Sources
As always, the sources listed beneath the images above are a good indication of where I found information.I discovered most of it by using the tried and true duo of Google and digitized old newspapers.I also looked for images in the online offerings of the Library of Congress, New York State, and the Museum of the City of New York.
Beware, the Internet is always changing.While putting together this article, two of the sources that I used became (only temporarily, I hope) unavailable.
To anyone interested in learning more about in the 1944 Hartford disaster, I would recommend Stuart O'Nan's The Circus Fire.There also have been many, many other books, as well as articles and television documentaries about the incident.The event occurred before I was born, but I do have a personal connection to it.My father's aunt Katherine, and her granddaughter Valerie, 8, my second cousin, died huddled together in the Big Top that day.
If this article has motivated any readers to watch The Greatest Show on Earth, I owe those people a few words of caution.It is not as good a movie as its winning an Oscar may suggest, and today it seems dated.It remains of interest primarily as a vehicle for understanding the era in which it was made, and the reverence which the nation once had for the circus.
