A friend recently passed along an abstract by Isabelle Lehuu called, Carnival on the Page, which explores Popular Print Media in Antebellum America (yes, my tastes do tend towards the esoteric). The author makes some wonderful points about printing, ephemera and ritual or the carnival - which reminded me of a little taste of history that was discovered behind the mantle of the fireplace at the Physick House (where I will have an exhibition in November).
A tiny snippet of newspaper from 1795 was discovered lodged behind the stone of the fireplace with an image of a horse jumping through hoops. I love that path of discovery which led me to the Library Company where I learned that the Rickets Circus of Philadelphia. The circus spent the winter in Philadelphia (October 19, 1795-April 23, 1796).
Rickets was actually the first circus in in America, established by John Bill Ricketts, and was a blend of equestrian feats and theatrical performances - thrilling audiences with his acts such as the Flying Mercury and the Egyptian Pyramids. Hell, even George Washington attended this circus (it is a small world).
Another fragment of a message passed through time by ghosts of the past...
And, by the way, Rickets also went by the fantastic names of Attitude of Mercury and Johnny Gilpin in Stile.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hi, Caitlin, I am clearly not getting how this is going to work. I read through the posts, and I kept hoping I'd find some way to make sense of this. Is the blog a locale in the project? Will it name other locales and will there by events there? Are the luminaria part of the project?
help me. I'm feeling dim and I want to know more.
l.
Playing Telephone with Ghosts is a year long project, and this blog is a way for me to try new things out in terms of building a collaborative project. I consider it to be like scetchbook, in that it is a random collection and actually i have been slowly pulling items from my notes/historical research to post. I wanted to see if it worked to build it out as the project evolved. So, you are not dim, it is just in its early stages. Just as a blank sketchbook doesn't make sense when just a few pages are filled in. Hopefully it will make more sense (or perhaps not) as it fills. Would you suggest that I try to give it more shape from the get go, or just post more frequently to get the content built up?
Post a Comment