History: Animals and Entertainment in History
Historian Susan Nance writes about rodeo, and circus elephants as celebrities.
If you’re looking for a little entertainment today, you have hundreds of options: TV, movie theatres, the Internet, video games, radio and more. But in the 19th century, entertainment was created much closer to home and often as an extension of everyday life. History professor Susan Nance says rodeo is a good example. “In western North America, it seems that animals often provided entertainment because they offered the raw energy of the unexpected,” says Nance. (read more...)