The news that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus will fold its tents has launched a thousand jokes -- or possibly one joke told a thousand ways, the one about cramming people into the clown car.
A few extra-creative jokesters are vamping about unfortunate parents whose teens no longer have the circus to run away to.
But how long has it been since running away to join the circus actually was a career move for Americans?
My guess, based on a (desultory) hunt for evidence in newspaper archives, is the 1950s, following a 1949 amendment to the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act that for the first time directly prohibited child labor in this country.
But state laws began tightening decades before.
I found an outcrop of stories in the 1960s about the Ringling Bros. & etc. stopping in Little Rock. These reports in the Arkansas Gazette featured one Coco the Clown. "A representative of one of the most famous clowning families in the world," Mike Coco posed in June 1966 for a fabulous photograph in the middle of Capitol Avenue.
Stilted, rocking striped trousers that almost reach the asphalt, with the teeny state Capitol way off in the background between his legs, Coco waves gleefully at the world.
In 1968, this same Coco was "seriously concerned" about the nation's shrinking cadre of professional clowns. (Shrinking clowns ... clown car ... no, Celia, no. Just stop.)
"We aren't getting kids to be clowns the way we used to," Coco said. "Once upon a time kids used to run away to join the circus. We don't encourage that anymore."
So there was a clown shortage. "If we can't get them anywhere else," Coco said, "we'll make them."
And that, boys and girls, is where clown college came from.
DONE RUNNED OFF
A hundred years ago, kids did chase the circus.
For instance, the Arkansas Gazette reported in September 1909 that 17-year-olds George Dyer and Alfred Jones "became infatuated with circus life" while the John Robinson show was in Jonesboro. Their father, E.L. Jones, was on his way to Covington, Tenn., where he expected to catch his truant sons.
Even if they didn't aim to be clowns, runaway children were common and commonly at risk early in the 20th century (as they are today). Despite hailing the occasional Jimmie the Newsboy who worked his way up from homeless urchin to one-legged business owner, the Gazette took occasional, concerned notice of stray kids running into harm.
In February 1917, the paper quoted statistics from the Little Rock Young Women's Christian Association's Travelers Aid program, which volunteered at the
train station. Among about 741 people given some form of aid in January 1917 were 16 unaccompanied youngsters, five runaway girls, two girls detained at the station and sent home and six girls "protected from strangers."
Waifs Trip on Train Tops From Illinois
Jan. 24, 1917: "I came south where I thought it would be warmer and where they told me kids could get work," said Adolph Myers, 14 years old, who arrived in Little Rock Monday night after two weeks' journey atop Iron Mountain freight trains.
"Men working in the roundhouse at the Biddle shops telephoned the police at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon that they were holding a runaway boy. Patrol Driver Julian Joseph drove to the shops in the police automobile to get the lad.
"'We found that he's not a "runaway" but just a "come-away," said Joseph. 'He told us he had no father. He was not real sure what had been the fate of his mother, as he last remembered seeing her in Chicago about six years ago, after his mother and father had separated.'
"At police headquarters Turnkey Sam Spitzberg questioned the lad closely. He reluctantly told of his trip to Little Rock from Alton, Ill. He said it took him almost a week to get here. He lived on loaves of bread purchased with a 50-cent piece he owned when he started south.
"'What nationality are you?' asked Turnkey Spitzberg, when the lad had told him what little he remembered of his parents.
"'I'm German.'
"'How do you know you are German when you know so little of your mother and father?'
"'Well, can't I tell by my name. It's German, I guess.'
"The lad was taken to the Detention Home and officers will investigate his case today."
Runaway Boy Seriously Hurt Trying to Return
May 11, 1917: "Running away from home is no sport when a fellow's mother becomes sick because of it.
"Sterling Barnes, 14 years old, arrived at that decision last night, and he risked a ride on the blind baggage in order to return to Dallas, Tex. At West Tenth street the rocking of the train threw him off and he was found wandering back along the track, with blood streaming down his face.
"Information contained in frantic telegrams and letters from the boy's parents caused the police to seek Roy Webb, with whom the Barnes boy ran away. Both have been working as telegraph messengers since they arrived in Little Rock a week ago. ...
"Barnes was delirious when taken to the City hospital and could give no coherent replies to questions of Chief of Police Chennault."
...
Speaking of wanting to run away, in January 1917 the General Assembly was in town, and when readers opened their daily newspaper, they found the day's splashiest legislative actions on the front page and also a mind-numbing roundup story -- accented by a small box in which were conveyed a list of numbered and titled bills signed by the governor.
This was the sort of high-minded reportage that, I believe, inspired the creation of the very first newspaper hat.
Way down below that noble grayness on Page 3 of the Jan. 23, 1917, Gazette:
Their Tour Is Postponed Indefinitely
"Crossett, Jan. 22 -- Two small boys, sons of Love Hall and Collie Hall, disappeared Sunday night, causing great alarm to their parents, who began a search in which many men and boys participated until late at night. This morning at 7:30 o'clock they came into town, hungry and sleepy.
"The boys said that they had started to South America to catch wild horses, taking with them two pies and two loaves of bread, to serve as a food supply during the trip."
Not the circus but close enough, and happily, they came safely home.
Next week: Arkansas Women May Get Suffrage
ActiveStyle on 01/23/2017