Tunisian and Mexican Girl, c. 1930s

Description:

"In the United States, this form of spectacle had attained vast proportions in the mid-to-late 19th Century, when began the long heyday of large touring circus companies such as Barnum and Bailey and their competitors. But these colorful and exciting traditions of live performance were also upheld by smaller enterprises, which made appearances for even quite modest audiences along their accustomed routes...Carter shared in the enthusiams of this golden age of the American circuses, which lasted roughly until World War II, when a sense of grave national emergency undercut the fortunes of many enterprises not essential to the war effort. Ironically, the national thirst for diversion from the grim realities of daily life was especially strong in the days of the Great Depression and its aftermath, when the circus, along with the new cults of movie-going and listening to the radio, provided a valuable form of escapism." -Frank Anderson Trapp, Clarence Holbrook Carter (New York: Rizzoli, 1989) 18.