Circus Memorabilia: Hold Your Horses, It’s May Wirth

The fun thing about collecting is that you never know where the ‘hunt’ will lead you. This spring, hubby found a group of circus posters at an estate sale. We put them away, thinking we’d do some research on them. We recently pulled them out and one in particular intrigued me. It was the one with Mae Wirth – the World’s Greatest Equestrian. It shows her with a horse and the name of the circus as well. I wondered about May, was she really that great? How does one become a circus star? Was she from the US or elsewhere? When was she popular and was she still alive?

Well, when in doubt “google it.” Wish we had this marvelous vehicle many years ago when I was a child. It is fantastic! In any case, I entered her name and found out a lot of things about this fascinating lady. She was born in 1894 at Bundaberg, Queens (Australia.) She was the daughter of John Edward Zinga, a circus artist and his 2^nd wife, Dezeppo Marie. After her parents separated, May was adopted in 1901, at the tender age of 7, by Mary Elizabeth Victoria Wirth. She was an equestrienne and sister of Philip and George Wirth. She married into this “circus family” – her husband being a circus musician, and they with their daughter Stella toured overseas with Wirth Brothers’ Circus in 1893 until 1900. May’s early start in the circus was in balancing and tumbling, as a tightwire performer and contortionist. She also learned equestrian skills and then was taught how to do somersaults on a bareback horse. At the early age of 10, she was a ‘real trick rider’ and in 1906 was billed as “May Ringling.” She was very pretty and grew to only 4 foot, 11 inches.

Her career continued and she was with John Ringling’s Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1911. She was billed as the “world’s greatest bareback rider.” Little May developed her act by somersaulting backwards through rings and by leaping from the ground to the back of her galloping horse with her feet encased in baskets. Kids – do not try this at home! She was seriously injured in a fall during a performance in 1913, but was able to return to the entertainment world in 1914, this time in vaudeville in England and France.

She returned to circus life in 1915 with the troupe “Royal Wirth Family.” In 1917 they toured with Ringling Brothers and May remained the star equestrienne. In 1919 she married her manager, Frank White, who adopted the professional name of Wirth – they never had any children.

She continued performing in various venues, retiring in 1937, at the peak of her career. Eventually, May moved to Sarasota, Florida where her name was added to the Circus Hall of Fame in 1964. She was predeceased by her husband, and died in 1978 in Sarasota.

Her life was quite fascinating and after learning this I do understand some of the magic of collecting circus and fair-related items. It certainly sounds like an interesting life. There have been numerous books written on circuses and their performers. We do not live very far from Baraboo, Wisconsin and have taken our daughters to see the circus acts and those incredible wagons on several occasions. These were brought down by railway for many years and we all enjoyed watching them in the famous “Circus Parade” in Milwaukee. We are also close enough to go to Delavan, Wisconsin, which was called the “19^th Century Circus Capital of the World.” We’ve seen the sign and “Romeo” the elephant statue but never understood its significance. After checking this out on my-new-best-friend, Google, I learned that it was given that title because “Between 1847-1894 Delavan was home to 26 different circus companies.” The original P.T. Barnum Circus was organized in Delavan in 1871.

So, finding a few old posters led me to all of this information to share with you. We understand that the photographs of ‘circus freaks’ are highly sought after and have gotten very pricey. Considering that we have been collectors for over 35 years, and that we are ’sandwiched’ between several heavy-duty circus colonies, it is pretty amazing that we’ve never found any circus memorabilia. Perhaps all you collectors are keeping it to yourselves. After doing this research, I can understand why!