Mapping and Analyzing the Nomadism of the Gollmar Brother Circus, 1891–1916

Through maps and graphical analyses, this poster will show the Gollmar Brothers Circus's geospatial movements over its career (1891 to 1916) as it progressed in performance quality, infrastructure size, capital value, and movement technique. The poster will show unique maps and graphics from the circus's internal ledgers, detailing the route's financials, stops, troupe composition, and eccentricities. These graphics are made from the ledgers I scanned and digitized from the Circus World Museum and Archive in Baraboo, WI. These ledgers are the only existing internal day-to-day records from the Gollmar Brothers Circus; additionally, the internal documents of many historically significant canvas-tented traveling circuses no longer exist.

These records, although of simple and sporadic quality, can tell us a lot about the circus. Circuses moved to over 100 places in nine months, with one day to recuperate (while still traveling to the next town) per week. This meant little time for recording keeping. Prudent impresarios, however, did learn the effectiveness of recording their businesses. Even so, they put their records on unstable non-archival media that quickly degraded without careful environmental storage, which has only recently been used in circus archives, if at all. In any case, surviving records, like those for the Gollmar Brothers Circus, are exceedingly effective at understanding business quality in particular towns. Since impresarios would use these records to plan future seasons and identify ongoing theft, these are the most reliable and trustworthy information sources for this notoriously slippery subject. Additionally, circus records are scarce, and geographical and geospatial analysis of those records is even more scarce. These reasons make this project fertile ground for scholarship.

Using this data as foundational building blocks, we can further understand the mentalities of circus performers and the towns they visited. The places the circus played at and the unique events of the season were also routinely recorded in these ledgers. Publicly accessible population, weather, and other social and environmental data can provide more context to the circus data. We can also get a sense of the people who were living in the towns by accessing their newspapers. With all of this diverse data and descriptions combined, it becomes possible to construct an impressive and precise picture of what it was like when the circus visited a town.

This poster will show off this information--maps, tables, historical data, and newspaper clippings--to convey a sense of what it was like for the circus to move around the landscape at this time in American history, as well as how the townspeople had perceived the circus when it made its way into town each year.