Barnum & Bailey
1910s
A suitably grandiose letterhead used in the 1910s by Barnum & Bailey, a circus of unmatched spectacle founded in 1881 by master showman P. T. Barnum and promoter James A. Bailey. After Bailey’s death in 1906, the Ringling Brothers purchased the show, then waited until 1919 to merge it with their own to form the legendary Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus—a name that would dominate the world of entertainment for decades.
Source: Holabird Western Americana
Beautiful use of color for those days. I know that posters used bright colors, but it seems the letterheads were a bit more muted. Was it the expense for something that small?