so it's no surprise that Barnum is often apocryphally quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." While he didn't actually say that, he said something similar: "Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public." Around the same time that Barnum was operating the Barnum & Bailey's circus, the Ringling Brothers were engaging in more traditional circus activities in Wisconsin. As their traveling circus became better known in the late 1880s, it was advertised as the "Ringling Brothers United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal European Menagerie, Museum, Caravan, and Congress of Trained Animals". The Ringling Brothers were eventually successful enough that they were able to buy Barnum's circus after Barnum had already died, and they merged the traveling circuses together in 1919. The Greatest Show on Earth: The History of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus examines the origins of the famous circuses, the background of the important individuals involved, and their merger into the most famous circus of all. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about "The Greatest Show on Earth" like never before, in no time at all.

Entertaining Elephants

Entertaining Elephants PDF Author: Susan Nance
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421408295
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
How the lives and labors of nineteenth-century circus elephants shaped the entertainment industry. Consider the career of an enduring if controversial icon of American entertainment: the genial circus elephant. In Entertaining Elephants Susan Nance examines elephant behavior—drawing on the scientific literature of animal cognition, learning, and communications—to offer a study of elephants as actors (rather than objects) in American circus entertainment between 1800 and 1940. By developing a deeper understanding of animal behavior, Nance asserts, we can more fully explain the common history of all species. Entertaining Elephants is the first account that uses research on animal welfare, health, and cognition to interpret the historical record, examining how both circus people and elephants struggled behind the scenes to meet the profit necessities of the entertainment business. The book does not claim that elephants understood, endorsed, or resisted the world of show business as a human cultural or business practice, but it does speak of elephants rejecting the conditions of their experience. They lived in a kind of parallel reality in the circus, one that was defined by their interactions with people, other elephants, horses, bull hooks, hay, and the weather. Nance’s study informs and complicates contemporary debates over human interactions with animals in entertainment and beyond, questioning the idea of human control over animals and people's claims to speak for them. As sentient beings, these elephants exercised agency, but they had no way of understanding the human cultures that created their captivity, and they obviously had no claim on (human) social and political power. They often lived lives of apparent desperation.

Subject Guide to Children's Books In Print, 1989-1990

Subject Guide to Children's Books In Print, 1989-1990 PDF Author: R R Bowker Publishing
Publisher: R. R. Bowker
ISBN: 9780835227131
Category : Children's literature
Languages : en
Pages : 589

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Book Description


Pet Lions & Well-Dressed Elephants

Pet Lions & Well-Dressed Elephants PDF Author: Donna Lee Dicksson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Journey back to a world without telephones or automobiles, to an era when all entertainment was "live" and the circus coming to town was a reason to shutter businesses and let children out of school for a holiday. Follow the fascinating lives of two ordinary people born and raised on opposite shores of Lake Ontario when the U.S. had but twenty-nine states and Canada was yet to become a country. ?Accompany them through American history as they evolve to become key players in the birth and success of "The Greatest Show on Earth." Historically accurate nuggets of fascinating history emerge as Charley White, at age fourteen, joins a traveling circus. How did his experiences mold him and prepare him to be a leader and quickly advance in rank during the American Civil War? How did he evolve into a legendary lion king and menagerie manager? What made him. Who were his friends? Meet Annie Matchett, a child born in Canada West to Irish immigrants. At eighteen she migrated to Ohio, married an acrobat, and embarked upon her own circus journey. ?How did this diminutive woman (who became a widow and single mother) not only manage to provide for her child, but rise above the ordinary? In a time when women rarely worked outside the home and were given few legal rights, how did she become a manager, the highly respected wardrobe mistress of the fledgling "Greatest Show on Earth?" ? Two separate beings with non-intersecting lives were brought together gently as the Barnum, Coup, and Castello show prepares for its first season in 1871. The Civil War is over, the country is healing, and a feeling of hope dominates the landscape. Something wonderful materialized back then to make that circus magical. Here is the story of two of those people who made it happen.