Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891)

Source

Circus promoter

Early Successes. The circus promoter Phineas T. Barnum considered himself the great American showman” and had an uncanny knack for knowing what the public wanted and how to promote it. He was born in a modest Bethel, Connecticut, home where he supported his family after his father’s death. As a newspaper editor he was arrested for libel so he moved to New York City in 1834. He began his career as a showman by exhibiting a black woman, Joice Heth, claiming that she was the 161-year-old nurse of George Washington. In 1842 he opened the American Museum in New York, where for two decades visitors viewed “curiosities,” including the diminutive “General Tom Thumb,” whom Barnum took to meet Queen Victoria. In 1850 Barnum brought Jenny Lind, the famous Swedish singer, to America for a successful tour; five years later he published the first edition of his autobiography, The Life of P. T. Barnum, which he continued to revise and to republish.

Jumbo. Barnum, supposedly the originator of the phrase “There’s a sucker born every minute,” certainly lived by this rule when he began his three-ring circus that he transported by rail. Combining his resources with his keenest rival, James Anthony Bailey in 1881 (now the Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus), Barnum’s circus featured exotic animals, including “the only mastodon on earth,” Jumbo the elephant, the pride of the Royal Zoological Society in London. The British press who protested this “American vandalism.” Barnum encouraged the protest for purposes of publicity and avoided custom duties on Jumbo by importing him “for breeding purposes.” The animal earned its keep within its first few weeks and could feed from third-story windows as it walked the circus parade. Unfortunately Jumbo was killed by a locomotive on 15 September 1885.

Legacy. Barnum served in the Connecticut legislature (1865-1869); was elected mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1875-1876); and was a benefactor of Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. However, his lasting memory will be as a circus promoter who knew the value of advertising and the effect it had on American marketing. He brazenly declared that the American public was “humbugged,” or easily fooled (he called himself the “Prince of Humbugs”), and his hoaxes and other pranks were unlimited. For fifty years he gave the American public innocent diversion. Since his death in 1891, he has been the subject of children’s books, sound recordings, and a Broadway musical, Barnum.

Source

Alice M. Fleming, P. T Barnum: The World’s Greatest Showman (New York: Walker, 1993).