Circus clown of George M. Cohan. He was also one of the main models for "Uncle Sam". With changes in circus and popular culture after the Civil War, his legendary talents under the big top have gradually slipped into almost total historical obscurity; biographer David Carlyon (2001) called him "the most famous man you've never heard of". While Dan Rice's talking and singing clown was taking America by storm, a new type of clown was emerging on the British pantomime stage, one that would have a more lasting influence on contemporary American circus clowning. George Lafayette Fox was America's first great "whiteface"
The Humpty Dumpty Circus The Humpty Dumpty Circus The Humpty Dumpty Circus was an animated short film made by director and producer J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith, the Anglo-American founders of Vitagraph Studios. The short has been thought to have been the first film to use the stop-motion technique, based on an estimated release date of 1897 or 1898. The film featured a circus with acrobats and animals in motion. According to Smith, they used his daughter's set of small circus dolls, which had jointed limbs so they could be balanced in place. This toy set was most likely the popular "Humty