Figure 1.-- A teacher in Tajikistan has sent us a photograph of one of his pupils. "Amal loved the circus and wanted to be a clown. One day at breaktime he got another teacher to help him apply face paint and he came back into class as a clown. He even had a little clown act and entertained the class with it. Here he is with two chums. There is a permanent circus in Dushanbe. Almal loved the whole circus idea and wanted to be a clown. He was a little character. He was a gifted pianist and sometimes as a joke he played music about movie characters. He wore a face mask of the character as he played. Dressing up in a clown costume is popular with primary school children in Dushanbe. I suspect this is true of other formner Soviet republics. I have another picture, this one of Anvar dressed up for a school festival. He choose to be a clown."

Circus costumes appeal to childrem. The single most important must be clowns, bu they are mot the only oners. We note large numbers of children who had their portrait taken wearing clown costumes in the late-19th and early-20th century. They were called pierrot costumes. The single most popular one was the circus clown. These were fancy costumes. We also note less expensive play costumes from sears. Creative mothers could make costumes. There was also the fun of putting on makeup. We think that clowns were more popular with boys than girls, but we are not sure about that. Age was another factor. Clowns scarred some younger children. We suspect that TV clowns like "Hoody Doody's Clarabel kept clowns populsr for a while. But after that we begin seeing fewer trick-or-treaters dressed up like clowns. We do see clowns at children's birthday parties. We are not sure how many children chose clown-circus themed costumes.

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Created: 7:01 AM 9/29/2009
Last updated: 7:01 AM 9/29/2009