Steven Helmer Publications

Synopsis: A non-fiction and illustrated historical account of Wisconsin's circus heritage and the people who were responsible for bringing entertainment to the crowds. Review : I received Badger State Showmen as a birthday present a couple weeks ago and as someone who enjoys history, I decided to move it to the top of my reading list. Overall, it ended up being an enjoyable book. I knew, mostly from our visits to Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin had a long and historic connection to circuses. However, outside of only a handful of well-known circuses, I never really fully understood the full scope of that connection until reading this book, which also happened to be published by that museum. The authors put in quite a bit of detail too. I had expected this to be a brief summary of the various circus owners and performers, but the book goes far above and beyond in that regard. In fact, there were a number of pages and paragraphs I had to re-read just because I wasn't ...