masterful painters. All forty animals will eventually receive the same professional treatment. The small, portable carousel outside the circus building was made about 1920 by the Allan Herschell Company of North Tonawanda, New York. In 1883 Herschell began producing carousels designed to endure hard wear and frequent travel. The horses were smaller and more compact than those made for permanent park carousels by such companies as Dentzel and the Philadelphia Toboggan Company. Heads and legs were tucked close to the bodies to minimize breakage, and the machines could be easily taken apart, moved, and reassembled. Circus posters In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the circus was an annual event awaited with great anticipation. Weeks before the circus was due to arrive, colorful posters appeared on barns and fences, announcing the dates and new performers. When the circus arrived, excitement grew as wagons, elephants, and clowns paraded through town. Traveling circuses are represented at the Shelburne Museum by the vintage advertising posters that line the inside wall of the Circus Building. The museum's collection of over five hundred circus posters is among the finest and most comprehensive in the country. It includes many extremely rare, early posters as well as examples from all the major circuses of the Golden Age of the American traveling circus (ca. 1870-1940), including Barnum and Bailey, Ringling Brothers, Adam Forepaugh, John B. Doris, and the Sells Brothers. The posters are typically brightly colored and attention-grabbing. Most feature dramatic new acts or exotic animals; many make outrageous (and sometimes utterly false) claims – the largest, the smallest, the most dangerous, the rarest, the one and only, etc. Circus carvings The museum owns three elaborate carved miniature circuses. The Circus Parade, which runs over through the circus building, was begun in 1925 by Roy Arnold (1892-1976) of Hardwick, Vermont. Built on a one-inch to one-foot scale, the parade required thirty years to complete. Four other skilled woodcarvers, Harry T. Prior, Charles W. Dech, Milo Smith and Charles Lockier, worked with Arnold on the parade, which features accurate reproductions of wagons used by circuses of the Golden Age. The miniature parade is complemented by exhibits of pony-sized wagons and several life-sized figures originally carved by Samuel Anderson Robb for Barnum and Bailey tableau wagons in the 1890s. Robb is best known for his trade figures, several of which are exhibited in Stagecoach Inn. The Kirk Bros. Miniature Circus