This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/26/2021
Lot of Carnival and Circus Scrapbooks. Thirteen folio scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings, magazine articles, ticket stubs, and other ephemera related to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, George Matthews Great London Circus, the Mills Bros. Circus, Cristiani Bros. Circus, and many more. Contents span 1920s-70s. Includes a signed Merle Evans program, ticket stubs, correspondence, and articles relating to the 1944 Hartford circus fire, Emmett Kelly, Gargantua the Great, and much more. Overall condition fair to very good. Merle Evans conducted the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus band for fifty years. His quick thinking during the 1944 Hartford circus fire is credited with saving thousands of lives, as upon realizing that the tent was ablaze he ordered his band to play “Stars and Stripes Forever” which warned other performers to the danger and prompted them to begin evacuating the crowd.