Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

Rare card · No. 38922

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, or simply Ringling, is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessors have run shows from 1871, with a hiatus from 2017 to 2023. The circus started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, was merged with the Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows. The Ringling brothers purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. in 1907 following Bailey's death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919. After 1957, the circus no longer exhibited under its own portable "big top" tents, instead using permanent venues such as sports stadiums and arenas. In 1967, Irvin Feld and his brother Israel, along with Houston judge Roy Hofheinz, bought the circus from the Ringling family. In 1971, the Felds and Hofheinz sold the circus to Mattel, buying it back from the toy company in 1981. Since the death of Irvin Feld in 1984...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Feld Entertainment, Public domain