Going to a circus and delighting in the antics of clowns, lion tamers, acrobats, and trapeze artists is one of the rites of childhood. The most famous American circus company is the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. ("Bros." is the abbreviation for Brothers.)

The first circuses in the United States appeared in the late eighteenth century. The traditional ones are presented in tents, a practice that dates from 1825. The initial tent circuses were small and featured a single ring in which the entertainers performed. As the years passed, the tent size expanded, and the number of rings increased to two and three. Of all the nineteenth-century American circuses, easily the best known was the Barnum & Bailey. It was the brainchild of two men: Phineas T. Barnum (1810–1891) and James A. Bailey (1847–1906), who initially operated their own...