In 1949, LIFE magazine sent famed photographer 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, Fla. 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”. Here: an aerialist smoking while rehearsing for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, FL in 1949. (Photo By Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

People look at smoke and flame rising from the Nevskaya Manufaktura textile factory founded by English merchant J. Thornton in 1841, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Monday, April 12, 2021. The emergencies ministry said the fire had broken out over several floors of the red-brick Nevskaya Manufaktura building on the Oktyabrskaya Embankment of the Neva River. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A man takes a photo as a puff of smoke comes from Mount Agung volcano, taken from the Rendang sub-district in Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 23, 2017. Thousands living in the shadow of the rumbling volcano on Indonesia's resort island of Bali fled on November 22 as fears grow that it could erupt for the first time in more than 50 years. (Photo by Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP Photo)

A woman takes photos as Mount Agung volcano sends up another plume of smoke, seen from the Kubu subdistrict in Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on July 5, 2018. Mount Agung roared to life again on July 2, belching a plume of ash 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) high, as well as temporarily shuttering the airport and grounding hundreds of flights after erupting the week before. (Photo by Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP Photo)

In this March 18, 2015 photo, Andrea, better known as Loira, which is the Portuguese word for “blonde”, poses for a portrait in an open-air crack cocaine market, known as a “cracolandia” or crackland where users can buy crack, and smoke it in plain sight, day or night, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Andrea says she is married and has a home, but she keeps returning to crackland to feed her addiction. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

In this Tuesday, March 31, 2015 photo, Indian women walk carrying firewood they collected from a forest at Gobhali village on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. Every evening, hundreds of millions of Indian women hover over crude stoves making dinner for their families. They feed the flames with polluting fuels like kerosene or cow dung, and breathe the acrid smoke wafting from the fires. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

Amphibious assault vehicles of the South Korean Marine Corps throw smoke bombs as they move to land on shore during a U.S.-South Korea joint landing operation drill in Pohang March 31, 2014. The drill is part of the two countries' annual military training called Foal Eagle, which began on February 24 and runs until April 18. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

In this May 2, 2015 photo, skywriter Nathan Hammond releases smoke as he writes messages of hope and love over New Orleans, during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Hammond was commissioned by local entrepreneur, Frank Scurlock, who said the messages were simply his way of reminding people that goodness can still flourish in a world that seems increasingly marred by violence. (Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP Photo)