"Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages...."

     Have you ever:

• thought of running away to join the circus?
• used the phrase "not my circus, not my monkey"?
• used the word "jumbo"?
• called somebody a clown?
• described a situation as a "freak show"?

If so, Sarasota Florida's Ringling Museum ( https://www.ringling.org/ )is the place for you to visit! For many years, Sarasota, on Florida's Gulf Coast, was the winter home of many traveling circuses and carnivals. Nearby Gibsonton was, and is, still a major winter home for carnival and sideshow folks.  The Ringling has become one of Florida's most popular and interesting museums. Actually a museum complex, the Ringling is the result of the bequest of John Ringling, one of the most famous individuals in American circus history. In 1936, he bequeathed his art collection, mansion, and estate to the people of Florida. Unfortunately, the property was not very well taken care of until years later, when governance of the museum was transferred from the Florida Department of State to Florida State University in 2000. One can easily spend a whole day or two exploring the complex, which consists of the Circus Museum, the Ringling mansion Ca' D' Zan, the official Florida state Museum of Art, and the Bayfront Gardens.  

    The Circus Museum contains everything you would expect, costumes, posters, wagons, props, and there are video clips and hands-on activities like tightrope walking, etc. However, the most stunning exhibit has to be the miniature circus scenes, showing almost every aspect of circus life, comprising 44,000 handmade figures. The miniature circus alone could probably entertain visitors for a day.

       

 

                                                            (for more about the Muse brothers, 

pictured above, see

  https://thehistocratsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2021/06/let-your-freak-flag-fly.html)

    From the Circus Museum visitors can take a walk through beautiful gardens to reach the John and Mabel Ringling family mansion. Located on the water, it's a beautiful Mediterranean-style villa built in the 1920s.

    From the mansion, take another beautiful walk to the Museum of Art. The Museum's collection had its beginnings as John and Mabel Ringling's private art collection that's heavy on Renaissance and baroque European art, but it also has art from other regions and genres, including a great Asian art collection.

    The next time you find yourself in Sarasota, plan to visit the Ringling, and tell people you've run away to join the circus!

If "Virginia is for Lovers," Philadelphia is Definitely for History Nerds, part 3

     Besides history, visitors to Philadelphia will find themselves surrounded by art and great food, two things that I'm really interested in.

    Philadelphia is a city of murals, often called the "Mural Capital of the World." They're everywhere, literally thousands of them. 

    A must-see is the Philadelphia Museum of Art (https://philamuseum.org/ ), with the exterior made famous, of course, in the famous training scenes from "Rocky", and, sure enough, it is not that unusual to see a visitor or two trying to make the run, or at least posing by the statue. Inside, visitors will find an amazing collection of art. There's a huge American art gallery, featuring local artist Thomas Eakins and many other works that American history buffs will recognize. There are also large collections of Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Asian art, and medieval arms and armor. Spend hours or days, your choice.

    Next on your list should be the Barnes Foundation, maybe the most exciting and unexpected art museums I've visited. (https://www.barnesfoundation.org/ ). I'd never heard of the Barnes before our visit, but I was so glad to find it. The museum started with the collection of Albert C. Barnes, who made his fortune by co-developing a treatment for gonorrhea in the early twentieth century. In 1922, he founded the Barnes. The museums collections are mostly Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Modernists, but the collection also includes ancient African, Asian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Native American pieces. The most interesting thing about the museum to me was that the art was arranged and exhibited in a way that resembles how Barnes himself displayed the works in his home. The museum is divided into many rooms, and, in each room, the art covers the walls and the displays, and they are not segregated by age, style, or region. You might find African, Greek, and Impressionist works grouped together. Sometimes, it seems there is no rhyme or reason, but, in some arrangements, the viewer can see how the works relate to each other - at least in their mind.  The Barnes was our favorite "discovery' of the trip.

    Almost next door to the Barnes is the Rodin Museum, a branch of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and one of the largest collections of Rodin sculptures in the world. Auguste Rodin is considered the father of modern sculpture and is my favorite sculptor. I've been lucky enough to visit the Rodin Museum in Paris, and the Philadelphia version is just as awesome. (https://www.rodinmuseum.org/ )

If "Virginia is for Lovers," Philadelphia is Definitely for History Nerds, part 2

     Not all of Philadelphia's history is related to colonial history or the history of America's early government.  There's much more to see.

    For example, one of America's most historic prisons is open for visitors, the Eastern State Penitentiary (https://www.easternstate.org/ ). It opened in 1829, and it represented a radical new approach to incarceration.  The architecture of the prison itself was innovative, designed like a wheel with seven spokes, allowing guards to keep an eye on the hallways from a central location. In the beginning, the way the prisoners were treated  was based on the philosophy of isolation. The idea was that prisoners should be confined separately to allow for self-reflection and to prevent them from falling under bad influences. Prisoners were kept in single cells, each one with a small walled off outdoor exercise yard, and whenever they left their cells, they were masked. This solitary confinement system became known as the "Pennsylvania system" and influenced penal systems around the world before it was abandoned in 1913. ESP itself continued as a prison until 1971, housing more than 75,000 prisoners, including some famous inmates like Al Capone. It's a really interesting, and eerie, site to tour during the day, and they offer night tours during the summer as well.

    

    Located near Independence Hall is the National Museum of American Jewish History ( https://www.nmajh.org/ ) established in 1976, the only museum in the country dedicated "to exploring and interpreting the American Jewish experience."  The museum has a collection of over 30,000 artifacts, from the colonial period to the present day, that are used to create enlightening exhibits. 

By Beyond My Ken - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26378465

    Belmont Mansion (https://www.belmontmansion.org/index.html ), built in the mid 1700s, is a historic mansion that hosted such illustrious guests as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. In the 1800s, the heirs of the builder were prominent abolitionists, and they allegedly played a role in the Underground Railroad. Philadelphia had quite a number of abolitionist groups, and it was a prominent terminal, the home of many free blacks and escaped slaves. Since 2007, a museum dedicated to the history of the Underground Railroad has occupied the mansion. Honestly, I wouldn't say that it's a must-see, but if you have time, go for it.

    For black history in Philadelphia, I would recommend Mother Bethel AME Church (https://www.motherbethel.org/ ), founded in 1794 and the oldest African Methodist Episcopal congregation in America. The site is the oldest property in the United States continuously owned by black Americans. Originally founded as Methodist Episcopal, Reverend Richard Allen, considered the founder of the AME denomination, made it the denomination's "Mother" church in the early 1800s. The church is open for tours during the day, and, when we visited, we were lucky to have an older gentleman give us a private tour of the church that had been his home for his entire life. He was extremely knowledgeable, and it was a great tour.