1897 - 1902 The Advertising Car. At the multiple-window end was an office. In the center were accommodations for 8 advertising men. The remaining third was occupied by a boiler for mixing paste needed for hanging advertising posters. The car was 57 feet long. Painted white with large and colorful text and shields. Aside from the buffers on the car end, the car looks quite 'American'. Image: Princeton University Library |
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Seen here with a playbill advertising their dates at Aston Park in Birmingham, England. |
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The SS Michigan carried the train to the continent in its hold in March 1900. Seen here with part of the train on deck at Hamburg, Germany. Nearly two decades later, during WWI, the ship, by then renamed SS Harry Luckenbach, was torpedoed by German submarine U-84 and sunk in the Bay of Biscay. Three weeks later U-84 was sunk. Image: From a Barnum & Bailey promotional menu |
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The Advertising Car is unloaded from the deck of the SS Michigan at Hamburg, Germany where the circus will begin a 4-week engagement. Sleeping cars 50 and 56 await the crane. March 22, 1900. Only the buffers protuding from the car ends annouce this is not an American car. Image: Ringling Museum |
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'Altona 2900' - a phone number? Altona is a borough of Hamburg, Germany. The two advertising slugs between window and door read "Special Advertising Car" and "A World of Wonders". Image: Princeton University Library |
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Advertising car and staff, ready to go to work in Germany. Image: Barnum & Bailey In The Old World 1897-1901 Route Book/Journal |
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For a time the car was displayed in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The advertising slugs on the end of the car read "The Real Source of the Best Amusement Ideas" and "70 Cars, 4 Trains, 400 Horses & Ponies". The Paris shows took place November 30th 1901 to March 16 1902 in the Galerie des machines, built for the Universal Exposition in 1889. The European tour is chronicled in The Circus - American Experience a documentary video production of WGBH, Boston and available at PBS.org and Netflix. Image: Ringling Museum |
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The car under construction by contractor W.R. Renshaw of Stoke-on-Trent, England, to a design created by a Barney & Smith (Toledo, Ohio, USA) contractor. Image: The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality Vol 21 magazine 1897 |
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The interior of the car under construction. The car later became the advertising car for Buffalo Bill's Wild West as it toured Europe in 1903-1906. Image: The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality Vol 21 magazine 1897 |
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