Friday, August 22, 2014

Dan Rice: America's Clown

Dan Rice was, quite possibly, the most famous personality of his day next to Abraham Lincoln himself. Born in Manhattan in 1823, Rice got his start as a Jockey at the age of 10. After becoming too heavy to ride professionally he turned instead to equestrian performance, joining the Nichols Circus where he performed as a singer and dancer as well as a rider. Rice also went on to perform what became a staple of many clown acts, the "educated pig" when he joined a traveling puppet show in 1843 with his pig Lord Byron.

Rice's first big act, however, came when he joined Dr. Gilbert R. Spalding's North American Circus (Spalding having bought out the former Nichols Circus). Combining his educated pig act with his musical and dance performances and strong man act, Rice became for the first time an integral part of the show. His relationship with Spalding was, however, a tumultuous one, Rice being notoriously hard to get along with when it came to business and something of a egotist.

Leaving Spalding's show, Rice went on to perform with several other circuses before opening his own show in 1845, the Dan Rice Circus, which many historians suspect was financed in part by Spalding and which traveled periodically on Spalding's Allegheny Mail steam boat. Rice played the part of clown in his show, becoming well known for his Shakespearian comedy performances and interacting heavily with the ringmaster as his straight man which would, in time, become something of a circus tradition in itself.

By this point, Rice had also taken on what is probably his most recognizable modern legacy by costuming himself in a stars and stripes outfit and top hat. Along with his long grey chin beard, Rice was the perfect model for Thomas Nast's "Uncle Sam" character (though he may have been adapting an already existing clown style, Rice certainly gets credit for popularizing it and making it his own trademark look).

Like John Bill Ricketts before him, Rice often courted the famous political figures of the day. Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and Roberty E. Lee were all fans and at one point while playing in Washington D.C. Congress had to adjourn for the day as so few members were going to show. These political ties, as well as Rice's tour routes which took him both to the South and the North would later cause him some amount of public grief during the civil war as many Northerers suspected him of Southern sympathies and vice versa. Even after the war, Rice's loyalties were hard to pin down as he helped to rebuild schools and churches in the South while at the same time charitably supporting the windows and children of Union troops who had died in the war and even having a Union monument errected in his second wife's home town of Girard, Pennsylvania (which, by the way, now hosts a yearly "Dan Rice Days" festival).

By 1852, Dan Rice had reached the financial peak of his success, becoming possibly the most highly paid person in the country making $1000 a week (a little over $13,000 by today's standards). As the civil war went on, however, his fortunes dwindled and by 1862 Rice was bankrupt. Enter Gilbert R. Spalding, Rice's former manager who offered Rice the opportunity to join his show as a partner at the same $1000 a week rate. Rice, perhaps remembering his previous time with Spalding, refused, opting instead to rebuild his fortunes on his own which he did successfully before entering into partnership with Adam Forepaugh and going more or less bankrupt once again.

Four years later, Rice made a short lived bid for congress and the presidency running at the behest of a Pennsylvania soldiers delegation. He would by no means be the last great circus star to enter the political arena as we'll see in later entries. Rice continued touring both with his own show, he could afford it and as a performer in other circuses. By now, however, age and alcoholism had left Rice a shadow of his former self and audiences failed to appear.

Eventually, Rice was able to overcome his addiction to alcohol and in his later years toured as a temperance speaker while continuing to perform in the ring in one form or another until his retirement in 1887. Just three years later, Dan Rice died. His name, however lived on, various circuses touring, though unauthorized, under the Rice name well into the mid 1950's. Additionally, his "Pete Jenkins from Mud Corners" comedic equestrian act was likely the basis for the circus act depicted in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, especially given that Twain and Rice traveled the same waters along the Mississippi at roughly the same time.

Since we touched a bit on steamship travel and the circus, we'll continue on that topic next time!

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