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The Public's Obedient Servant, P. T. Barnum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
Extract
Phineas Taylor Barnum was a strange breed of nineteenth-century Renaissance man. Although best known as showman and exhibitor of “curiosities,” Barnum enjoyed a multifaceted career including stints as editor, politician, reformer, and patron of a higher form of “the arts” than is usually associated with him. But in each of these endeavors, he represented a product of, and comment upon, his roots. If his enterprises grew and adapted in striking parallel to the social and political changes of the nineteenth century, they also represented a constant application of the peculiar down-eastern Yankee of Connecticut known as the “humbug.”
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References
NOTES
1. Data about Barnum and his personal observations are drawn from his autobiographies, volumes that began to appear in 1851 and were re-issued, with some revisions, in more than fifty editions. In the 1850s, Barnum used several variations on the title, The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. In the 1860s and 1870s he altered it to Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years Recollections of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. And in the 1880s he returned to Life of P. T. Barnum, occasionally adding appendixes such as his Golden Rules for Money-Making. A useful compilation, by Waldo S. Brown, appeared in 1927 as Barnum's Own Story: The Autobiography of P. T. Barnum, Combined and Condensed from the Various Editions Published During His Lifetime (1927; rpt. New York: Dover Publications, 1961).Google Scholar
2. Barnum, P. T., Why I Am a Uniuersalist (Boston: Universalist Publishing House, n.d.).Google Scholar
3. Shettel, James W., “Death of Barnum's Cannibal,” The Circus Scrap Book, 1 (10 1929), 43–50.Google Scholar
4. John Voss of the Picayune claimed that “Barnum is called a humbug because he happens to be a Yankee, and they you know are called the greatest race ever born in this world. Now when any great thing is done, when any new invention is announced, the inventor is asked at once ‘you are from Connecticut, I suppose,’ or anyhow he is taken for a ‘down easter’ because from Yankee hollow comes the genius.” See Voss, John D., Barnum's New Year's Address (New York, 1851), p. 7.Google Scholar
5. Barnum, , The Humbugs of the World; An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages (New York, 1866), p. 11.Google Scholar
6. Barnum, P. T., The Swindlers of America: Who They Are and How They Work; Containing also the Secret of Making Money (New York: J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company, n.d.), p. 14.Google Scholar
7. Although Barnum characterized the Recorder's editor as a pawn of the church-and-state party, the paper seems to have been unusually mild and noncommital; perhaps its avoidance of controversy explains why the editor did not print Barnum's communications.
8. Reprinted in the Stamford Sentinel, 11 1, 1931.Google Scholar Italics in original.
9. Stamford Sentinel, 10 25, 1831Google Scholar; Connecticut Observer, 10 31, 1831Google Scholar; New Haven Palladium, first week of November 1831; Spirit of the Times, 11 1831Google Scholar; Herald of Freedom, 11 1831.Google Scholar
10. Herald of Freedom, 03 21, 1832.Google Scholar
11. Proceedings of the Superior Court at Danbury, Connecticut, September term, 1832.
12. Barnum, P. T. to Welles, Gideon, 10 7, 1832Google Scholar, Barnum letters, Bridgeport, Conn., Public Library.
13. Herald of Freedom, 01 1833.Google Scholar
14. A contract between Elizabeth Atwood and Augustine Washington on February 5, 1727, supposedly disposed of Joice Heth for £33 in Virginia money; according to the bill of sale, Joice was then fifty-four years old. R. W. Lindsay sold Joice Heth to P. T. Barnum on June 10, 1835.
15. Hempstead, Inquirer, 07 8, 1835Google Scholar; Pennsylvania Inquirer, 07 15, 1835.Google Scholar
16. New York Herald, 12 28, 1841Google Scholar; New York Daily Tribune, 12 28, 1841.Google Scholar The first advertisements for “Barnum's American Museum” appeared in the amusement columns of the Herald and Tribune on 12 31.Google Scholar
17. Neil Harris, one of Barnum's recent biographers, has developed the interesting thesis that Barnum's museum exhibits and performers were not a random assortment but actually represented a unity of the “operational aesthetic,” an approach to experience which equates beauty with information and technique. See Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973), pp. 61–89 and passim.Google Scholar
18. Chronology adapted from the New York Daily Tribune, New York Herald, and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.
19. Abbott, Lyman, Reminiscences (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923), p. 28.Google Scholar
20. New York Herald, 02 25, 1847.Google Scholar A full account of the tour appears in the unpublished memoirs of Mrs. Tom Thumb: Countess M. Lavinia Magri (formerly Mrs. General Tom Thumb), “Some of My Life Experiences,” misc. Magri MSS, New York Historical Society.
21. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 01 31, 1863.Google Scholar
22. Ibid., May 9, 1863.
23. Magri, , “Some of My Life Experiences.”Google Scholar
24. Nine major shows carried Barnum's name: Barnum's Great Asiatic Caravan with Tom Thumb (1851–55); Barnum's Grand Colossal Museum and Menagerie (1852–59); Barnum's Great Traveling Exposition and World's Fair (1860–76); Barnum's One and Only Circus (1876–79); Barnum's New and Greatest Show on Earth (1876–85); Barnum, Bailey, and Hutchinson Circus (1881–83); Barnum and Bailey-Adam Forepaugh, Combined Shows (1887); Barnum and Bailey Circus (1888–97); and Barnum and Bailey Circus in Europe (1897–1900).
25. Circus bill distributed in Hartford, Connecticut, June 8, 1851.
26. Barnum, P. T. to Ford, Gordon L., 05 30, 1874Google Scholar, Ford papers, New York Public Library. Barnum stressed benefits to the public in his frequent letters to Ford since he hoped for favorable notices in Ford's newspaper.
27. Barnum, Nancy Fish, “The Last Chapter”: In Memoriam P. T. Barnum (New York, 1893), p. 5.Google Scholar
28. Barnum, , Humbugs of the World, p. 66.Google Scholar
29. Ibid., pp. 57–58; Presbrey, Frank, The History and Development of Advertising (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1929), p. 214.Google Scholar
30. Benton, Joel, Persons and Places (New York, 1905), p. 164.Google Scholar
31. P. T. Barnum's Illustrated News for the Season of 1878 (Buffalo, N.Y., 1878), p. 4.Google Scholar
32. “P. T. Barnum and the Newspapers,” reprinted in The Circus Scrap Book, 1 (04, 1929), 33–34Google Scholar; The Art of Money-Getting; or, Hints and Helps How to Make a Fortune (New York, 1882), p. 48.Google Scholar
33. News of his exhibits frequently appeared simultaneously in both spheres. For example, the New York Daily Tribune of 03 31, 1860Google Scholar, carried the usual Barnum advertisement in the “Amusements” section on page 2, noting the reopening of the Museum, and the same story appeared as “news” under “City Items” on page 3 where it received fourteen lines.
34. P. T. Barnum's Centennial Advance Daily (Buffalo, N.Y., 1876), p. 11.Google Scholar
35. Barnum, P. T. to Haskell, , 07 2, 1871Google Scholar, Leonidas Westervelt Circus Collection, New-York Historical Society.
36. This item appeared in all the New York dailies and weeklies throughout 1864 and 1865.
37. New York Herald, 04 18 and 20, 1850.Google Scholar
38. Barnum's autobiographies include bitter observations about Bennett in the 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872 editions but moderate ones in 1873 edition, which appeared shortly after the editor's death. For the Bennett side of the disagreement, see Seitz, Don, The James Gordon Bennetts, Father and Son (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1928), p. 124.Google Scholar
39. John Hay claimed that Barnum's methods had been adopted into politics in 1896 when Marcus Hanna obtained the Republican presidential nomination for William McKinley. See Thayer, William Roscoe, John Hay (New York and Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), pp. 135–41.Google Scholar
40. Spirit of the Times, 03 29, 1843.Google Scholar
41. Magri, , “Some of My Life Experiences.”Google Scholar
42. Brown, Henry Collins, Brownstone Fronts and Saratoga Trunks (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1935)Google Scholar; Benton, Joe, “P. T. Barnum, Showman and Humorist,” The Century Illustrated Magazine, 64 (08 1902), 580–92.Google Scholar
43. New York Daily Tribune, 07 2, 1853Google Scholar; Biography of Madame Fortune Clofulla [sic] (New York, 1854), p. 15.Google Scholar
44. Leland, Charles Godfrey, Memoirs (New York, 1893), pp. 212–13.Google Scholar
45. Harris, , Humbug, pp. 244, 292.Google Scholar
46. Barnum, P. T. to Ward, Henry A., 10 9, 1883Google Scholar, Leonidas Westervelt Circus Collection, New-York Historical Society.
47. The Book of Jumbo: History of the Largest Elephant that Ever Lived (Buffalo, N.Y., 1883)Google Scholar; New York Herald, 1881–1886, passim.Google Scholar
48. Barnum, P. T. to Stanton, Edwin M., 05 13, 1865Google Scholar; Barnum, , Humbugs of the World, p. 23Google Scholar; Croffut, William A., An American Procession: 1855–1914; A Personal Chronicle of Famous Men (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1931).Google Scholar
49. New York Daily Tribune, 03 28, 1860.Google Scholar
50. Robert R. Riegel has argued that Barnum represents that mingling of traditional and popular culture which is the true taste of his day. See Riegel, , “Gilt, Gingerbread, and Realism: The Public and Its Taste,” in The Gilded Age: A Reappraisal, ed., Morgan, H. Wayne (Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1963), pp. 169–95.Google Scholar
51. Orcutt, Samuel, A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (New Haven, Conn., 1886)Google Scholar; Jerome, Chauncey, History of the American Clock Business, for the Past Sixty Years, and the Life of Chauncey Jerome, Written by Himself; Barnum's Connection with the Yankee Clock Business (New Haven, Conn., 1860), pp. 107–11, 113–15.Google Scholar
52. New York Daily Tribune, 03 9, 1856Google Scholar; New York Daily Times, 04 15, 1856.Google Scholar
53. New York Daily Times, April 24 and 06 4, 1856.Google Scholar
54. New York Daily Tribune, 03 24, 1860.Google Scholar
55. Barnum, P. T., “Art of Money-Getting,” in Dollars and Sense, or How to Get On: The Whole Secret in a Nutshell (New York, 1890).Google Scholar
56. Quoted in Smith, Albert, Wild Oats and Dead Leaves (London, 1860), pp. 88–89.Google Scholar
57. Barnum speech at Metropolitan Hall, 1854, reported in the New York Illustrated News, quoted in Werner, M. R., Barnum (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1923), p. 110.Google Scholar
58. Barnum, P. T. to Pierce, Franklin, 03 23, 1853Google Scholar, Leonidas Westervelt Circus Collection, New-York Historical Society.
59. Proceedings of the Connecticut State Legislature for 1865, 1866, 1878, and 1879.
60. Bridgeport, Republican Standard, 02 22, 1867Google Scholar; Jersey City Times, 02 15, 1867Google Scholar; Osborn, Maitland Leroy, “Recollections of P. T. Barnum,” The National Magazine, 11 (03 1900), 645.Google Scholar
61. New York Herald, 02 23 and 28, 1867Google Scholar; Bridgeport, Republican Standard, 03 14, 1867.Google Scholar
62. Godkin, E. L., “‘The Two Hundred Thousand and First Curiosity’ in Congress,” The Nation, 4 (03 7, 1867), 190–92.Google Scholar
63. Reprinted in the Bridgeport, Republican Standard, 03 29, 1867.Google Scholar
64. New York Herald, February 25, 03 8, 10, 14, 26, and 27, 1867.Google Scholar
65. Bridgeport, Republican Standard, April 1875 to 03 1876Google Scholar; Bridgeport, Farmer, February and 03 1876Google Scholar; New York Daily Graphic, 03 30, 1876.Google Scholar
66. Quoted in Coup, William Cameron, Sawdust and Spangles: Stories and Secrets of the Circus (Chicago, 1901), p. 229.Google Scholar
67. Quoted in Smith, , “A Go-ahead Day with Barnum” (1851 interview), in Wild Cats and Dead Leaves, p. 89.Google Scholar