American small towns circa 1900, whether they are viewed as cozy and homey nests of family life or as bleak Main Streets peopled by philistines, were indisputably colorless. They were dusty in the ...

All Ron Berger wanted was to install a door between two buildings. Instead, much to his astonishment, he opened a window into the early history of Durand, Wisconsin, on Labor Day weekend 2015 when he ...

The Ringling Museum of Art is turning into a three-ring circus -- and visitors can step right up and be a part of it. If you want to get a sense of what it's like to walk on a high wire, or squeeze ...

DURAND, Wis. — Wisconsin bars are known for their pints and their patrons. About the last thing you'd expect to discover in such a place would be 55 feet of historic American artwork. "I was really ...

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James Deutsch - Senior Content Coordinator, Smithsonian’s America at 250 Book Project Circus poster showing performers in a pool Library of Congress Circus poster showing the "Great Jumbo's Skeleton" ...

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds a collection of circus memorabilia dating from the middle of the nineteenth century to about 1940. As historian Janet Davis writes in ...

PROVIDENCE — Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, step right up! For your viewing pleasure: wonderments and freaks, feats of artistic bravado, and disturbing evidence of colonialist bigotry! “Circus” ...