In June of 1972, Nicholas Whitman photographed vintage circus posters, many layers deep, in the protected bay of a barn near the intersection of Routes 346 and 22 in North Petersburg, New York. Around 2000 he returned to see what had become of the posters. The barn had been converted to an antique store and just a few fragments of posters remained on the wall.
However, a couple of lumps of circus posters, many layers thick and measuring about 3’ by 5’ each, advertising shows in Bennington, Vermont, and other local towns, had been pulled off the barn’s wall and were up in the former hay loft. Whitman became the caretaker and documenter of these delicate slices of local history.
The exhibit "The Circus is Coming to Town" at the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont brings together a selection of these poster fragments and Whitman’s photographs, to explore the history of the circus in Bennington and the surrounding region at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
We are joined by Bennington Museum Curator Jamie Franklin and photographer Nicholas Whitman.
