Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus
American circus
The Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus was a circus that traveled across America in the early part of the 20th century. At its peak, it was the second-largest circus in America next to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was based in Peru, Indiana.
History
The circus began as the “Carl Hagenbeck Trained Animal Show” by Carl Hagenbeck (1844–1913). Hagenbeck was an animal trainer who pioneered the use of rewards-based animal training as opposed to fear-based training.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Wallace, a stable owner from Peru, Indiana, and his business partner, James Anderson, bought a circus in 1884 and created "The Great Wallace Show". The show gained some prominence when their copyright for advertising posters was upheld by the Supreme Court in Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Company. Wallace bought out his partner in 1890 and formed the "B. E. Wallace Circus".
In 1907, Wallace purchased the Carl Hagenbeck Circus and merged it with his circus.
“Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus” enters the record as american circus. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hagenbeck, Wallace and Circus can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1092964. VIAF identifies the subject as 128079608. The Library of Congress control number is n2010035122. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1844, 1913, 1884 and 1890.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.