These are portraits by the wonderful Frederick W Glasier, in the early 1900s.

There’s nothing quite as deliberately dreamlike as a circus, I think. It’s beautiful and grotesque and poignant and rabidly joyous all at the same time.

(Here’s an article that says almost exactly what I just said except that I found it after the fact. haha) http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/frederick-w-glasier/