Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, was a famous traveling circus made in 1919. The circus was made by merging P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey’s Greatest Show on earth. After Barnum died in 1906, the Ringling brothers purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd., but they ran the circuses separately until 1919, when they merged. The circus no longer used its own “big top” tents after 1957, instead using permanent venues, such as sports stadiums and arenas.
Photographer Charles Weever Cushman took these beautiful photos of the circus in the 1940s.
