New Circus Study Examines Lingo and Community
In the early 2000s, I attended a ghost tour in my hometown of Staunton, Virginia, a small valley city nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and first learned about Eva Clark, an aerialist who was shot by her estranged husband after a show with Cole Bros. in 1906. Clark’s story vexed me for almost a decade, leading me to the archives in Baraboo and the streets of Cincinnati, collaborating with other researchers and the circus community to piece together her story. Researching Clark’s life story led me to circus research and to the circus community, and she remains my ultimate inspiration to keep learning more about this vibrant community, and even to focus my doctoral dissertation on circus at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
My research project, under the advisement of Marc Ouellette, Ph.D., examines the unique words and phrases used within circus and the ways in which this language connects the group through business, performance, and as a distinct and enduring community. Countless glossaries of circus words have been created since the early 1900s, but those glossaries typically only provide definitions; my study seeks to understand why the words and phrases are important to the circus community from an insider perspective and how usage evolves over time. The study is mixed-methods and began with extensive archival research at the Milner Library at Illinois State University and the Circus World Museum collection in Baraboo, Wisconsin, courtesy of the Circus & Allied Arts Collection Fellowship and grant funding from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Subsequent phases of the study build upon the archives, asking the circus community to discuss their experience with circus lingo via an online survey, interview opportunities, and, later, ethnographic fieldwork to listen for words in use on a current show.
The study is also based in preservation: as circus continues to change and people age, there is potential for information about circus words and phrases to be lost to time. At the conclusion of my work, I plan to make project data available to the circus community and future researchers.
“This project will fill a gap in current circus research by examining circus language from the perspective of those who used it,” said Bruce Hawley, president of the Circus Historical Society. “The preservation aspect is important to us, too, as the project examines the past, present, and future of circus through its language.”
The circus language online survey is open through May 23, 2024.
If you are a current or retired circus professional aged 18+ who primarily works/worked in the United States,
please visit this link to learn more and launch the survey.
Main image credit: Atwell, Harry A., Photographer. Back Door Scene at the American Circus. United States of America, 1928. Photograph. World Digital Library....Aíne Norris is a doctoral candidate at Old Dominion University and a college English instructor. She holds a B.A. (2004) and M.A. (2016) from Virginia Commonwealth University. Norris’s research interests include circus and sideshow history, oddities and horror in popular culture, and data-driven archival examinations of lore and superstition. Her investigation uncovering untold information about turn-of-the-century aerialist, Eva Clark, was featured in the Cincinnati Enquirer, The News Virginian, and as a special feature on WHSV TV-3 in Virginia. Norris’s work has been published in Horror Homeroom, Margaret Atwood Studies Journal, and Bandwagon: The Journal of the Circus Historical Society and she serves on the Graduate Student Advisory Committee for the Popular Culture Association.
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