The golden age of the American circus (1870s–1930s) coincided

with an era of modernization and mobility, most notably the

expansion of the railroad. Although the circus in this country

long predated the railroad—first making its appearance in 1792,

when the Scottish equestrian acrobat John Bill Ricketts opened

a riding school in Philadelphia—it was the railroad that allowed

the American circus to grow in geographic reach, scale, and elab-

orateness. The joining of Union Pacific and Central Pacific rails at

Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869 opened the door to enterprising

(and opportunistic) circus men such as P. T. Barnum to manage

the complex logistics of the big-top circus of the 1920s and 1930s,

thus growing their businesses in popularity and grandiosity.

From the 1930s until 1970, in his Amarillo, Texas, home

and workshop, W. J. “Windy” Morris sought to capture this

railroad circus of his youth in miniature. What started as a

single circus wagon eventually grew into a model circus that

consists of tens of thousands of pieces and occupies a footprint

of nearly 11 by 14 feet.

The Morris Miniature Circus was acquired by the Museum

of International Folk Art in 1984 and was last shown in 1986,

to tremendous popular response. Now, thirty years later, the

museum is reinstalling the circus after doing some much-

needed restoration to the ³⁄8-inch-scale figures and wagons and

replacing motors, gears, and lights that have long since failed.

The better-than-ever circus will be on view April 3 through

December 31, 2016.

Windy Morris’s circus required him to learn as he went,

acquiring skills such as mold making, casting, painting, and

the operation of model railroads. He enlisted the help of

his wife, Josephine, to make the tents and wasn’t shy about

co-opting the home oven to bake his “little people” in their

molds. His daughter Jo Ellett recalled in 1986 how his various

work spaces became filled to capacity with his hobby—first

the home basement, then the living room, and finally a dedi-

cated workshop. “Working with as many diverse elements

as the project entailed meant that numerous processes were

on-going, simultaneously,” she wrote. “With such a mélange

(literally, thousands of tiny parts and intricate models at

various stages of completion) scattered about, no one could

envision what the end result might be, except Windy, the

artist with the master plan in his own mind’s eye.”

Morris demonstrated the same do-it-yourself tenacity he

devoted to the miniature circus in whatever he did—in life

and business. He was born in 1904 in Bentonville, Arkansas,

to a father who was a one-time town mayor and co-owner of a

lime quarry, and a mother who was the church organist. When

his father became disabled in an accident at the quarry, young

Windy shouldered much of the onus to support the family.

The carefree days of his childhood, including memorable visits

to the circus when it came through town, were replaced by

adult responsibilities. At the age of fourteen, Morris attempted

to enlist in the army at the outbreak of World War I but was

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rebuffed because of his age. He worked hard to

finance his education, then started a farming

business with his father-in-law despite a lack of

experience in agriculture, teaching himself how

to repair a tractor with a manual and imple-

menting new methods in farming that he gleaned

from research. Creating a miniature circus was a

welcome respite, especially during the long winter

months, when farm activity came to a halt.

In an unpublished manuscript that he wrote in

1950, Windy Morris recalled “the brightly deco-

rated circus wagons” with teams of horses “fitted

with plumes and wagons with flags” in the street

parade that preceded the actual circus, a teaser to

the crowds who gathered to witness the arrival

of the circus. The street parade, after all, was

free, and not everyone could afford admission to

the big top. The spectacle of the parade, with its

wagons, bands, performers, and menageries of

wild animals, the unloading of the trains, and the

raising of the tents, was something to behold. “Some observer,”

said Morris, “wrote that the ‘second greatest show on earth’ is

the moving and transporting of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth.’”

To re-create the circus, Windy Morris mined his personal

memories but also researched wagons, performers and perfor-

mances, circus banners, tents, and railroads in great detail.

He participated in the national Circus Model Builders associa-

tion, writing a piece for their publication Billboard, and made a

pilgrimage to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin,

to see their collection of circus wagons. His miniature side-

show banners, for example, are based on real-life banners of

well-known performers such as Sealo the Seal Boy and the

Great Lorenzo. Details such as the design of the famous Two

Hemisphere Circus Wagon or the Model T were of great impor-

tance to Morris to establish the time period of his circus, as they

are to all circus-model builders and model-railroad enthusi-

asts. “[My father] envisioned an authentic working model, true

to scale and handcrafted in detail,” Morris’s younger daughter,

Susie Chambers, recalled recently. “His workshop was orga-

nized; he was skillful and disciplined. But it was his creative

spirit combined with his love for the circus that brought the

Morris Miniature Circus to life.”

W. J. “Windy” Morris with his replica of the famous Barnum Two Hemisphere Circus Wagon. Museum of

International Folk Art Archives (Exhibitions Collection, Morris Miniature Circus Series AR.00004.117).

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The first iteration of Morris’s Miniature Circus took about

fifteen years to complete. He traveled it to several destinations,

such as state fairs in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Minne-

sota, in the 1940s. Subsequently, he expanded and refined

the circus but never showed it again other than to family and

friends. Its permanent home became a workshop behind the

house in Amarillo. At a certain point, the scale of this hobby-

turned-enterprise became overwhelming even to Morris.

As he wrote in his booklet: “The only drudgery encountered

was making sufficient numbers of the same items to make

the model complete. Molding, painting and harnessing one

team of horses was fun, 19 hours of it,

but finishing 135 horses grew into a task.

Making a few little people was fun but

finishing some 1600 of them was some-

thing else.”

The American railroad circus has

been subjected to many critiques over

the years, among them the exoticizing

of racial difference, narrow-minded atti-

tudes toward physical disabilities that are

evident in the “freak show,” and the abuse

of circus animals. Morris’s work reflects

his joyful memories of the circus, but

hindsight allows us to read the dark side

of circus spectacle in what we see. The

entrance to the sideshow tent boasts of

the “Living Wonders” and “Strange People

from all Corners of the Earth” to be seen

within, while at the same time peddling

the sideshow as a “Clean Moral Exhibit

of Unusual Sights.” Such language illus-

trates how sensationalism and insistence

on morality coexisted in the American

circus. At the same time that some indi-

viduals were exploited for profit based on

race, nationality, disability, or some other

measure of difference, the circus business

attempted to position itself as the arbiter

of morality, providing an atmosphere of

wholesome family fun even as it grappled

with a deserved reputation for bringing

crime and violence to town.

The Morris Miniature Circus gives us

occasional hints of the social ills of the era.

Besides what is now seen as the blatant sensationalism of the

sideshow, Morris’s circus accurately reflects the racial segre-

gation of the circus audience under the big top, evidence of

Jim Crow–era discrimination that he took care to represent in

miniature. A clear delineation is made in the stands between

the white audience and the black audience. Just one spectator

breaches the line—a white nun who sits among the African

Americans in the audience in defiance of laws that extended

everywhere, including the circus. Social criticism seems not

to have been Morris’s objective. What is certain is that when

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viewers will bring its own memories, anecdotes, and assess-

ments of the American circus. Visitors will be invited to share

these stories and thoughts in the exhibition gallery, thus

adding another chapter to the evolving narrative of the circus.

Installing the Morris Miniature Circus will be nearly as

much of a feat as it is to put up a full-size circus. Many agile

fingers will install seven small tents—including the big top,

the menagerie, the dressing rooms, the dining area, and the

sideshows—by tethering fine, waxed-linen thread to nails on

the platform. Hundreds of little people and animals need to be

placed and secured without knocking over those tents—among

them one small boy peering under a tent, said to be a portrait

of the artist himself as a boy. The fragile circus wagons will be

repaired now that the decades-old adhesive has deteriorated.

LED lights will take the place of old, burned-out bulbs with

brittle wiring, and a new motor with customized gears will run

the mechanized street parade, performing seals, a circus hand

driving tent stakes, and two men fixing their Model T. This

work will be accomplished by a team of museum staff, consul-

tants, and volunteers, all looking to honor the legacy of Windy

Morris by bringing his circus back to town. ■

Laura Addison is the curator of European and American folk art collections at the Museum of International Folk Art. The Morris Miniature Circus opens on April 3, 2016, with “The Greatest Reception on Earth,” featuring performances by Wise Fool New Mexico.