40 Wonderful Kodachrome Slides of American Circus Performers in the 1940s and 1950s

   
The Braathens, Sverre and Faye, were active and avid circus fans and collectors. Sverre’s passion for circus began in the early 1900s when he was a boy waiting for and later watching the Gollmar Brothers Circus unload, parade, and perform on the Great Plains in the small town of Mayville, North Dakota. 
 
Sverre mixed his love of music with his love for circuses and began collecting circus music material. Through the years, his collection grew to include route books, business materials, periodicals, massive amounts of correspondence between all levels of circus personnel – from band members to performers, riggers to roustabouts. Every season found the Braathens following circuses throughout the upper Midwest and it was while following circuses that his photographic talents emerged.
 
These images were captured in the saturated colors of Kodachrome slides and date from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. They provide insight to what happens just outside the canvas flaps of the circus tent. Take a look:
 
A clown band in Mamas in the Park, a production number

 

Pinito Del Oro, Spanish aerialist

 

Cyclists on high wire

 

 
Performers on spectacle float

 

Performers in wardrobe

 

Nina Karpowa, German aerialist

 

A clown in aerial ballet webb sitter wardrobe

 

Carmen Slayton in blue aerial ballet wardrobe

 

Karl and Helen Wallenda, husband and wife, in their private dressing wagon with flowers from fans

 

The elephants in the spec on hippodrome track

 

William Hanlon, clown in spec wardrobe

 

Performers on high wire

 

Mildred Keathley, aerialist and Mary Jane Miller, production girl

 

Albert White, a clown in The Good Old Times spec wardrobe

 

Sandy Marlowe, production girl and cub lion

 

Yellow cage with clown band

 

La Norma (Fox), aerialist

 

Albert White, clown in spectacle wardrobe

 

Circus personnel with a baby gorilla

 

Maude Moore, performer on horse

 

Louis Nagy, a good clown in pink Circus Serenade wardrobe

 

Pinito Del Oro, Spanish aerialist

 

Frank Cromwell, clown head against the sky

 

Alzanas high wire act with green capes

 

Blutch Landolph, clown

 

Clyde Beatty Circus

 

Performers in wardrobe

 

Lou Jacobs, German clown and Pat Cartier, aerialist

 

Performers on high wire

 

Clown on stilts