P. T. Barnum

Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891), American showman who is best remembered for his entertaining hoaxes and for founding the circus that eventually became Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Related Topics:
July 5 - 1810 - April 7 - 1891 - American - Showman - Hoax - Circus - Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus

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He was born in Bethel, Connecticut, his father being an inn and store-keeper. Barnum first started as a store-keeper, and was also concerned in the lottery mania then prevailing in the United States. After failing in business, he started in 1829 a weekly paper, The Herald of Freedom, in Danbury, Connecticut; after several libel suits and a prosecution which resulted in imprisonment, he moved to New York City in 1834, and in 1835 began his career as a showman, with his purchase and exhibition of a blind and almost completely paralysed African-American slave woman, Joice Heth, claimed by Barnum to have been the nurse of George Washington, and to be over a hundred and sixty years old.

Related Topics:
Bethel - Connecticut - Lottery - United States - 1829 - The Herald of Freedom - Danbury - New York City - 1834 - 1835 - Slave - Joice Heth - George Washington

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With this woman and a small company he made well-advertised and successful tours in America until 1839, though Joice Heth died in 1836, when her age was proved to be not more than seventy. After a period of failure he purchased Scudder's American Museum, New York, in 1841; to this he added considerably and it became one of the most popular shows in the United States. He made a special hit in 1842 with the exhibition of Charles Stratton, the celebrated midget "General Tom Thumb", as well as the Fiji Mermaid which he exhibited in collaboration with his Boston counterpart Moses Kimball. In 1843 Barnum hired the traditional Native American dancer Do-Hum-Me. During 1844-45 Barnum toured with Charles Stratton in Europe and met with Queen Victoria. A remarkable instance of his enterprise was the engagement of Jenny Lind to sing in America at $1,000 a night for one hundred and fifty nights, all expenses being paid by the entrepreneur. The tour began in 1850.

Related Topics:
1839 - 1836 - Scudder's American Museum - New York - 1841 - 1842 - Charles Stratton - Midget - General Tom Thumb - Fiji Mermaid - Boston - Moses Kimball - 1843 - Native American - Do-Hum-Me - 1844 - 45 - Europe - Queen Victoria - Jenny Lind - $ - 1850

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Barnum retired from the show business in 1855, but had to settle with his creditors in 1857, and began his old career again as showman and museum proprietor. In Brooklyn, New York in 1871, he established "The Greatest Show on Earth", a travelling amalgamation of circus, menagerie and museum of "freaks." In 1881 he merged with James Bailey to create the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which toured around the world. The show's primary attraction was Jumbo, an African elephant he purchased from the London Zoo.

Related Topics:
1855 - 1857 - Brooklyn - New York - 1871 - The Greatest Show on Earth - 1881 - James Bailey - Barnum & Bailey Circus - Jumbo - African elephant - London Zoo

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Barnum died on April 7, 1891 and is buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

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His circus was eventually sold to Ringling Brothers in 1909 (or 1907?).

Related Topics:
Ringling Brothers - 1909 - 1907

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Barnum wrote several books, including The Humbugs of the World (1865), Struggles and Triumphs (1869), and his Autobiography (first in 1854, and later editions including 1869).

Related Topics:
1865 - 1869 - 1854

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Barnum was significantly involved in the politics surrounding race, slavery, and sectionalism in the period leading up the American Civil War. As mentioned above, he had some of his first success as an impressario through his slave Joice Heth. Around 1850, he was involved in a hoax about a weed that would turn black people white.

Related Topics:
Race - American Civil War

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Barnum was involved (both as performer and promoter) in blackface minstrelsy. According to Eric Lott, Barnum's minstrel shows were often more double-edged in their humor than most at this period. While still replete with racist stereotypes, Barnum's shows also satirized white racial attitudes, as in a stump speech in which a black phrenologist (like all performers in the show, actually a white man in blackface) made a dialect speech parallelling and parodying lectures given at the time to "prove" the superiority of the white race: "You see den, dat clebber man and dam rascal means de same in dutch, when dey boph white; but when one white and de udder's black, dat's a grey hoss ob anoder color." (Lott, 1993, 78)

Related Topics:
Blackface - Minstrelsy - Phrenologist

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Promotion of minstrel shows led indirectly to his sponsorship in 1853 of H.J. Conway's politically watered-down stage version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; the play, at Barnum's American Museum, gave the story a happy ending, with Tom and various other slaves freed. The success of this Uncle Tom led, in turn, to his promotion of a production of a play based on Stowe's '. By 1860, Barnum had become a Republican.

Related Topics:
H.J. Conway - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin - Republican

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