Jack Barrett [i.e., Barnett] with Barnum

Jack Barrett [i.e., Barnett] with Barnum

Barnum and Bailey Circus performer Jack Barrett along with another man identified as "Barnum", although PT Barnum had died in 1891. A successor to previous performers Charles Stratton and Lavinia Warren, among others, this negative shows that the "human zoo" aspect of circus attractions was still alive into the early 20th Century. Here circus attractions draw from the same well as ethnographic displays we have seen in Worlds Fairs, exhibiting people because of a perceived "lack" that the general audience does not have. - Bradford Gladstone

Bain News Service

George Grantham Bain Collection

Library of Congress

1910-1915

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