Sonora Webster Carver

In 1880, the rival Barnum Circus and Bailey Circus merged to form Barnum and Bailey Circus, one of the longest running circuses in American history. While circuses first came to the U.S. from Europe at the end of the 18th century, with access to travel by rail, they developed into a unique American-style show. American circuses were especially known for their mobility, with a tent that could be erected and dismantled easily. This new traveling model allowed circuses, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to become a key method of exposing the American public to things such as exotic animals and remarkable feats of artistry and athleticism. 

[Image Courtesy of Library of Congress]

The first Wild West show was started by William F. Cody, known as “Buffalo Bill,” and William Frank “Doc” Carver. This was a different kind of entertainment, exposing audiences to a romanticized version of life on the American frontier. The show, called “The Wild West—Cody and Carver’s Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition,” opened on May 19, 1883, in Omaha, Nebraska. The show was very popular, but Cody and Carver did not work well together, and their partnership ended in a feud that left them bitter rivals. The two then developed competing shows–of which Cody’s was much more successful. Nevertheless, the wild west show genre that Cody and Carver created remained successful for decades and was widely replicated across the United States. While these shows employed a large number of American Indians, the Wild West Shows have been critiqued for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about Native American life and culture and American history.

[Image courtesy of McCracken Research Library, Buffalo Bill Center of the West]

Atlantic City’s Steel Pier was first opened as a theater in 1898, but soon expanded to include unusual attractions, such as Rex the Wonder Dog (a water skiing dog), and performances by stars such as Annie Oakley and later, Frank Sinatra, this variety style entertainment earned Steel Pier the name “Showplace of the Nation.” The Steel Pier remains open today as an amusement park, but does not feature the sorts of marquee acts it was known for in its heyday. 

[Images courtesy of Atlantic City Heritage Collections, Atlantic City Free Public Library]

Sonora Webster was born in 1904 to a working-class family in Waycross, Georgia. 

[Image courtesy of Glenbow Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University of Calgary]

Webster had a love for horses from a young age. She reportedly skipped school to ride horses. In 1923, at 19 years old, her mother showed her an advertisement for the diving horse show seeking an “attractive young woman who can swim and dive; likes horses; desires to travel.” After seeing the horse diving act, in which a horse and rider dove 40 feet from a tower into a pool of water, Webster was determined to join the show, and did so within months. 

[Image courtesy of Three Lions]

After completing her training, Webster made her first public dive off a 40-foot tower at an amusement park in North Carolina on May 20th, 1924. From then on, she  performed in fairs all over the country.

[Image courtesy of Bettmann]

In 1929, Al Carver secured a contract for the diving horse act to be a standing show on the Atlantic City Steel Pier. Horse diving soon became one of the most iconic Steel Pier attractions. In peak season, Webster performed up to five times a day for audiences of thousands. 

[Image courtesy of Atlantic City Heritage Collections, Atlantic City Free Public Library]

On July 14, 1931, an accident dramatically altered Webster’s life. During a dive, the horse she was riding had a balancing issue. Webster leaned back, to prevent the horse from flipping and this adjustment  caused Webster to hit the water face first with her eyes open. While the horse was uninjured, the impact of the dive detached Webster’s retina, causing her to go blind. 

[Image Courtesy of Atlantic City Heritage Collections, Atlantic City Free Public Library] 

Less than a year after Webster’s accident, she made her comeback, diving horses once again at Steel Pier. Webster continued to dive blind for 11 years. 

[Image courtesy of Allen “Boo” Pergament]

The horse diving act fell on hard times because of WWII restrictions on tires and gasoline—materials necessary for the act to run smoothly—and labor shortages. Webster and her husband retired from horse diving in 1942. The act, however, lived on for several more decades on the Atlantic City Steel Pier.

[Image courtesy of The Chronicle of the Horse]

After her retirement from diving, Webster and her husband moved to New Orleans where she worked as a typist at the Lighthouse for the Blind and engaged in activism for the visually impaired. 

[Image courtesy of Historic Images]

Webster published her memoir, A Girl and Five Brave Horses.

[Image courtesy of A Girl and Five Brave Horses]

In 1991, Webster’s memoir was adapted into the Disney Movie Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken. Webster said of the movie: “the only thing true in it was that I rode diving horses, I went blind and I continued to ride for another 11 years.”

[Image courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures]

In 1993, a brief revival of the horse diving act in Atlantic City with mules and no human riders quickly ended following protests from animal rights activists. In 2012, bringing the act back was briefly considered, but was again scrapped amid protest. 

[Image courtesy of Richard Vogel/AP]

Webster died in 2003, at the age of 99. 

[Image courtesy of NY Daily News]

After years of protest over the use of animals in their acts by PETA and other animal activist groups, as well as rising operation costs and falling attendance, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circuses ceased operation.

[Image courtesy of The Brownsville Herald]