Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

Nina Leen was a Russian-born American photographer and a constant contributor to LIFE magazine. A self-taught photographer she never became a staff photographer, but she contributed as a contract photographer until the magazine closed in 1972.

In 1949, LIFE sent Nina Leen to document the daily life of a sassy troupe of young women who had run off and joined the famous Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, Florida. What developed was a portrait of a sisterhood formed over acrobatics that mixed high-flying wire acts with fashionable high-waisted shorts.
Sarasota was once considered “the home of the American circus”. Leen’s stunning photos reflect an apparently carefree lifestyle of independent single women flourishing during a time in American history when most women were expected to marry instead of having careers. Leen went behind the scenes just seven years before the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows announced it would no longer be performing inside tents. A circus tent fire in Connecticut in 1944 had killed more than 165 people.

Here, a group of circus girls taking a ride in a circus vehicle during a rehearsal for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, FL in 1949.

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949

 

 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Daily Life of Circus Girls in Sarasota, Florida in 1949