Circus and Electricity: Staging Connexions Between Science and Popular Entertainments

Abstract

This chapter explores the proposition that the history of the circus, and historical developments in electrical science, have more in common than has been previously acknowledged. Identifying that the emergence of the modern circus was synchronous with late eighteenth-century experimentation with electricity, discussion then shifts to the nineteenth century, and examination of various intersections between the circus and electrical science. The components of spectacle and showmanship are shown to be central to some of the connexions between circus and electricity brought forward in this chapter. Little more than a century after Astley’s first public shows exemplified the spirit and aesthetics of the modern circus, the full-blown showmanship of the circus and the spectacular wonders of electricity were each on display at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The enormous Fair precinct was brilliantly lit and powered by the new technology of electricity; Hagenbeck’s Zoological circus played to over two million customers during the six-month exhibition; and Nikola Tesla’s demonstrations of electrical effects using high-voltage, high-frequency alternating current elicited the kind of human marvelling the circus has always sought to generate. This chapter illuminates the nuanced relationship between the circus and the emerging science of electrical engineering during the nineteenth century.