David C. Weeks - Ringling: The Florida Years, 1911-1936

RINGLING

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee

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Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers

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Florida State University, Tallahassee

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University Press of Florida

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RINGLING

The Florida Years, 19111936

David C. Weeks

Copyright 1993 David C. Weeks

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

All rights reserved

First cloth printing, 1993

First paperback printing, 1993

17 16 15 14 P 13 12 11 10 9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weeks, David Chapin.

Ringling: the Florida years, 19111936/by David C. Weeks.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.

ISBN 978-0-8130-1242-1 (alk. paper).

ISBN 978-0-8130-1243-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Ringling, John, 18661936. 2. Circus ownersUnited StatesBiography 3. Sarasota (Fla.)History. 1. Title.

GV1811.R52W44 1993

338.7'617913'092dc20

[B] 93-11189

: John Ringling at his estate in Alpine, New Jersey, c. 1926. Courtesy of Henry Ringling North.

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FOREWORD

Raymond Arsenault

OVER THE CENTURIES Florida has attracted more than its share of larger-than-life characters. From Pensacola to the Florida Keys, the peninsula has been a repository for all manner of personal and imperial ambitions, as dreamers and builders, schemers and scoundrels, have sought to leave their mark upon the land. The result is a modern landscape punctuated with sprawling subdivisions, gaudy theme parks, oversized Mediterranean Revival hotels and mansions, man-made islands, drainage ditches masquerading as canals, and acre after acre of manicured flora. Exotic and eclectic, Florida is a jumble of contradictions, of natural beauty and unnatural creation, of artful genius and misplaced pietism.

No single individual is wholly representative of this complexity. But those seeking an understanding of modern Floridas unique regional culture could hardly find a better starting point than the life of John Nicholas Ringling. Known to millions of Americans simply as the circus man, Ringling was actually a man of many talents and varied interests, a middle-brow polymath who used his time and fortune to recast his physical and cultural surroundings. As a circus promoter, an inveterate patron of the arts, a self-styled art critic and connoisseur, and a real estate developer, he sought to bridge the often disparate worlds of popular and high culture. Self-taught but sophisticated, Ringling mediated between the marketplace and the gallery, between the dictates of American pragmatism and the values of European aestheticism. The tangible results of this cultural fusionmost notably the choreography of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, his extensive collections of Baroque paintings, European decorative objects, and Italian statuary, and his ostentatious Sarasota mansion Ca dZanseldom satisfied purist conventions or expectations. But Ringlings achievements were never dull or mundane, and even his harshest critics acknowledged his enterprising and adventurous spirit. Here was a man who was not afraid to think or live on a grand scale, who knew what he wanted from life and from art.

During the past sixty years, several million visitors have marveled at the artistic treasures in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, and countless others have toured the Venetian splendor of Ca dZan or wandered the grounds of the Ringling estate. Many of these visitors must have come away with a touch of puzzlement. What manner of man created this empire of whimsy and pretension? How did he do it? Why did he do it? The most persistent questioners could test the knowledge and patience of docents or even track down a curator; but authoritative answers were scarce. Nearly everyone in Sarasota could tell a John Ringling story or two, but no one had made an extended effort to separate fact from folklore, or to examine carefully the textual and contextual nuances of Ringlings life and times. Despite a wealth of information on the artistic legacy and material culture of John Ringlings world, the man himself remained a shadowy enigma, until now.

Fortunately, David Weeks has rescued John Ringling from the shadows. Based on a decade of research and writing, the present volume offers a carefully crafted analysis of the public and private lives of one of American historys most colorful and influential culture brokers. Weeks chronicles Ringlings early life and the remarkable ascent of the Ringling circus family, which transformed a small harness-making business in the upper Midwest into an international entertainment empire. But the books primary focus is on the final quarter-century of Ringlings life, from his arrival in Sarasota in 1911, at the age of forty-five, to his death in 1936. Ringlings Sarasota years stretched from the preWorld War I era, when most of central and southern Florida remained raw and unpopulated, to the fabled Florida boom of the 1920s, to the subsequent hard times of the 1930s. Like Floridas other leading dream merchantsCarl Fisher of Miami Beach, George Merrick of Coral Gables, Perry Snell of St. Petersburg, and the Mizner brothers of Boca Raton and Palm BeachRingling helped to create an age of excess that was followed by an age of want and desperation. Though his life in Sarasota was a bittersweet sagahe lost much of his fortune during the Great Depression and outlived his beloved wife Mable and all six of his brothershe left an artistic and philanthropic legacy of incalculable value. David Weeks recaptures the triumphs and the tragedies, the genius and the decadence, the generosity and the self-indulgence, in this even-handed and compelling biography.

Raymond Arsenault is professor of history at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He has written extensively on the history of Florida and the American South.

PREFACE

THE IMPETUS that led to the writing of this book stemmed from an awareness that the custodians and interpreters of John Ringlings bequest to the people of Florida wanted a reliable account of the man and his uniquely mixed career. Accordingly, the reader will find that the book follows the circus man, the corporate entrepreneur, and the art connoisseur and collector who applied a degree of showmanship to each of those diverse interests.