BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM
I
When, in his thirty-second year, Barnum was “at the foot of fortune’s
ladder,”--his own description of his position as a writer of
advertisements and newspaper articles--he learned that Scudder’s
American Museum was for sale. Scudder’s American Museum had been
founded in 1810, and it had gradually risen in the estimation of the
population, so that in 1840 it was New York’s greatest storehouse
of curiosities, natural, theatrical, and unnatural. Scudder, its
founder, had spent more than $50,000 on the collection, and for many
years the profits had kept him comfortable. When he died he left a
considerable fortune and the Museum to his daughters; but ladies in
1840 were neither permitted by custom nor fitted by education to manage
a museum, and the Scudder establishment had been losing money since
the death of its founder, because of lack of proper administration.
Barnum had visited the American Museum many times, and he coveted the
opportunity to exercise his energy in such a fertile field, so suited
to his talents and previous experience. The price asked for the Museum,
however, was $15,000, and Barnum was forced to admit to himself that
his dreams were presumptuous. But he never admitted that to himself for
long; he preferred to act on the assumption that anything was within
his grasp, materially and intellectually, and to consider difficulties
later. When he discussed his intentions with a friend who knew his
circumstances, the friend said, “You _buy_ the American Museum? What
do you intend to buy it with?” “_Brass_,” said Barnum, “for silver and
gold I have none.”
The building of the American Museum at the corner of Broadway and Ann
Street was owned by Francis W. Olmsted, a retired merchant, and the
Museum collection was owned by the estate of Scudder, administered for
Scudder’s daughters by John Heath. Barnum’s first step was to approach
Mr. Olmsted, but he did not know that gentleman, and he knew no one
who did. He dared not visit this important person, who had a suite of
rooms in Park Place. In a letter he told Mr. Olmsted that he wished to
buy the Museum collection, and though he had no money, he knew that by
devotion to business, and because of his past experience as a showman,
he would be able to make it successful, if it could be purchased on
reasonable credit. In his letter Barnum asked Mr. Olmsted to purchase
the Museum collection in his own name from the Scudder estate, and
to give him twelve dollars and a half per week out of the profits to
support his family. All the rest of the profits were to be Olmsted’s
until the cost of the collection and the rent of the Museum building
were paid. Barnum only asked in addition for an agreement in writing
that the Museum would be his property as soon as he had made all the
payments to Mr. Olmsted. If Barnum failed to meet any instalments,
the property reverted to Mr. Olmsted, Barnum would forfeit all his
payments to date, and withdraw from the management. His letter ended
with this earnest appeal: “In fact, Mr. Olmsted, you may bind me in any
way, and as tightly as you please--only give me a chance to dig out,
or scratch out, and I will either do so or forfeit all the labor and
trouble which I may have incurred.” Barnum added that by means of his
plan Mr. Olmsted would have a permanent tenant for his Museum building,
while the present indications were that the Museum would fail and the
building would become vacant.
Barnum did not trust the mail. He took his letter personally to Mr.
Olmsted’s door and left it with the servant. Soon he received an
appointment for an interview, in the course of which he persuasively
explained to Mr. Olmsted his past experience with Vauxhall Garden, the
traveling circus, and Joice Heth, and gave as references William Niblo,
Aaron Turner, Moses Y. Beach, of _The Sun_, and many other showmen
and newspaper men. He made arrangements for some of these men to call
on Mr. Olmsted the next day, and when Barnum saw his prospective
landlord again, Mr. Olmsted said, “I don’t like your references, Mr.
Barnum. They all speak too well of you. In fact, they all talk as
if they were partners of yours and intended to share the profits.”
Barnum was delighted. Mr. Olmsted then said that he was thinking of
carrying out Barnum’s scheme, and insisted that he must have the right
to appoint, at Barnum’s expense, a ticket-seller and accountant. It
was also agreed that Barnum should take an apartment for his wife and
children in the building adjoining the Museum for an additional rent
of $500 a year, making his total rent $3,000 each year, on a lease
of ten years. Mr. Olmsted was about ready to conclude the agreement.
There was only one small matter to settle; did Mr. Barnum own any small
piece of unencumbered real estate which he could offer as security?
Barnum thought of all his small holdings in Connecticut, but every
one that was worth anything was mortgaged to the extent of its value.
He saw his dream slipping away; and then he thought of Ivy Island. He
hesitated; Ivy Island was surrounded and largely covered with water,
and its main product was stunted ivies. The temptation was great. Mr.
Olmsted was already amply secured, in Barnum’s opinion, for Barnum
was confident of his ability to make the Museum a great success; why
shouldn’t he offer Ivy Island as security? He told Mr. Olmsted that he
had five acres of land in Connecticut free from all mortgages, but he
omitted to mention that no one would have given a mortgage on them. Mr.
Olmsted asked how much Barnum had paid for his land. It was a present
from his grandfather, Phineas Taylor, for taking his name. Mr. Olmsted
supposed that Barnum would be reluctant to part with such a piece of
property, because of its fond associations, and Barnum replied that he
did not expect to part with it, for he intended to make his payments
punctually. The security was accepted.
Barnum’s next step was to interview John Heath, the administrator of
the Scudder estate, and make him an offer for the Museum collection in
the name of Mr. Olmsted. Twelve thousand dollars was agreed upon as
the price, and Barnum was to take possession of the American Museum on
November 15, 1841. A day was appointed to draw up the agreements with
Mr. Olmsted, and on that day Heath appeared and informed Barnum that
he must decline his offer, since he had meanwhile sold the collection
to the New York Museum Company for $15,000 and had accepted an advance
payment of $1,000. Barnum appealed to Heath’s honor, but Heath replied
that he had not put it in writing, and that he was obliged to do the
best he could for Scudder’s orphan daughters. Mr. Olmsted was perfectly
satisfied with the new arrangements, for he would now have a permanent
tenant for his Museum building, and Barnum was disregarded and
forgotten.
But he was not inactive. He gathered information about the company
known as the New York Museum Company. The chairman of the board of
directors, he learned, was the ex-president of an unsuccessful bank,
and the other directors were stock speculators. Barnum discovered that
their scheme was to purchase the American Museum, join it to Peale’s
Museum, which the chairman of the board of directors of the New York
Museum Company already owned, and to issue stock to the public to
the amount of $50,000. Then the directors planned to appropriate
$30,000 and allow the stockholders to take care of themselves on the
principle of _caveat emptor_. Barnum visited his newspaper friends,
Moses Y. Beach, Major M. M. Noah, and several other newspaper owners.
He told them his troubles and explained the plans of the New York
Museum Company. He asked for the use of their columns “to blow that
speculation sky-high,” and they agreed with him that it was a public
duty as well as a personal favor. Barnum wrote daily editorial notes
for almost every newspaper in New York warning the public not to buy
stock in the New York Museum Company. He described the board of
directors as broken-down bank directors engaged in the exhibition
of stuffed monkey and gander skins, and he cited the instance of
the Zoölogical Institute, which had failed because of just such a
financial plan as that proposed by the New York Museum Company. He
branded the Peale speculation as more fantastic than Dickens’s “Grand
United Metropolitan Hot Muffin and Crumpet-Baking and Punctual Delivery
Company.”
After planning his press campaign against the New York Museum Company,
Barnum called upon Heath and asked when the company of speculators was
to pay the additional $14,000 and take over the Museum. He was told
that December 26 was the day agreed upon, and he assured Heath that
the stock speculators would never pay the $14,000 on that day. With a
disinterested air, he announced his intention of traveling in the South
with his circus, and said that unless he could purchase the Museum on
December 27, if the New York Museum Company should forfeit its option,
he would never buy the Museum at any price, because of his other
interests. He agreed to postpone his trip to the South until December
27, but not a day later, and this time the agreement of sale was put
in writing. This agreement, Barnum insisted, must be kept strictly
confidential, and he told all his friends who inquired that he had lost
the chance to buy the Museum.
Meanwhile Barnum kept up his stream of publicity against the bogus
stock company. On December 1 he was asked to call upon the board of
directors of the New York Museum Company, in order to learn something
to his advantage. The directors offered Barnum the position as manager
of the new combined museums at his own price of $3,000 a year. He
stipulated that his duties and salary were not to commence until
January 1, 1842. As he was leaving the directors’ room, the chairman
remarked with a smile that, of course, the newspaper paragraphs would
now cease. Barnum replied that he always tried to serve the interests
of his employers; Barnum loved ambiguity and a pun. In order that the
public might forget Barnum’s paragraphs, the directors determined to
withdraw their stock-selling advertisements until after January 1.
They forgot completely about December 26 and their promised payment in
full, knowing that no one but Barnum wanted to purchase the Museum; and
did they not have him in their employ? On the morning of December 27
Barnum and his lawyer met Heath and Mr. Olmsted at Mr. Olmsted’s suite
in Park Place. At two o’clock in the afternoon he was in possession of
the American Museum, and his first official act was the dispatch of the
following letter:
“AMERICAN MUSEUM, New York, Dec. 27, 1841.
“_To the President and Directors of the New York Museum_:
“Gentlemen:--It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you
are placed upon the Free List of this establishment until further
notice.
P. T. BARNUM, Proprietor.”
II
The amusements of New York were somewhat limited in their number and
rather crude in their character when Barnum bought the American Museum.
New York had its native favorites and its imported celebrities in the
persons of Edmund Kean, Junius Booth, Edwin Forrest, Tyrone Power,
William Macready, and Charlotte Cushman, but the opportunities offered
to see these and their less talented contemporaries were not many,
for the God-fearing section of the population were certain that the
theater was under the management of the devil, and there was an even
larger number who did not care whether it was or not, so that between
indifference and straight-laced morality theatrical property suffered
from a general depression.
There were only three theaters in New York that were recognized by
those who guarded their human contacts carefully, so that they might
always be fit to associate with each other. These theaters were the
Park, the Bowery, and Mitchell’s Olympic. The Park Theater was the
theater of fashion, and the Bowery was just a grade lower, although
the circumspectly critical Mrs. Trollope called it “as pretty a
theater as I ever entered.” At the Park during the season of 1841
Fanny Elssler began an engagement in “The petite comedy of ‘The Dumb
Belle.’” Edwin Forrest was playing at the Bowery Theater one night in
“Metamora! The Last of the Wampanaogs,” an Indian play, and the next
night, October 13, in “Damon and Pythias.” The Chatham Theater, which
was out of bounds for fashionable society, offered “The Six Degrees of
Crime, or Wine, Women, Gaming, Theft, Murder, the Scaffold.” It was
in this theater, where she went in spite of the warnings and pleas of
her New York society friends, that Mrs. Trollope saw a woman in one
of the boxes “performing the most maternal office possible” during
the intermission. Mitchell’s Olympic presented on Friday evening,
December 17, 1841, “Why Did You Die, after which Tableaux Vivans.” (The
spelling of _vivants_ is Mitchell’s.) “Jonah, or a Trip to Whales,”
ran for several nights at the Bowery Theater, and Niblo’s Garden,
adhering to its policy as a summer garden, offered during the summer
of 1841 “Godenski, or The Skaters of Wilna, a pantomimic ballet.” The
attraction in the hall of the American Museum just before Barnum took
charge was “Love and Physic.” Dickens described the Bowery and Park
theaters as “large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I grieve
to write it, generally deserted.”
While the theater generally suffered from a bad reputation among
classes of the community that adhered sternly to conventions and
propriety, many of the establishments catered to those classes which
did not. The gallery of each theater was reserved almost exclusively
for prostitutes and negroes, and was known familiarly as “the third
tier.” No woman without an escort was allowed in either the orchestra
or the balcony seats, and the gallery readily became a place of
assignation for the young bloods and their accompanists. Those who
frequented the theaters were not usually scrupulous in their efforts
to impress their neighbors by their manners, and in her _Domestic
Manners of the Americans_ Mrs. Trollope referred to the practice of the
men in the balcony, who were in the habit of placing their feet on the
brass rail in front of the first row, slouching into their seats, and
exposing their hind quarters to the patrons of the orchestra. For some
years after the publication of Mrs. Trollope’s book, this practice was
greeted with shouts from orchestra audiences of “Trollope! Trollope!”
Barnum’s American Museum, on Broadway at Ann Street, was in the heart
of the New York of its day. Opposite was the hotel of best repute,
the Astor House; four blocks north was the city’s best restaurant,
Delmonico’s; between the two was The Park, that is, City Hall Park.
St. Paul’s Church was across the street, and Trinity Church was five
minutes’ walk from the Museum. The _Tribune_ and _Herald_ offices were
near by, and the other newspapers were published in the same district.
No Metropolitan Museum of Art offered free exhibitions of pictures,
and no American Museum of Natural History educated the public in real
natural life; Barnum’s Museum was therefore patronized by those who
to-day would patronize the Zoölogical Gardens and the American Museum
of Natural History for satisfaction of their generic curiosity, as
well as by those who enjoyed freaks. The curiosities in the Museum
when Barnum purchased the collection included relics sent in from all
over this country by those who found them, and curiosities brought in
by sea captains who had made voyages to China, Siam, and other distant
places. Among its main attractions under Scudder’s management were the
stuffed animals, a live anaconda, a tame alligator, and the gallery of
paintings, supposed to be national portraits.
III
One of Barnum’s first acquisitions was a model of that object of
national pride, Niagara Falls. The falls were eighteen inches high,
and everything else in the model was in proportion. Into this model
Barnum arranged to have water pumped, and he advertised widely “The
Great Model of Niagara Falls, With Real Water,” and many couples who
could not afford a honeymoon visited the Museum instead, attracted by
Barnum’s promise of real water. Soon after his advertisements appeared
in the newspapers Barnum was ordered to come before the Croton Board
of Water Commissioners. In that year, 1842, water first flowed through
the Croton Reservoir, for after the great fire of 1835 the citizens
were aroused to the necessity for a sufficient supply of water, and the
Croton Reservoir was the result. It was opened on the Fourth of July,
1842, and a seven-mile parade, with red-shirt firemen, torch lights
and the other paraphernalia of a monster procession commemorated the
occasion. The president of the Board of Water Commissioners informed
Barnum that the city could not furnish him with water for a Niagara
Falls at twenty-five dollars a year. Barnum asked the president not to
believe all he read in the newspapers and showbills and offered to pay
one dollar a drop for all the water he used more than one barrelful
for his Niagara Falls; he explained the operation of the pump behind
the scenes, and the water commissioners enjoyed the deception. In
his autobiography Barnum thought it necessary to excuse himself by
means of the argument that if visitors found his Niagara Falls “small
potatoes” they had the rest of the magnificent Museum for twenty-five
cents admission. It was always his opinion that any misrepresentation
was justified if he gave patrons what they had not come for after they
entered his Museum. Another of Barnum’s early improvements of such a
nature was what he advertised as an “aerial garden,” which consisted of
two cedar plants, ten pots of wilted flowers, and several small tables,
located on the roof of the Museum building, where ice cream was served.
But Barnum’s activities were not confined to such minor improvements.
He opened the Museum on January 1, 1842, under his own management, and
on July 4, 1842, Bennett’s _Herald_ referred to him as “the Napoleon
of public caterers.” Besides the experiments in animal magnetism,
which were popular before Barnum became proprietor, he introduced a
classic scene by Mr. Bennie, entitled “Il Studio or Living Statues.”
A splendid attraction for one week only was the family of Industrious
Fleas. “These insects,” Barnum advertised, “have been taught by a
gentleman from Germany, and rendered so docile as to be harnessed
to carriages and other vehicles of several thousand times their own
weight, which they will draw with as much precision as a cart horse.”
Jugglers, albinos, educated dogs, automatons, rope-dancers, dioramas
of The Creation, The Deluge, and A Storm at Sea, fat boys, giants,
gipsies, ventriloquists, knitting machines, models of Dublin, Paris,
and Jerusalem, and examples of fancy glass-blowing were a few of the
attractions at the Museum for twenty-five cents admission, children
half-price. The first Punch and Judy Show ever exhibited in this
country was one of Barnum’s early attractions.
Barnum’s aim was to make the Museum the talk of New York, and he used
for this purpose every available means of advertising, creating means
when they were not available. A man came to the box-office of the
Museum one morning and asked for money. Barnum inquired why he did not
work, and, after buying him a breakfast, employed him at $1.50 for the
day. The man’s job was to place a brick at the corner of Broadway and
Ann Street, another brick at the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street,
another in front of the Astor House, and another in front of St. Paul’s
Church. This brick-layer was to hold a fifth brick in his hand, and he
was to continue from brick to brick, exchanging the brick in his hand
for the brick on the walk, without talking to any one en route. At
the end of every hour of this work, he was to present a ticket at the
Museum, walk through the building and pass out to continue solemnly
his brick work. Half an hour after the man began his rounds five
hundred men and women were watching him, and trying by conjecture and
questions to solve the mystery of his purpose. Solemn and taciturn, he
went from brick to brick, ignoring the comments and questions of the
crowd, and at the end of the first hour the streets surrounding the
Museum were filled with people. Whenever he entered the Museum, people
bought tickets and followed him, hoping that inside was the solution to
the riddle of his strange actions. After several days of this walking
advertisement, the police interfered and insisted that Barnum must
withdraw his man because of the congestion of traffic he caused, for
the crowds practically closed all streets near the Museum. But Barnum’s
bricks were discussed for several weeks and received due newspaper
notice.
The ordinary devices of showmen were used by Barnum on his own
exaggerated scale. Huge posters outside announced the contents of
the Museum, and long descriptive advertisements in the newspapers
heralded new attractions. On a balcony which circled the outside of
the Museum building, a band of music played all day long, and a huge
poster announced, “Free Music for the Million!” Barnum took care,
he confessed, to choose the worst band he could find, on the chance
that the discordant notes would drive the crowd into the Museum. This
appears a far-fetched method of advertising, but he assured the readers
of his autobiography that it was profitable. Powerful Drummond lights,
the first New York saw, shone from the top of the Museum and lighted
Broadway from the Battery to Niblo’s Garden. Barnum planned in advance
to dispose of the entire profit of the first year in advertising, and
the profits came in so fast that he had difficulty devising enough
media. Paintings of strange animals were made for Barnum in panels
and attached to the entire outside surface of the Museum. The work of
putting up the paintings was performed in one night without advance
notice, and the next morning when New York saw its popular landmark, it
looked as if it had broken out into a huge rash. The changed appearance
caused people to hurry inside to see if corresponding changes had been
made there. Barnum estimated that these gaudy pictures increased his
profits by one hundred dollars a day, and they never fell back after
the novelty had become a tradition; it may be that it was impossible
to grow accustomed to Barnum’s animals, and undoubtedly they always
attracted the streams of immigrants and Western visitors ever flowing
into New York City.
It was the world’s way, Barnum wrote, “to promise everything for
next to nothing,” and he confessed that he fell rapidly into that
way and excelled in it. This, he insisted, was not because he was
less scrupulous, but because he was more ingenious and energetic than
his competitors. However, there were instances of deception in which
Barnum allowed the association of ideas to work to his advantage. He
promised nothing, but allowed an innocent observer to jump to his own
conclusions, contributing by his advertisements a slight shove in the
wrong direction. The best of these was Barnum’s exploitation of a negro
violinist. He engaged this negro artist, who had a foreign musical
education and a reputation in musical circles, to play at the Museum,
and he advertised the negro widely, but the public did not appear
to be interested. The receipts did not increase, and Barnum issued
instructions for the large colored posters, showing the negro violinist
in action, to be posted on the boards upside down. This was no sooner
carried out than the Museum was crowded, on the assumption that the
negro violinist played the violin while standing on his head. It was a
source of great disappointment to many when they only heard him play
the violin right side up, but, said Barnum, never mind, they had the
Industrious Fleas and the Albinos for their money.
Barnum’s first object was publicity for the Museum and for the name of
P. T. Barnum, and he went to any lengths to carry out those purposes.
He soon succeeded in making his Museum and his personality the talk
of New York, and it was then his ambition to make them national
institutions. In his use of the newspapers, which seemed in those days
to be naïve in the extreme, he was indefatigable. Many years later
Barnum told a reporter for the _Indianapolis Journal_: “In the old
Museum days ... night after night at the midnight hour, and later, I
crawled up these several newspaper staircases to put in these journals
some fresh and startling announcement about my business. I even did
this after the editor had gone home, but the foreman in the composing
room had some authority then and would often put the matter I offered
in type or make an announcement for me.” Barnum added, “If I am ever
profoundly thankful for any instrumentalities, it is for the editor
and his paper. They furnish the wind for my sails.” Barnum owed this
debt of gratitude, but he must be given credit as the inventor of
steam navigation in the seas of publicity.[4] The editors of the day
were not philanthropists, and Barnum worked in devious ways for his
notoriety. It was his genius that he realized the value in dollars and
cents of his name and his activities and at the same time attached
no estimable value to the character he might establish in the world.
Charlatan, humbug, mountebank, and impostor were names he delighted in
and conjured with, and it was possible for him to do so because his
character was a composite of Baron Munchausen and Pecksniff, with an
intensely practical turn of mind. He was the father of publicity in
a country where it may be said to have grown to be a monster akin to
Frankenstein’s, and his child supported him in luxury for many years.
He combined with a genial temperament that would not allow him to worry
about details a rhinoceros hide that refused to allow the slings and
arrows of outraged editors and citizens to penetrate to his heart; his
disposition was such that it was inevitable that he should succeed as
an exploiter of monstrous hoaxes or legitimate extravaganzas.
IV
The greatest of Barnum’s early curiosities, if we are to judge from
the controversy caused by its exhibition, was The Fejee Mermaid. In
the summer of 1842 the proprietor of the Boston Museum, Moses Kimball,
brought to Barnum a figure supposed to be a preserved mermaid. Kimball
had purchased it from a sailor, whose father, the captain of an
American ship, bought it in Calcutta and honestly believed it to be a
preserved mermaid found by Japanese sailors off the coast of Japan. The
captain thought so highly of this mermaid that he appropriated $6,000
of the ship’s funds in order to purchase it. His employers did not
think so highly of his purchase, and the captain was forced to serve on
his ship without pay until he had made up the misappropriation. He died
in that service, leaving to his son nothing but the mermaid.
Barnum wrote that he was much impressed with the genuineness of this
article of his commerce, but he did not trust his own judgment alone.
He consulted his favorite naturalist, who had advised him on other
phenomena. The naturalist, after a careful examination, admitted
that he could find no sign of joining or other traces of artificial
manufacture, but he shook his head dubiously and said that he had never
seen a monkey with such strange arms and teeth, nor a fish with such
queer fins. Barnum asked why he should assume that it was manufactured.
“Because,” answered the naturalist, “I don’t believe in mermaids.”
Barnum thought that was bad logic; he preferred for the purposes of the
occasion to believe in mermaids, and he hired this one. But to believe
in mermaids yourself, and to make the public believe in mermaids, are
not synonymous. However, Barnum’s confidence in the general credulity
of his patrons was not unfounded upon both precedent and his own
experience. He had learned much from Joice Heth, and this same mermaid
had been exhibited in London twenty years before by the sea captain who
owned it, and according to the London _Times_ of the period every day
three hundred persons paid a shilling each to see it.
Soon after the mermaid came into Barnum’s possession, a news letter
appeared in the _New York Herald_ from Montgomery, Alabama. It told
of the state of trade, the condition of the crops, the political
situation, and mentioned near the end that a Dr. Griffin, of the
Lyceum of Natural History, London, who had but recently returned from
Pernambuco, had in his trunk a most remarkable curiosity, a real
mermaid, found by Chinese in the Fiji Islands, preserved by them, and
purchased by Dr. Griffin for the London Lyceum of Natural History.
One week later another news letter, this time from Charleston, South
Carolina, telling the same story, was published in another New York
newspaper. A third letter, mailed from Washington to another New
York newspaper one week after the second news letter, announced the
mermaid and mentioned that Dr. Griffin was soon to visit New York en
route to London, and expressed the hope that New Yorkers would have
the opportunity to see this extraordinary curiosity. Several days
after the Washington letter, Levi Lyman, Barnum’s assistant in the
business of Joice Heth, registered at a Philadelphia hotel as Dr.
Griffin, of Pernambuco and London. He remained there several days,
and, just after paying his bill, he thanked the landlord for his
constant courtesy and attention, and offered to show him, in gratitude
for the excellent treatment he had received at the hostelry, a unique
curiosity. The landlord gazed in wonderment at a real mermaid, and
asked for permission to invite a few friends to see it. The doctor said
that he did not suppose that it would do the Lyceum of Natural History
of London much harm if a few of the landlord’s best friends saw the
mermaid; the Philadelphia newspapers for the next day and several days
later commented at length on the great natural phenomenon.
[Illustration: THE MERMAID IN HER NATURAL ELEMENT
From _The Sunday Mercury_]
Finally Dr. Griffin arrived in New York and registered at the Pacific
Hotel. Reporters soon learned that the mermaid was in town, and the
polite and genial agent of the Lyceum of Natural History allowed them
to look at his curiosity. Barnum had meanwhile prepared illustrations
of the mermaid and printed 10,000 copies of a pamphlet describing
it. These were stored in the Museum until the time came to use them
publicly. Barnum, of course, had written the three news letters and
sent them to friends in Montgomery, Charleston, and Washington, who
could be trusted to mail them from those cities; the newspapers of
the day were not particular about the source of their news, if it was
news. Barnum called upon the editors of the _Herald_, the _Mercury_,
and the _Atlas_, with his engravings of the mermaid. He told them that
he had hoped to use these engravings when he exhibited the mermaid at
the Museum, but that Dr. Griffin had decided that as agent for the
Lyceum of Natural History it would be quite impossible for him to
exhibit his curiosity in public anywhere except in London. Therefore,
Barnum magnanimously offered his engravings, now worthless to him, for
the editors to print. They thanked him, and the following Sunday each
newspaper printed a different picture of the mermaid, and each editor
realized Barnum’s deception only when he saw the rival newspapers.
[Illustration: CAPTURE OF THE FEJEE MERMAID
Inserted by Barnum in _The Sunday Atlas_]
The public was now interested in the mermaid. Most newspaper readers
had seen at least one illustration or one of Barnum’s out-of-town
letters. The 10,000 pamphlets were turned over to newsboys to sell at
a penny each in all the hotels, stores, and public places. Then Barnum
hired, through an agent, Concert Hall on Broadway, and the newspapers
printed advertisements which announced that Dr. Griffin, because of the
solicitations of gentlemen of science, had consented to exhibit his
mermaid for one week only at Concert Hall. Dr. Griffin would also show,
for one week only, the other scientific specimens he had collected for
the London Lyceum of Natural History, including the Ornithorhinchus,
or the connecting link between the seal and the duck; two distinct
species of flying fish, one from the Gulf Stream and one from the West
Indies, which undoubtedly connected the bird and the fish; the Paddle
Tail Snake of South America; the Siren, or Mud Iguana, a connecting
link between reptiles and fish; the Proteus Sanguihus, a subterraneous
animal from Australia; “with other animals forming connecting links
in the great chain of Animated Nature.” Darwin did not publish _The
Origin of Species_ until seventeen years after Barnum’s unique natural
specimens were exhibited in New York.
[Illustration: THE CORRECT LIKENESS OF THE FEJEE MERMAID
From _The Sunday Herald_]
There was no indication in the Fejee Mermaid of a junction between the
fish body and the monkey head. The spine extended unbroken to the base
of the skull. The shoulders were covered with animal hair, and under
a microscope fish scales were visible beneath the hair. The face was
of a monstrous ugliness, and the whole specimen, which was three feet
long, was dried up and black. The misshapen arms, with their hideous
long fingers on the ends of distorted hands, were turned up, and the
right hand covered the right side of the face. The mouth was wide
open, revealing bestial teeth, and the whole expression of the face
gave the vivid impression that the animal had died in an extreme agony,
which had been carefully preserved by its embalmers. It was Barnum’s
private opinion, which he did not express until many years later, that
The Fejee Mermaid, as he spelled it, was made in Japan, China, or
India, and that it was probably an object of worship in one of those
countries. Profoundly religious himself, in a Christian way, Barnum
always enjoyed attributing hideousness to so-called pagan faiths. He
found in Dr. Ph. Fr. von Siebold’s _Manners and Customs of the Japanese
in the Nineteenth Century_ an account of a Japanese fisherman who
joined the upper half of a monkey to the lower half of a fish so deftly
that the joint could not be detected. The Japanese then announced to
his fellow-countrymen that he had caught the object in his net, and
that it had died soon after its capture. The mermaid was exhibited in
Japan, and its Japanese owner maintained that it had spoken a few words
before it died, in which it had predicted some years of fertility,
to be followed by years of a fatal epidemic, the only remedy against
which would be the possession of the prophet’s likeness. The sale
in Japan of crude pictures of the animal was great, and the figure
itself was finally sold to Dutch traders, who carried it to Batavia,
“where,” according to Dr. von Siebold, “it fell into the hands of a
shrewd American, who brought it to Europe, and there, in the years
1822–23, exhibited his purchase as a real mermaid, at every capital,
to the admiration of the ignorant, the perplexity of the learned, and
the filling of his own purse.” Barnum was convinced that this was his
mermaid, and this its origin, and he hailed the Japanese fisherman
as one of his brothers under the skin, who by his scheme for selling
pictures and attracting crowds to the mermaid was entitled to occupy a
throne along with Barnum as a Prince of Humbugs.
Concert Hall was crowded as soon as The Fejee Mermaid moved in. Levi
Lyman, as Dr. Griffin, told the audiences of his travels and adventures
in far-off places in search of unnatural curiosities. Barnum was
afraid that some of those who visited Concert Hall might recognize Dr.
Griffin as the Levi Lyman who had accompanied Joice Heth, but Joice
Heth had been dead six years, and no one doubted Dr. Griffin; he looked
scientific. He was dignified and polite, and he explained with great
pains and patience the science and natural history of the connecting
links by which he was surrounded. After one week at Concert Hall,
Barnum announced that at last, after much trouble and expense, he had
induced Dr. Griffin to exhibit The Fejee Mermaid at Barnum’s American
Museum, where it could be seen daily, along with the other curiosities,
without extra charge. Barnum designed an enormous flag, representing a
mermaid eighteen feet long, which, when it was unfurled, covered the
front of the Museum. This was too much, even for Lyman, who protested
against such a colossal deception: The Fejee Mermaid was only three
feet long. Lyman indignantly told Barnum that the public would not
swallow such a difference between its expectations and the reality, and
he insisted that the flag be taken down. Barnum answered that he had
paid seventy dollars for that flag, and it must remain in front of the
Museum. “Well, Mr. Barnum,” Lyman answered, “if you like to fight under
that flag, you can do so, but _I_ won’t.” Barnum could not dispense
with Professor Griffin, and the flag was hauled in. It is strange that
Lyman should choose this flag as an issue, and Barnum does not explain
it, but it was likely that Lyman was having considerable difficulty
satisfying many disappointed visitors with his wizened mermaid, and
could endure no further difficulties. Lyman later went to Nauvoo,
Illinois, where he became an influential Mormon.
In later years, and in the last editions of his autobiography, Barnum
did not give the details of The Fejee Mermaid with so much pride in
his own ingenuity. He wrote in the 1888 edition of his autobiography,
published three years before his death: “I used it mainly to advertise
the regular business of the Museum, and this effective indirect
advertising is the only feature I can commend, in a special show of
which, I confess, I am not proud. Newspapers throughout the country
copied the mermaid notices, for they were novel and caught the
attention of readers. Thus was the fame of the Museum, as well as the
mermaid, wafted from one end of the land to the other. I was careful
to keep up the excitement, for I knew that every dollar sown in
advertising would return in tens, and perhaps hundreds, in a future
harvest, and after obtaining all the notoriety possible by advertising
and by exhibiting the mermaid at the Museum, I sent the curiosity
throughout the country, directing my agent to everywhere advertise it
as ‘From Barnum’s Great American Museum, New York.’ The effect was
immediately felt; money flowed in rapidly, and was readily expended in
more advertising.”
While The Fejee Mermaid was on exhibition at the Museum, one of the
visitors said to Barnum, “I lived two years on the Fiji Islands, and
I never heard of any such thing as a mermaid.” “There’s no accounting
for some men’s ignorance,” was Barnum’s answer. But most of the public
seemed satisfied, and apparently sent their friends, for during the
first four weeks of the mermaid’s exhibition at the Museum the receipts
were $3,341.93. During the four weeks preceding its arrival the
receipts had been only $1,272.
The Museum was now well on its way to financial success. Barnum and
his family had lived on the $600 a year allowed him out of the profits
until the Museum was paid for. Six months after he had purchased the
Museum, Mr. Olmsted found him in the ticket office one day eating his
dinner of corned beef and bread. “Is that the way you eat your dinner?”
he asked. “I have not eaten a warm dinner since I bought the Museum,
except on the Sabbath,” Barnum answered, “and I intend never to eat
another on a week day until I am out of debt.” Mr. Olmsted was much
pleased, clapped Barnum on the shoulder, and assured him that he was
a safe investment. The assertion that he ate only one hot dinner a
week is possibly a Barnumization of the truth, for it is this type of
statement Barnum was most likely to exaggerate in his autobiography,
and which in some instances can be proved untrue. But in less than one
year after he arranged for its purchase, Barnum owned the American
Museum in his own name and had paid his rent out of the profits. The
profits for the year 1842, according to Barnum’s account books, were
$27,912.62. For the year before he became its proprietor, the profits
had been $10,862.
The bogus New York Museum Company sold Peale’s Museum to Henry Bennett,
who created publicity by parodying Barnum’s attractions. When Barnum
exhibited The Fejee Mermaid, Bennett advertised a “Fudg-ee Mermaid,”
and when Barnum advertised a family of singers as the “Orphean Family,”
Bennett presented the “Orphan Family.” The novelty of this opposition,
however, did not pay expenses, and Barnum soon bought out Bennett,
but he hired Bennett as manager of his own museum and instructed him
to continue the opposition and the parodies, which created publicity
for the American Museum. At the end of six months the collections were
combined.
Within a year, by means of ingenious, and sometimes unscrupulous,
advertising, Barnum’s American Museum became New York’s most popular
place of amusement. For New Yorkers it was a place of regular resort,
and families brought their lunches and ate them in the Museum rooms so
that they might spend the whole day among the curiosities. The Museum
was known throughout the country, and visitors to New York, who arrived
early in the morning, often visited Barnum’s before they went to their
hotels or to their breakfast, for the Museum was opened every morning
at sunrise. Barnum once compared the number of visitors to his Museum
with those of the British Museum, which, of course, was free of charge,
and found that his patrons were more numerous.
V
Besides his notorious curiosities, Barnum enlarged the Lecture Room of
the Museum, and presented regular dramatic performances there. He felt
that what he called the “Moral Drama” would pay better than anything
that was attractively immoral; and the “Moral Drama” was more palatable
to his own conscience, for from childhood until his last year he had
a sincere religious fear of impropriety in public presentation. The
greatest manifestation of Barnum’s genius for theatrical management in
this country was his instinctive realization that the largest part of
the community is eminently respectable in public, and it was what, more
than anything else, contributed to his financial success, that Barnum
catered to the reputable who still retained vestiges of curiosity. Many
persons who would not be seen in a theater visited regularly the Museum
Lecture Room--Barnum would never consent to calling it a theater--where
the moral dramas of “Joseph and His Brethren,” “Moses,” and “The
Drunkard” were performed. One afternoon a New England lady walked into
Barnum’s office and sat down on the sofa. She examined Barnum curiously
for a minute, and then remarked that he looked “much like other common
folks, after all.” “Mr. Barnum,” she said “I never went to any Museum
before, nor to any place of amusement or public entertainment, except
our school exhibitions; and I have sometimes felt that they even may
be wicked, because some parts of the dialogue seemed frivolous; but I
have heard so much of your ‘moral dramas,’ and the great good you are
doing for the rising generation, that I thought I must come here and
see for myself.” At that moment the gong announcing the beginning of
the show in the Lecture Room rang. The lady jumped from the sofa. “Are
the services about to commence?” she asked anxiously. There was the
noise of shuffling feet as the crowd hurried to the seats. “Yes,” said
Barnum, “the congregation is now going up.” Barnum wrote concerning his
moral performances: “I resolved, as far as possible, to elevate and
refine such amusements as I dispensed. Even Shakespeare’s dramas were
shorn of their objectionable features when placed upon my stage.”
E. A. Sothern, Tony Pastor, and Barney Williams received their first
stage training on the stage of Barnum’s Lecture Room. On holidays
performances were given every hour throughout the afternoon and
evening, and Barnum is given credit in histories of the theater for
originating the continuous performance, which has since proved so
popular in vaudeville.
These continuous programs on holidays were very popular, and on the
first Fourth of July of Barnum’s management of the Museum so many
people visited the building that the sale of tickets was stopped. This
Barnum described as “exceedingly harrowing to my feelings.” He noted
sadly that thousands were waiting outside to purchase tickets, and
that those inside did not seem in a hurry to leave. Barnum ordered
his carpenter to build a temporary flight of stairs at the rear of
the building, which opened out into Ann Street. At three o’clock that
afternoon this exit was opened, but much money had been lost. When, on
the next St. Patrick’s Day, Barnum was informed in advance that the
Irish population intended to visit the Museum in large numbers, he
opened the rear exit again. Before noon the Museum was crowded, and the
sale of tickets had to be stopped. Barnum rushed to the rear exit and
asked how many hundreds had passed out that way. He was told that three
persons had used it during the whole morning, for the visitors had
brought their dinners and intended to remain in the Museum all day and
night. Barnum hurriedly called his sign painter and ordered a sign in
large letters
☞ TO THE EGRESS.
This was nailed over the rear door. Some of the Irish visitors spelled
out the sign, “To the Aigress,” and many remarked, “Sure, that’s an
animal we haven’t seen,” and found themselves on Ann Street, with no
chance of re-entering the Museum.
It was on his first Fourth of July in the Museum that Barnum exhibited
another instance of his ingenuity in the face of a difficulty. In
order to make the most of the holiday by utilizing the publicity value
of the American flag, Barnum fastened a string of large flags across
Broadway, tying one end to the Museum and the other to a tree in St.
Paul’s Churchyard. Several days before Independence Day Barnum had
visited the vestrymen of St. Paul’s and requested permission to use
the tree in the churchyard, but they called his request insulting and
talked of sacrilege. On the Fourth of July he gave orders for the flags
to be attached, as he had originally planned. The flags attracted huge
crowds, and at half-past nine in the morning two indignant vestrymen
entered Barnum’s office and demanded that they be detached from their
church immediately. Barnum answered pleasantly that he would go into
the street with them and see what could be done. He looked at the flags
and remarked solemnly that they were a beautiful sight. He argued with
the vestrymen that he always had stopped his Free Music for the Million
when they held their services, and he merely requested this favor in
return. One of the vestrymen lost patience and shouted that unless
Barnum took down the flags within ten minutes he would _cut_ them down.
The crowd was attracted by the angry gestures. Barnum suddenly took
off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and shouted in his sonorous
voice, tinged with anger, loudly enough for all in the crowd to
overhear, “I should like to see you dare to cut down the American flag
on the Fourth of July; you must be a Britisher to make such a threat,
but I’ll show you a thousand pairs of Yankee hands in two minutes, if
you dare to take down the stars and stripes on this great birthday
of American freedom.” In a moment the vestrymen were surrounded by
several heavy, angry men, who threatened varied punishment. The poor
bewildered vestrymen disappeared quietly from the crowd, and Barnum
with obsequious smiles enjoyed his triumph.
Barnum was apparently indefatigable in his personal interest in the
Museum and in his personal efforts to make it ever more popular. He
often appeared before his audiences with stunts or speeches, because
he knew he could entertain them, and because he liked to think that
they were interested in him. When Peale, of Peale’s Museum, presented
an actor who pretended to conduct experiments in Mesmerism, Barnum
personally conducted his own experiments in Animal Magnetism from the
stage of the Moral Lecture Room. A young girl, carefully trained in
advance, sat on the stage. Barnum made a few passes with his hand in
front of her, and she was then under his control; she raised her hands
when he requested her to do so, grimaced when he put tobacco in his
mouth, and smiled when he ate candy. Then it was his practice to turn
to the audience and offer to forfeit fifty dollars if he could not
put any member of the audience in the same state within five minutes.
At the end of three minutes the volunteer was, of course, wide awake.
Barnum would look at his watch, remark that he had two minutes, which
was plenty of time, and offer to demonstrate to the audience that a
person mesmerized was a person insensible to pain, by cutting off
one of the fingers of the small girl, who was still asleep. He would
take out his knife, feel the sharp edge, and turn towards the girl,
who had meanwhile fled behind the scenes in a fright that delighted
the audience. Barnum would say in an astonished tone of voice, “Then
she was wide awake, was she?” His volunteer from the audience usually
answered, “Of course she was, she was wide awake all the time.” “I
suppose so,” was Barnum’s answer, “and, my dear sir, I promised that
you should be ‘in the same state’ at the end of five minutes, and as I
believe you are so, I do not forfeit fifty dollars.” This type of trick
never seemed to anger, rather than to amuse, the audiences.
No such trickery was too much for Barnum, and he carried out a similar
deception on a public scale with no harm to his reputation and no
qualms of conscience. In June of 1843 he attended the Bunker Hill
celebration, where Daniel Webster delivered a stirring oration, but
Barnum was just as interested in an old canvas tent near the Bunker
Hill Monument as he was in the ceremonies of the day. He found in
that tent a herd of fifteen one-year-old calf buffaloes, which he
immediately purchased for $700; a scheme by which he could utilize
these buffaloes had hatched in his mind almost as soon as he saw them.
The animals were docile and tired, for they had been driven east from
the western plains. At Barnum’s order they were brought to New York and
then transported to a New Jersey barn near Hoboken. Barnum hired their
former owner, C. D. French, to take care of the animals for thirty
dollars per month, because French understood the lasso. The newspapers
shortly afterwards announced that a herd of wild buffaloes, captured
in the Rocky Mountains, was passing through New York soon on its way
to Europe, in charge of the very men who had captured the animals, and
during the next few days suggestions appeared in the newspapers that
it would be a fine thing for New York if the owners of these buffaloes
could be induced to present a buffalo chase on a race course near New
York, demonstrating to the eastern population the use of the lasso and
the ferocity of the buffalo. One of the correspondents expressed it
as his sincere opinion that it would be worth a dollar to see such a
sight, and that he for one would be willing to pay that amount. Another
estimated that no less than fifty thousand persons would be interested
in a buffalo chase without the danger but with the thrills, and other
obliging correspondents suggested places for the hunt, including the
race course at Hoboken, New Jersey. Before long advertisements appeared
in all the newspapers, and handbills were circulated throughout New
York announcing that there would be a “Grand Buffalo Hunt, Free of
Charge--At Hoboken, on Thursday, August 31, at 3, 4, and 5 o’clock
p. m. Mr. C. D. French, one of the most daring and experienced hunters
of the West, has arrived thus far on his way to Europe with a Herd
of Buffaloes, captured by himself, near Santa Fé. He will exhibit a
method of hunting the Wild Buffaloes, and throwing the lasso, by which
the animals were captured in their most wild and untamed state. This
is perhaps one of the most exciting and difficult feats that can be
performed, requiring at the same time the most expert horsemanship and
the greatest skill and dexterity. Every man, woman, and child can here
witness _the wild sports of the Western Prairies_, as the exhibition
is to be free to all, and will take place on the extensive grounds
and Race Course of Messrs. Stevens, within a few rods of the Hoboken
Ferry.” The public was further assured that, “No possible danger need
be apprehended, as a double railing has been put around the whole
course, to prevent the possibility of the Buffaloes approaching the
multitude.”
These announcements mystified and delighted New York. Who was the
city’s anonymous benefactor? Who supplied such entertainment free
of charge and kept modestly in the background? Barnum meanwhile had
purchased the rights to the receipts of all the ferry boats which
crossed between New York and Hoboken on August 31, 1843, and extra
ferry boats were provided for the day. The weather was clear, and the
boats, under the administration of Captain Barnum, were crowded to
the railings with adventurers. Twenty-four thousand people went to
Hoboken that day. They stood on the railings and clutched the awnings
to support themselves, and each paid six and a quarter cents going and
the same to return.
When the crowds arrived in Hoboken, they waited in the arena for the
wild buffaloes, who finally appeared in reluctant and tame parade of
their alleged ferocity. The animals were thin and pale from lack of
nourishment during their first master’s patronage, and although they
had been crammed with extra rations of oats for several days they
refused at the outset to be wild. C. D. French, “one of the most daring
and experienced hunters of the West,” dressed and painted as an Indian,
poked his wild buffaloes with a goad, but the most they would do for
the twenty-four thousand interested spectators was to trot. There
was much laughter and shouting at their recalcitrance, and the noise
made by the crowd frightened the nervous buffaloes so much that they
galloped from the enclosure in terror and threw the spectators, who
believed that they had actually grown wild, into a panic. The buffaloes
took refuge from their oppressors in a near-by swamp, and all that
C. D. French could do would not persuade them to return to the Race
Course. He finally lassoed one of them, and entertained the crowd with
this beast, and with exhibitions of lassoing on horses and horsemen. No
one suspected the ferry boat arrangement, and no one suspected Barnum.
It was after midnight when the last of the crowds succeeded in getting
home from Hoboken, but, apparently, a good time was had by all, for
there were no riots, and the receipts of the ferry boats turned over
to Barnum amounted to $3,500. After the exhibition Barnum sent his
buffaloes to Camden, New Jersey, where they attracted Philadelphia
crowds in the same manner. Some of the herd then went to England and
were sold, while the others were fattened on a farm and sold for
buffalo steak in Fulton Market at fifty cents per pound. In order that
the Museum might profit by the advertisement, Barnum made public his
responsibility for the Great Buffalo Hunt.
Some time after his success with the buffaloes, Barnum presented the
first Wild West Show New York had seen. He engaged a band of Indians
from Iowa, among whom were impressive men, beautiful squaws, and two
or three papooses. The Indians appeared on the stage of the Moral
Lecture Room in real war dances, which they performed with all the
vigor and realistic interpretation of their savage origin. In fact, it
was necessary to rope them in, for fear that in their frenzy towards
the end of a dance they might forget that they were merely players, and
make for members of the audience; for Barnum’s Indians had never before
seen a railroad or a steamboat, and scalps were not yet obsolete in
their minds. They seemed thoroughly under the impression that they were
not acting but living, which in one particular caused the proprietor of
the American Museum some expense. After a week of war dances, Barnum
suggested a change of program, including an Indian wedding dance. The
interpreter explained, and the chief agreed. On Monday afternoon when
the first change to the wedding dance was to take place, Barnum was
informed by the chief that he must supply a red woolen blanket as a
wedding present for the bridegroom to give to the father of the bride,
an inviolable Indian custom. After each performance the chief insisted
that he must have another new blanket for the next performance, and
when Barnum attempted to explain that the wedding was only “make
believe,” the chief gave forth an ugly “Ugh!” terrifying Barnum into
spending $120 for twelve red woolen blankets for the rest of the week.
These special exhibitions were supplemented by flower shows, dog shows,
and poultry shows at the Museum, and Barnum, soon after he became
manager, decided that he must have a baby show. He organized such an
exhibition with graduated scales of prizes for triplets, the fattest
baby, the most beautiful baby, and the handsomest twins. The main
prize of $100 for the most perfect baby was a source of considerable
difficulty. Barnum thought that it would be a fine thing for him to
award this prize himself, a fine thing in publicity for himself, and
also for the baby, who could say in later years that he had been
personally selected as unique by P. T. Barnum. In later years he did
meet many men and women who claimed that honor, but at the time of the
awards the defeated mothers stormed about Barnum, and their indignation
could not be appeased until he announced that he would award a second
prize of $100 to the baby selected by a committee of mothers. Whereupon
each mother became the enemy of every other, and Barnum’s $100 was
safe. In deciding future baby contests, however, he sent in written
reports and was not to be disturbed for the rest of the day.
VI
In November, 1842, Barnum stopped one night at the Franklin Hotel
in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which was kept by his brother, Philo F.
Barnum. His brother mentioned that there was a dwarf in Bridgeport,
who played daily in the streets, and was accepted by the rest of the
population as a natural curiosity. Barnum asked his brother to bring
the child to the Franklin Hotel, and as soon as he saw this dwarf he
realized that here was a natural curiosity who could be transformed
by instruction and publicity into a unique and profitable one. The
child was the smallest Barnum had ever seen, and was in excellent
health, without any deformities. He was two feet, one inch in height
and weighed fifteen pounds. His hair was flaxen, and his eyes dark;
his cheeks were pink and his whole appearance gave the impression of
health, symmetry, and whimsical charm on a lovely, diminutive scale.
He was very bashful, and Barnum only learned after difficulty that his
name was Charles S. Stratton, and that he was five years old. Barnum
visited Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood E. Stratton, the child’s parents, and
after some persuasion they consented to exhibit their son at Barnum’s
Museum for three dollars per week and board for himself and his mother.
Barnum hired him for four weeks only, because at the time he was
doubtful whether a five-year-old child who was only two feet in height
might not grow before long to a normality that would make him mediocre.
The dwarf and his mother arrived in New York on Thanksgiving Day, 1842,
and Barnum had something to be thankful for that day. Mrs. Stratton
was astonished and somewhat annoyed when she noticed that her son was
announced in large handbills as “General Tom Thumb, a dwarf eleven
years of age, just arrived from England.” The “just arrived from
England” was the first instance of a method Barnum often repeated.
He realized early in his career the love of the American mind for an
importation, and he never advertised anything as domestic if he could
possibly deceive his patrons into believing that he had incurred much
trouble and expense by importing it from abroad, where its popularity
was always stupendous. He hoped, patriotically, in his autobiography
that such deception might check “our disgraceful preference for
foreigners.”
Barnum made his dwarf eleven years old for fear that the public might
not believe that a child five years old would not grow beyond his
present height. In the various pamphlets concerning the life of General
Tom Thumb, which were sold at his exhibitions, it is recorded that when
he was born he weighed nine pounds, two ounces, more than the average
weight of a new-born baby, and that at five months he had ceased to
grow and weighed only fifteen pounds. His weight of fifteen pounds and
his height of two feet, one inch, were said to have remained unchanged
from the age of five months until the age of five years and for many
years thereafter.
The change of name from Charles S. Stratton to General Tom Thumb was
a stroke of Barnum’s inspiration, and it contributed largely to the
General’s subsequent success. Tom Thumb is the most appropriate name
a dwarf ever had, and besides it possessed the advantage of some
familiarity from the story of the legendary Tom Thumb, of whom it will
be remembered:
“In Arthur’s court Tom Thumbe did live,
A man of mickle might,
The best of all the table round,
And eke a doughty knight;
His stature but an inch in height,
Or quarter of a span;
Then think you not this little knight
Was prov’d a valiant man?”
According to nursery lore, the legendary Tom Thumbe was swallowed by a
cow when he crossed the cow’s blade of grass but was soon delivered up
again from the cow’s stomach, only to meet his death by a bumble bee
after a series of valiant adventures. Barnum’s addition of “General” to
Tom Thumb enriched the name by a pompous mockery that was more valuable
because of its incongruity.
General Tom Thumb was soon domesticated to the ways of public
exhibition. Barnum taught his pupil day and night new jokes and old
rôles, which he learned quickly, for the child, according to Barnum,
had a love of the ludicrous and a humorous charm. When he was ready to
make his début, Barnum took General Tom Thumb first on a tour of the
newspaper offices, and even invaded the home of one newspaper editor,
who happened to be eating dinner. Tom Thumb danced between the tumblers
and hopped over the roast. James Gordon Bennett wrote in the _Herald_
on December 15, 1842: “We were visited yesterday by the comical little
gentleman who is at present holding nightly levees at the American
Museum. He is certainly the smallest specimen of a man we have ever
seen.”
The General’s popularity was immediate, and after the first four-weeks’
engagement was finished, Barnum reëngaged him for one year at seven
dollars a week, with a bonus of fifty dollars at the end of the
engagement. It is clear that neither General Tom Thumb nor his father
had any idea of the value of a dwarf, and Barnum took advantage of the
age of the boy and the ignorance of his father. Barnum also retained
the privilege of sending the General on a tour of the country. Before
the end of the year Barnum increased Tom Thumb’s salary to twenty-five
dollars per week, and he assures us that the General deserved the
raise. Besides exhibiting frequently at the Museum, where he sang
songs, danced, and told stories in the pert and saucy manner of people
who are too small to be slapped, General Tom Thumb was sent to other
cities, where he made money for Barnum and advertised the American
Museum.
At the same time as the exhibition of General Tom Thumb in New
York, Barnum presented at the Museum two famous giants, M. Bihin,
the tall, thin French giant, and Colonel Goshen, a portly Arab. The
giants were amiable enough, but jealous of each other’s success,
and quarreled furiously one day when the Arab called M. Bihin “a
Shanghai” and M. Bihin called the Arab “a nigger.” They seized clubs
and medieval swords on exhibition in cases, and made for each other,
until Barnum interfered. He informed them that he had no objection
to their fighting, maiming or killing each other, but they were both
under engagement to him, and if there was to be a duel, it must be
duly advertised and take place on the stage of the Lecture Room. “No
performance of yours would be a greater attraction, and if you kill
each other, our engagement can end with your duel,” Barnum assured
them. The giants enjoyed the humor of the situation, and lived in peace
until the end of their engagement.
After the contract with General Tom Thumb expired, Barnum engaged him
for another year at fifty dollars per week and all his expenses, with
the right to exhibit him in Europe. The Museum was so successful and
operating with so little friction after less than three years that
Barnum was looking for new worlds to conquer, and he took his General
under his arm and went to Europe. Passage was booked on the packet
ship _Yorkshire_ for Liverpool, and General Tom Thumb, his father and
mother, the General’s tutor, Professor Guillaudeu, and Barnum made
ready to sail on January 18, 1844. Barnum made use of the General
at the Museum until the last moment before sailing. Advertisements
appeared in the newspapers of the day announcing that the opportunity
to see General Tom Thumb was rapidly slipping away. When the boat was
delayed by adverse winds and tides, the General remained another day
at the Museum, and thousands of people visited him in a desperate
attempt to get a last look. _The Evening Post_ announced as an item
of news on January 16, 1844: “A few hours more remain for General Tom
Thumb to be seen at the American Museum, as the packet in which he has
engaged passage to England does not sail to-day, in consequence of the
easterly winds now prevailing. He may be seen throughout the entire day
and evening; and at three and seven o’clock p. m. there will be grand
performances; at each of which the General appears on the stage in the
same characters which have excited so much admiration and applause
of late.” The next day the weather was still bad, and people stormed
the Museum. On the day of sailing, January 19, General Tom Thumb was
on exhibition until eleven o’clock in the morning; the boat sailed at
noon. He was escorted to the dock by the municipal brass band, and more
than 10,000 persons saw him off. It was estimated that more than 80,000
persons had visited General Tom Thumb at the Museum.