Dusty Relics of Arkansas History
March 5-11, 2018
Bartleby Clown College
By Bob Denman
bgdenman@ualr.edu
You may know by now of my great interest in the more obscure of Arkansas history. Today I share with you one of my favorites.
It’s not a story I was familiar with and only came across it while researching in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. It is from a 2008 post and I give them full attribution for this interesting story.
The Bartleby Clown College was a short-lived institution for the training of clowns and other circus performers in Jonesboro. Though it lasted only seven years, it contributed to the increasing professionalism of the clowning field and led to the creation of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College in 1968.
The Bartleby College was established in an abandoned Jonesboro warehouse by the Southern States’ Conference on Clowning in April of 1952. The conference had been looking for a suitable place to establish the school and chose Jonesboro because the city had extensive rail connections and at the time of founding served as an un-official hub for regional circuses. Historian Michael Dougan reported that local residents were not enthused about the idea since they already had a college (now Arkansas State University), but eventually many citizens came around to the idea, when as part of their training, the students performed free to the general public. For a smaller set of the citizenry, a fear of clowns grew, especially families with young children.
The first Bartleby class had 96 students.
The college faced numerous difficulties over its short life including funding which prevented the school’s planned construction of a hall for the exclusive training of mimes. Until the school’s closure in 1959, the mimes held classes in an adjacent field where they pretended to sit at desks, write on chalkboards, and appear trapped in large boxes to the amusement of passersby. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Bartleby’s poor accreditation ratings after several fatalities in ’56 and ’57 of students majoring in Rodeo Clowning. Interestingly, Bartleby did institute one of the state’s first carpooling programs in their final year of operation. All 72 students reportedly commuted to class in a total of just three cars.
In 1959, after years of declining enrollment, Bartleby president Steve Teske Sr. called a press conference to announce, in mime, the closing of the college. Journalists covering the event misunderstood his many gesticulations causing the coverage of the event to vary greatly.
The Arkansas Democrat reported that Teske was taking a job in the administration of then-Governor Orville Faubus when in reality he was leaving to become an instructor for Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. So it was in 1968 that Teske helped form the Clown College for Ringling allowing Bartelby’s legacy to continue long past its Arkansas demise.
I take great pleasure in sharing this story with you. Please consider yourselves fooled a few weeks before the traditional April Fool’s Day with this fictional Dusty Relic of Arkansas History.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Building that housed Bartleby Clown College in downtown Jonesboro (Craighead County); 1964. This is a composite photograph. (Photo via Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture)
