Pitch Cards

"'Pansy' the Roller-Skating Cow, featuring Rose, Betty, and Harry Rapp (A Rapp & Rapp Production)." Pansy the Roller-Skating Cow performed for fairs, carnivals, and circuses throughout the United States during the 1940s and 1950s. Other than some newspaper ads and brief mentions in Billboard magazine that turned up in Google searches, I haven't been able to locate any information regarding Pansy or the Rapps.

Although I have not been able to uncover any information regarding an "Ellen Probst," this postcard may have been used as a pitch card for a child performer in a sideshow or similar attraction. If so, the girl seems disconcertingly young to be working as a snake handler or charmer.

Ouch! Anyone ever hear of Knoto? Knoto's signature is on the back, so it's likely that he used this as a pitch card, but I haven't been able to uncover any further information about him.

"To Alan, Best wishes, Lorett." When I visited the sideshow at the York Fair in York, Pa., in the mid-1980s, I purchased this card from a tattooed woman, "Lorett," who also autographed it for me. Years later, I was able to identify her as Lorett Fulkerson, and I discovered how lucky I was to meet her. As Amelia Klem Osterud explains in her book, The Tattooed Lady: A History (Speck Press, 2009), p. 2, "Tattooed ladies graced sideshow and carnival stages until 1995, when the last performing tattooed lady, Lorett Fulkerson, retired from the carnival circuit at age eighty." Lorett Fulkerson was at least seventy years old when I met her at the York Fair. Sadly, she died in 2007 at the age of ninety-two. When I posted this over on Flickr , one of Lorett's grandchildren added a comment, and another person even provided some more recent color photos of Lorett.

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the topic of bring on the clowns or any other circus performer . "Greetings from the Biggest Couple with the Greatest Show on Earth. Fischer. A-132. Campbell's Photo Art, Dayton. Ohio." Mr. and Mrs. Fischer were billed as the "world's tallest married couple" when they appeared with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ("The Greatest Show on Earth"). Head over to The Tallest Man Web site to see postcards and other memorabilia on separate pages for Gottlieb Fischer and Elfriede Fischer .