Such acts captured early American audiences as well. George Washington took delight in shows featuring little besides horses and riders, an occasional juggler or tumbler and the necessary clown who did standup or slapstick while the next act was preparing. In the early 1800s, elephants — not seen in the United States before 1796 — took the spectacle to new heights.

What drew audiences of 7,000 to 10,000 beneath the big top day after day in whistle-stop after whistle-stop, however, was the prospect of seeing seemingly impossible things: human beings cavorting upon the backs and heads-in-the mouths of animals from storybooks, performing feats of daring on swings and slender wires 100 feet or more aloft that the Wallenda family would apotheosize. It was a nonstop array of death-defying activity punctuated by such 20th century astonishments as automobiles soaring into loop-the-loops and elephants performing ballet choreographed by Balanchine, the gone-mute clowns cavorting all the while.

In the United States, these amazing feats helped make the circus into a political and social institution that reflected sky’s-the-limit thinking. The circus’s development paralleled the nation’s own growth. Yes it was a diversion, but one that also became a portable manifestation of the American Dream. “To go from the lonely prairie or the dusty cornfield and come face to face with the amazing aggregation of worldwide wonders,” wrote novelist Hamlin Garland in 1899, “was like enduring the visions of the Apocalypse … a glittering river of Elysian splendors, emptying itself into the tent.”

The circus had followed the very opening of the frontier itself, with dozens of shows trailing closely after the settlers they served, first in wagons pulled by teams along dirt tracks that turned to mire with every rain, then aboard rail cars on a system that became the lifeblood of Western growth. Rail transport, championed by James Bailey, allowed for vast expansion of the traveling shows, the largest of which not only featured three or four hours of action under the “big top,” but formidable sideshow displays of human and natural oddities, as well as sizable menageries, the precursors of modern zoos. Such expansion also began the era of consolidation in the industry, where the ability to present a “million dollar show” in the words of latecomer circusman P.T. Barnum (1870s) meant the difference between the entertaining and the unforgettable…

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