Abstract

"Holy Spectacles: Marketing the American Circus to Christians"

Nicole Kirk, Meadville Lombard Theological School (nkirk@meadville.edu)

In April 1903, the Reverend William H. Sheak, an ordained United Brethren minister and a licensed Methodist preacher, ran away with the circus. One Midwest newspaper headline hinted at the scandal when it claimed the minister was “unable to resist temptation,” a phrase many readers would associate with the temptation of Jesus’ in the New Testament. Sheak’s decision to join the circus was shocking. Circuses, like many forms of mass entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, struggled with a dubious reputation. Upper-class women and men professed discomfort with the circus’ inevitable mingling of classes, races, and viewing morally questionable displays. Many Protestants regarded the circus as morally corrupt and a site of vice and sexual impropriety. The Methodist Church’s General Conference in 1872 banned attending circuses along with drinking “intoxicating liqueurs,” dancing, gambling, “attending theatre,” and “horse races” due to their “misleading or questionable moral tendency.” Sheak joined the Robinson Circus as a “Zoologist” for the menagerie tent—a traveling animal zoo housed in a large tent—and traced the connections between the Bible and the circus animals in the circus’ promotion literature. On Sundays, he preached on the circus grounds and drew large crowds. The circus promoted Sheak’s presence at the circus to local newspapers. American circuses combated anti-circus religious and moral sentiment by incorporating menagerie tents advertised as religious education displays, performing grand Biblical and religiously themed spectacles, hiring ministers, and giving charity performances. This paper argues that circuses shaped portions of their entertainment offerings and advertisements attempted to appeal to Christian audiences and their pocketbooks. By targeting Christian audiences through performances, advertising, and promotions, circuses also expanded the definition of moral, Christian, and acceptable entertainment.