An unrecorded broadside advertising an appearance in Gardiner, Maine of Ducello’s touring zoological exhibition, featuring illustrations of lion tamers performing with lions and exotic wild animals. This production of Dan Ducello’s Zoological Exhibition and Museum of Living Wonders took place on Wednesday and Thursday, 24 and 25 October ca. 1880.....
This attractive folding brochure features evocative illustrations of the Historic Deadwood Days of ‘76 festival, including “Sioux Indian Battles and War Dances Every Day,” a covered wagon train, Paris Williams,”the most ensational Woman Rodeo Performer in America.” One image shows President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge taken into the Sioux Tribe.....
A richly illustrated leaflet for a lecture in Seattle by explorer and aviator Richard Byrd, during his 1931 speaking tour on his successful Antarctic expedition in 1928 and ‘29. Byrd’s January 13th lecture at Seattle’s Civic Auditorium is advertised here as the “Only Northwest Appearance” on his nationwide tour. Thanks.....
A rare broadside for this spectacle of automation, performed in Philadelphia by a German inventor, musician, and master showman whose automatic chess player was the subject of an essay by Edgar Allen Poe, and for whose mechanical orchestra Beethoven composed. The show advertised by this broadside comprised four spectacles: the.....
A broadside advertising an appearance of the original ‘Siamese Twins,’ Chang and Eng, featuring an evocative wood engraving of the brothers. A sensation across the U.S. and Europe during the 1830s, Chang and Eng were born co-joined at the sternum in Siam (present-day Thailand) in 1811. The twins were ‘discovered’.....
A scarce Barnum’s Museum broadsheet highlighting the aquatic and land animals on display and a drama set in the Swiss Alps. Described here are fifty Angel Fish (“outvieing even the tints of the rainbow”), Squirrel Fish, Surgeon or Doctor Fish (“a very grave and dignified piscatorial gentleman”), Cow Fish (“with.....
A rare, jam-packed minstrel show playbill with blackface performances by Buckleys Serenaders in their Boston theater, brimming with ‘comic’ descriptions of three acts plus general information. Part I of this program includes melodies such as Darky Felicity and Farm Yard; Part II features variety acts such as the song and.....
![Item #6975 [George Gershwin photo-illustration signed by Ira Gershwin, et al.]. Ira Gershwin](https://jamesarsenault.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/6975_1.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1630774264)
A sheet music cover inscribed by Ira Gershwin and the stars of the 1945 biopic of George Gershwin to dancer and actress Ann Miller—a prolific performer in the classic Hollywood musical era of the 1940s and ‘50s. Released eight years after his premature death, the movie Rhapsody in Blue (1945).....
This entertaining program promotes the sixteenth season of Hoyt’s “A Texas Steer or Money Makes the Mare Go”—a humorous “collection of saws and incidents” about Texas politics. Act I takes place at “Maverick Brander’s” cattle ranch, while Act II and III are set at the Arlington hotel in Washington county.....
A striking, dramatic program for a historic spectacle produced and directed by Imre Kiralfy for Barnum & Bailey in New York City. Credits for this show are given on page one: music composed by Sgr. Angelo Venanzi of Milan; costumes and accessories by Wilhelm of London; as well as five.....
A handsome guide to the Eden Musée wax museum, concert hall, and amusement center in New York City. A vivid, theatrical illustration printed by lithographers Mayer, Merkel and Ottmann graces the front wrapper. It depicts a military figure drawing back a curtain to reveal the stately, Second Empire style museum.....
A broadside advertising Mack & Arnold’s minstrel show at the Windsor, Vermont town hall, with an original ticket to the show. The public is advised that “this Troupe is not composed of one or two legitimate performers and several amateurs but that each and every member is an Etheopian Artist.....
An unrecorded broadsheet promoting a satirical musical performance by the eccentric singer-songwriter Ossian E. Dodge, including a wood engraved portrait of Dodge, as well as a biographical note and phrenological “reading” of Dodge on the verso. For this engagement, Dodge was assisted by the poet and vocalist James G. Clark.....