American Circus Day

The date on the calendar traces back to a specific afternoon in 1793, when a British horseman named John Bill Ricketts opened a roofless wooden arena in Philadelphia and staged the first circus performance in the United States. President George Washington was in the audience within weeks.

American Circus Day marks the start of an entertainment tradition that would grow from one 42-foot ring into a continent-spanning industry of acrobats, aerialists, and trained animals. The circus shaped American popular culture for more than two centuries, and its influence is still evolving today.

Before circus acts reached American shores, the format had already been invented in London. Philip Astley, a former British cavalry sergeant, began performing equestrian tricks in a circular ring near Westminster Bridge in 1768. He discovered that riding in a tight circle created centrifugal force that helped him stay balanced during stunts.

Astley standardized his ring at 42 feet in diameter, a measurement still used in circus rings around the world. He added rope-dancers, clowns, and acrobats between the riding acts, creating the mixed-bill entertainment format that defined the circus for the next 250 years.

Ricketts Brings the Circus to America

John Bill Ricketts, a Scottish-born equestrian who had trained in Astley's London circle, arrived in Philadelphia in 1792 and opened a riding school. Within months, he built a roofless wooden arena at the corner of Market and Twelfth Streets, fitted with a 42-foot ring filled with soil and sawdust.

On April 3, 1793, Ricketts staged the first American circus performance for roughly 800 spectators. The bill included his own riding tricks, his brother Francis on horseback, a rope-dancer named Spinacuta, and a clown called Mr. McDonald. President George Washington attended a performance on April 22 of the same year.

The Big Top Goes Mobile

For the next three decades, American circuses performed in fixed wooden buildings or roofless arenas. That changed in 1825, when showman Joshuah Purdy Brown staged his show under a portable canvas tent. The tent freed circuses from the cities and sent them rolling into small towns across the country.

P.T. Barnum entered the circus business in 1871, expanding the format into a three-ring spectacle that traveled by railroad. By the 1880s, his partnership with James A. Bailey produced the Barnum and Bailey Circus, which employed over 1,000 people and traveled in roughly 85 railroad cars.

The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Show

Five of the seven Ringling brothers launched their own traveling circus in 1884 from Baraboo, Wisconsin. In 1907, they purchased the Barnum and Bailey operation for $400,000. The two shows merged in 1919, creating the combined Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

The combined show dominated American entertainment for decades, but the industry gradually shrank as television, theme parks, and animal welfare concerns drew audiences elsewhere. Feld Entertainment, which had owned the show since 1967, closed it in May 2017. In September 2023, the company reopened the circus with an all-new, animal-free production.