Phineas Taylor Barnum American advertising. The Real Actors of "The Greatest Showman" Taylor Barnum
◊ The rating is calculated based on points awarded over the last week
◊ Points are awarded for:
⇒ visiting pages dedicated to the star
⇒voting for a star
⇒ commenting on a star
Biography, life story of Phineas Taylor Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum
Date of Birth: 07/05/1810 [Bethel, Connecticut]
Date of death: 04/07/1891
USA
Known for his hoaxes, he is an American showman, entrepreneur, and founder of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Phineas was born in Bethel, Connecticut, USA, where his father ran a hotel and store. Barnum's first business was running a small store, then he was involved in the lottery, which was widespread at that time in the United States. After failure in this endeavor, he organized in 1829 a weekly newspaper, The Herald of Freedom, in the city of Danbury (Connecticut). After several libel suits against the newspaper and a trial that resulted in Barnum's imprisonment, he moved to New York City (1834).
Washington's Nanny
In 1835, he began his career as a showman by purchasing and exhibiting a blind and almost completely paralyzed black slave, Joice Heth, for whom he paid $1,000, a hefty price even for a healthy slave. During the screenings, Barnum claimed that the woman was over 160 years old and was George Washington's own nanny. With this woman and a small company, he made well-publicized, successful tours of America until 1839, despite the fact that Joyce Heth died in 1836.
Barnum skillfully manipulated the public's attention. After people began to doubt the veracity of Barnum's statements, rumors arose that this was not a living woman, but a skillfully crafted robot doll. The public again bought up tickets to Barnum's performances. When the woman died, Barnum made the autopsy a spectacle, inviting professors and medical students to prove to everyone that Joyce was not a robot. During the autopsy, it turned out that she was no more than 80 years old, but then rumors spread that Barnum had cleverly replaced the robot doll with a human body, so as not to reveal the inventor of the doll, who wished to remain anonymous.
CONTINUED BELOW
American Museum
After a period of failure, in 1841 he acquired the Scudder American Museum, located in New York at the intersection of Broadway and Ann Street. After a significant expansion of exhibitions, renamed Barnum's American Museum, this place becomes one of the most popular exhibition complexes in the United States. Barnum achieved particular success in 1842 with the show of the famous Lilliputian Charles Stratton, who performed under the stage name General Tom Thumb, as well as the “Fiji Mermaid”, which he showed in collaboration with his Boston colleague Moses Kimball (Moses Kimball). The collection also included the unique Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker. In 1843, Barnum hired dancer Do-Hum-Me, a Native American girl who was the daughter of a Sac chief.
Throughout 1844-1845, Barnum toured Stratton's performances throughout Europe. While visiting England, he received an invitation to Queen Victoria.
An outstanding example of his entrepreneurial spirit was the invitation of the Swedish singer Jenny Lind to America for 150 concerts at $1,000 each, with all expenses paid by the entrepreneur. The tour began in 1850 and was a great success for both Lind and Barnum.
Barnum and Bailey Circus
Barnum retired from the variety business in 1855, but, forced to pay off his creditors in 1857, returned to his former occupation. In 1862 he began showing the giantess Anna Swan. On July 13, 1865, a fire occurred that burned Barnum's American Museum to the ground. Barnum quickly rebuilt the museum elsewhere in New York, but that too burned down in March 1868. Finally, in 1871 in Brooklyn (a modern borough in New York), together with W. C. Cope (William Cameron Coup), he founded P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome - a combination of circus, menagerie and freak show, proclaimed itself "The Greatest Show on Earth" in 1872. The show had several variations of the title: "P. T. Barnum's Traveling World's Fair, the Great Roman Hippodrome, and the Greatest Show on Earth," and after being merged in 1881 with James Anthony Bailey and James L. Hutchinson ) - “P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United", soon shortened to "Barnum & London Circus".
Among the oddities that performed in the circus was Russian Fyodor Evtishchev, originally from Kostroma, a dog-faced boy hired by Barnum in 1884 at the age of 16. Barnum made up a story for him, according to which the boy did not speak, but only barked and growled on stage.
In 1885, Barnum and Bailey separated again, but in 1888 they reunited under the name "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth", later - "Barnum & Bailey Circus". The highlight of the program was Jumbo, a six-ton African elephant purchased from the London Zoo in 1882.
After Barnum's death, the circus was eventually sold to Ringling Bros. on July 8, 1907, for $400,000.
Barnum wrote several books, including The Humbugs of the World (1865), Struggles and Triumphs (1869), and The Art of Money-Getting (1880).
Barnum published many editions of his autobiography (the first in 1854, the last in 1869). Besides trying to sell them for profit, he simply gave some away to friends and officials along with his autographs. Such specimens are now of some value to collectors. Other publications sold in wide circulation and played an advertising role for potential visitors to circus performances. In each subsequent edition, Barnum added new chapters covering the time since the previous edition. Sometimes he could edit existing chapters. His autobiography was extremely frank for the time and was considered by some to be scandalous. Historiographers have found very few factual errors in Barnum's autobiographies, although they criticize Barnum's intentional omission of some events, insufficient coverage of some details, and biased presentation and interpretation in his favor.
Widely distributing his autobiography was one of Barnum's most successful methods of self-promotion. The autobiography was so popular that some people considered it necessary to purchase and read each new edition. Some collectors have been known to boast that they have copies of each edition in their library. Barnum eventually waived his copyright claims, allowing other publishers to print and sell inexpensive editions. At the end of the 19th century, the number of copies of his autobiography printed in North America was second only to the New Testament.
Often called the "Prince of Humbugs", Barnum saw nothing wrong with entertainers or salesmen using gimmicks (humbugs, as he called them) in their work. However, he was disdainful of raising money through common fraud, especially spiritualism and mediums, which were widespread in those days. A model for magicians Harry Houdini and James Randi, Barnum openly demonstrated the "dealer's tricks" used by mediums to deceive and swindle the relatives of the deceased. In his book The Humbugs of the World, he offered a $500 reward to any medium who could prove the ability to communicate with the dead without any deception.
Politician and reformer
Barnum was actively involved in the political strife that preceded the American Civil War. As mentioned earlier, Barnum's first experience as an impresario was with his slave, Joyce Heth, and in 1850 he participated in a hoax to market a potion that (in his words) would turn blacks into whites.
Barnum's organization of minstrel shows dates back to this period - performances by white actors disguised as blacks. He not only organized such performances, but also sponsored a dramatization of writer Harriet Beecher Stowe's political novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853). Unlike the novel, the play (staged in the American Museum building) ended with a happy ending in the form of the liberation of Tom and his comrades from slavery. Inspired by the success of this show, Barnum staged another play in Beecher Stowe.
By 1860, Barnum had joined the Republican Party. Despite earlier claims that “politicians have always been a distaste for me,” Barnum was elected to the Connecticut State Legislature as a Republican representative from Fairfield and served two terms. While debating the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution to end slavery and enfranchise blacks, Barnum gave an eloquent speech to the legislature in which he argued that “the human soul is not to be taken lightly, whether in the body of a Chinese, a Turk, an Arab, or a Hottentot.” “It’s still the same immortal soul!”
In 1867, Barnum ran for the US Congress, but was unsuccessful. In 1875 he was elected mayor of Bridgeport for a year. His decisive actions in this post were aimed at improving water supply and street gas lighting, as well as tightening legislative regulation of prostitution and the sale of alcoholic beverages. Barnum contributed to the creation of Bridgeport City Hospital (1878) and became its first director.
King of Swindle
“Every minute another simpleton is born” was the man’s motto.
In his activities, Barnum successfully used methods actively used in modern advertising and marketing. Skillfully manipulating rumors, he played on human curiosity, earning huge profits from this. As soon as interest in Barnum's next trick began to subside, a new trick was immediately born, often building on the previous one: when the highlight of the European tour program, the dwarf Charles Stratton, suddenly began to grow, Barnum invented and organized a grandiose spectacle - a wedding of dwarfs, in which Stratton married a midget Lavinia Warren. Ticket prices for this show were available only to very wealthy people.
The media of the time, newspapers, were often used by Barnum in very clever ways. Traveling across America with the mummy of a supposedly real mermaid, he, on behalf of a certain person, sent a letter to a newspaper in which he described several events in the life of the town where the traveling circus stopped, necessarily including in these events a mention of the grandiose furor caused among the residents by the display of this very mermaid .
A psychological phenomenon was named after Barnum (the Barnum effect).
Family
Barnum was married twice and had four children.
During his life, Barnum built 4 palaces in Bridgeport (Connecticut), giving them the names: Iranistan, Lindencroft, Waldemere and Marina. Iranistan was the most outstanding: fanciful luxury, domes, turrets and openwork stucco, reminiscent of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton (England). The mansion was built in 1848, but burned down in 1857.
Barnum died on April 7, 1891 and was buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport. A statue in his honor was erected near the water in Seaside Park in 1893; Barnum donated this land to the park in 1865.
In contact with
Classmates
EPIGRAPH
“Of course,” added Maude, “if I ask, my good father will buy me a real duke with eight hundred years of ancestors as a husband, but I am most proud of the fact that my charming, magical father once polished boots on the streets of New York.”
A.I. Kuprin, “The Daughter of the Great Barnum”
Phineas had no luck with his dad. Philo's dad owned a mosquito store and a hotel with several rooms in the tiny American town of Bethel, Connecticut - this, as we will see later, was far from the ultimate dream of his son. But everything was fine with my maternal grandfather, also Phineas. Grandfather was powerful - a local legislator, landowner, justice of the peace and at the same time an organizer of lotteries. However, he adored drawings not only in lotteries. “In order to make fun of someone, my grandfather went further, waited longer, worked harder and planned deeper than for anything else in the whole wide world,” his grandson would later write in his autobiography.
One day Grandfather Phineas was sailing on a ship for some trading business. To be honest, there was little entertainment on ships at the beginning of the 19th century. By some miracle, grandfather persuaded all the sailors to shave exactly half before the next port. I was the last to shave myself (completely) and “accidentally” dropped the only razor on the ship overboard. It is clear that upon arrival he was the only normal one.
During his lifetime, the grandfather transferred the entire island of Ivy Island to his beloved grandson. The grandson was terribly proud of his huge inheritance. Until, at the age of twelve, he saw his “wealth” - a piece of land, most of which was occupied by a swamp... “I was literally crushed,” Barnum recalled. “It turned out that all my relatives and neighbors had been fooling me for several years.” But Phineas Jr. would not have become the Great Barnum if he had not used this too - it was Ivy Island that became the collateral when he bought his first museum - Phineas presented this island to the bankers as an outstanding value.
Trying to fit everything that Phineas Barnum came up with into one article is a thankless task. It’s better to just list, remembering, marveling and admiring. Everything he loved.
Barnum's circus traveled between cities, of course, by train. The circus was “small” - only 65 cars. It was even necessary to specially design special couplings between the cars so that during long journeys (and trains in the 19th century ran much slower than now) the animals could be transferred and the circus performers could move freely. But never, never did Barnum's circus come into town on rails. Shortly before the destination city, the train stopped, the circus unpacked and entered the city under its own power, in full dress.
Well, how did you get in? Is it possible to use this banal word to describe what happened in each, I emphasize, city? Along the main streets walked 20 elephants, 338 horses, two dozen camels carrying the “Temple of Juno”, a herd of zebras carrying carts with gymnasts, lions, leopards, hyenas... And nearby, in full circus attire and makeup, there was a parade alley - only performing artists, not counting the rest of the staff, Barnum's circus had 370 people.
If you think that the advertising campaign was limited to visiting the city, you think poorly of Phineas Barnum. It was all just beginning. In the morning before the performances, Barnum harnessed a herd of elephants to plows and took them out to plow the land. Residents of all surrounding villages came to watch this free show and many, of course, then went to the performance itself. Many were outraged by the “mockery” of noble animals - and to this day, North Carolina state laws prohibit plowing with elephants. Remember this the next time you laugh at America's "stupid" laws - each of them was written about someone specific. This one is about Barnum.
EPIGRAPH
“The Great Barnum,” I say. - Why are you so dressed up? Like a circus magician, even now in the arena.
“Okay,” Andy replies. — Is the cart still at the porch? Wait for me, I'll be back soon.
Two hours later, Andy enters the room and places a wad of dollars on the table.
O. Henry, "Entertainments of a Modern Village"
The popularity of the circus was unimaginable - it was not for nothing that it was officially modestly called "The Greatest Show on Earth" - the Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome of F.T. Barnum. President Garfield called Barnum the All-American Santa Claus, and President Grant complained that no matter what country he visited, people asked him if he was from the same country as Barnum's circus.
“Circus people, 1800's”
His tent occupied an entire field. The performances took place in parallel, first on two, then on three arenas, and when he came up with a system of hanging corridors for moving artists and animals, it came to seven, SEVEN arenas at the same time!
Phineas Barnum was able to create a show out of anything and characters out of anyone. For example, on his posters, along with the names of the artists, the name of Ben Lusby was always printed. It was a circus usher. An ordinary ticket taker. Who once sold 6153 tickets in 1 hour 3 minutes...
At times, in his museum on Broadway, visitors had to be rushed because there was no room for new ones. Then he came up with the idea of writing above the doors: “This Way to the Egress.” Egress, for those who don’t know, is the same as Exit, it’s just customary to write it differently. People thought that some new exhibition with an outlandish name was waiting for them there, they walked and found themselves on the street.
Barnum was not afraid to use a variety of genres. And when he brought an ordinary, non-circus singer Jenny Lind from Sweden, the crowd in the huge hall was such that the pianist for this singer had to be literally passed over the head.
The genres were more than diverse - Barnum was even the mayor of Bridgeport in Connecticut, where a monument was erected to him. Not for circus art, no. For the opening of the city hospital, of which he was also the director.
And it all started very modestly. Phineas was tired of running a store inherited from his father or a newspaper he had already founded on his own - he founded The Herald of Freedom at the age of 19 in the city of Danbury, Connecticut. In the newspaper, he allowed himself the same things as later in show business, but the press demanded him more strictly - he was arrested and after his release he moved to New York.
No one had yet thought about the abolition of slavery, so Phineas bought himself a blind and semi-paralyzed black slave, Joyce Hett. For this thousand dollars he could buy a young and healthy slave, but he did not need the slave for entertainment. Although, more precisely, just for entertainment. Grandma Joyce became Barnum's first attraction - he created a legend that she was 160 years old and was the nanny of George Washington himself!
Barnum and bailey Circus 1909
At first, of course, people poured in, especially since Phineas forced the old woman to learn the legend by heart, but then smart people, as they say, suspected something. When the tours across America began to decline, Barnum spread the legend that “this scoundrel Barnum is, of course, not carrying an old woman, but a special robot doll” - and the people flocked again, this time to understand robotics.
You are wrong to think that this is the end of the matter - the old woman ultimately died. Barnum made a show of this too - he invited professors and medical students to perform an autopsy - supposedly to prove the authenticity of the granny. Tickets for the showdown, naturally, were on sale. After the autopsy, the verdict was that the grandmother was only about eighty, which sharply reduced her chances of being a nanny for Washington, who would have turned 104 that year.
But Barnum did not lose heart - he spread the fourth wave of rumors, according to which he himself replaced the doll with the corpse of a black woman, so as not to reveal the secret of the wonderful robot.
This, I repeat, was just the first experience in show business of an ordinary boy from Connecticut, who later created the greatest circus empire in the world.
The circus of the 19th century was very different from the current one. Although it would be more correct to say that it was Barnum who invented the current circus as it is. In the 19th century, most circuses were freak shows. Naturally, Barnum used this too, gradually developing and improving the performances, turning them into real full-length shows. All the people with disabilities he could reach went through his circus - the superstars in his show were the Siamese twins Chang and Eng, the bearded woman Annie Jones... Why, remember the illustration from the Soviet school biology textbooks for the fifth grade with the caption “peasant” Fedor Evtikhiev? Fyodor Adrianovich, that bearded boy who much later became the prototype for Chewbacca from Star Wars, emigrated from Russia and performed in Barnum's circus from the age of 16 until his death.
Sometimes Barnum did not have enough of a real cabinet of curiosities and he used fake exhibits with great enthusiasm. The famous Fiji mermaid of the 19th century, which Barnum took on tour, is the mummy of a small monkey sewn to the tail of a large fish. The Fijian mermaid played a role in honing advertising methods - on the eve of a tour in a certain city, Barnum sent a “reader’s letter” from the previous town to its main newspaper. In addition to everyday life, which enjoyed constant success in the 19th century, he wove into the text of the letter references to the tremendous furor that greeted the mermaid in the “author’s” hometown.
The scandal with the Cardiff giants was even more multi-layered. Once upon a time, dinosaur remains were found in upstate New York. Farmer William Newell was very upset that the case was not his, so he “found” the skeleton of a three-meter man on his farm. Of course, it was made of plaster, painted and aged, but this did not stop the farmer from charging 25 cents from those who wanted to look at the excavated marvel. Barnum, who, as we remember, was trying to buy up everything he could get his hands on, offered the farmer $50,000—an incredible amount of money in 1869. The farmer, for obvious reasons, refused. Then Barnum hired a man who copied the “bones” and began to exhibit them, declaring that he, after all, bought them from Newell, and he, in turn, was presenting a fake to save face. The case went to court, which quite logically decided that both were fake. Do you think this prevented Barnum from making money by selling completely official copies of the statue?
Yes, of course he was cheating. But, as he himself said, you can never not give a person what he wants - otherwise it will be deception. In all other cases, it’s just a fun scam. That's what they called him - Prince of Humbugs.
He agreed with the humbugs in the professions of entertainers and merchants. But he hated scammers - especially spiritualists and mediums, which were very common at that time. In his book The Humbugs of the World, he even offered a $500 reward to any medium who could prove the ability to communicate with the dead without any deception.
A man named Charles Sherwood Stratton, with his height of 64 centimeters, would probably have had a hard time in life. But Barnum met him and came up with a name for him - General Tom Thumb (the boy from the English fairy tale). As a result, Queen Victoria herself received him, applauding, and the future King Edward VII would become his personal friend and even take him and Barnum on a boat ride. Moreover, Barnum specially sewed a Napoleon uniform for Charles-Tom in honor of his first acquaintance with the queen, so that the English queen would be pleased.
After a few years of touring, General Tom Thumb will suddenly begin to grow, reaching up to 85 centimeters - and Barnum, grateful for his many years of service, will arrange a grand wedding for him with the equally tiny Lavinia Warren. Which, naturally, will also bring no less enormous money to the circus treasury. Tom Thumb will also not remain in debt. Thanks to Barnum's circus career, he would make a considerable fortune for himself. And when Barnum has a period of crisis (the world of show business is uneven), he will help him out and become Phineas’s business partner for a while.
EPIGRAPH
— I will buy Shakespeare's house. I will install it in my museum in New York, cover it with a glass cover and make it a sacred relic; and you will see crowds of Americans rushing to worship him. And not only Americans - pilgrimages will begin from all over the world. I'll make them take off their hats in front of Shakespeare's house. We in America know how to appreciate what the great Shakespeare consecrated with his touch. You'll see.
The second class passenger concluded by saying:
- And that's what happened. Barnum actually bought Shakespeare's house.
Mark Twain, "Along the Equator"
However, many years later, Phineas Barnum would even have to refuse the queen. This will happen already in the eighties. Barnum buys the largest elephant in the world, Jumbo, the favorite of all of Britain, from the Zoological Society of London for ten thousand dollars. At the London Zoo, about a million children alone visited him - including little Winston Churchill, the future US President Theodore Roosevelt, and others. The deal caused a shock. Thousands and thousands of letters to Queen Victoria and Prime Minister Gladstone, attempts to thwart the sale through the court, which - oh, this impartial British court! — recognized it as legal. Queen Victoria and Barnum's friend Prince Edward of Wales write an Open Letter to the Zoological Society expressing "extreme surprise", and the Queen personally promised to pay the penalty if the deal was terminated.
London was gripped by Jumbo mania. The whole capital was talking only about Jumbo the elephant - restaurants served Jumbo dishes, and ivory silk with this name came into fashion. In February 1882, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph sent a telegram to Barnum on behalf of the British nation: “With respect from the editor. All British children are suffering because of the elephant's departure. Hundreds of correspondents are begging us to find out on what terms you will kindly agree to return Jumbo.” The king of the show's polite response read: “My respects to the editor, the Daily Telegraph and the British nation. Fifty million American citizens eagerly await Jumbo's arrival. My consistent forty-year practice of demonstrating the best that money can buy makes Jumbo's presence here absolutely necessary."
Transporting Jumbo to America cost Barnum twice his value - twenty thousand. However, exactly four days of the elephant's show at Madison Square Garden fully repaid the deal, bringing in thirty thousand dollars. In the first year, Jumbo alone earned more than one and a half million dollars. At the beginning of the performance, the voice of the Sprechstallmaster sounded: “The majestic monarch of a mighty race, a colossus among elephants, the largest and most famous animal in the whole world, carrying Queen Victoria, the royal family and more than a million children on its back - straight from the Royal Zoological Gardens of London... JA-AMBO! » - and General Tom Thumb rode onto the stage on an elephant, which further emphasized the size of the giant himself.
One of New York's most colorful traditions is the elephant parade in March, before performances in Manhattan, although they are accompanied by the entire circus. But few people know that the tradition was born, in general, quite spontaneously. The newly built Brooklyn Bridge caused a lot of fear - people thought that it was not strong enough. And then the city authorities turned to Phineas Barnum, who did not refuse help: on May 17, 1884, he led twenty elephants across the bridge, in front of which walked the huge, handsome Jumbo...
You've probably heard the word 'jumbo' - this word in English has long meant "giant" - right down to the size of clothes or, say, hot dogs. Well, how long ago - just since the end of the 19th century, when Phineas Barnum made his elephant iconic. Walt Disney came later, and his cartoon was called “Dumbo” precisely because he could not agree on royalties with the new owners of Barnum’s circus.
And in general, Phineas Barnum’s contribution to culture and art cannot be overestimated.
He's everywhere.
His autobiography, published in several huge editions, was in second place in popularity after the New Testament.
When you hold a pack of Camel cigarettes in your hands, remember that this particular camel, whose name was Old Joe, served in Barnum’s circus - his “portrait” was sketched there.
It was Barnum who in 1874 invented and held the world's first wedding for his employees Charles Colton and Mary Walsh... in a hot air balloon. The priest told the young people that the sun shines brighter for them than for others. Now that balloon weddings are commonplace, who remembers that Phineas Barnum invented them?
Do you know who today's America owes such love for tattoos and Tattoo parlors at every turn? Yep, you guessed right. It’s just that it was Barnum who popularized tattooing throughout America, because in every performance he had performers tattooed from head to toe.
Psychologists call the “Barnum effect” a paradox when people take information personally if it is communicated vaguely, in general strokes. This effect is used to write, for example, newspaper horoscopes. After all, Barnum himself said: “We have something for everyone.”
The Greatest Show in the World, directed by Cecile Blount DeMille, won two Oscars, including best picture in 1952. This is not surprising, since Barnum’s circus itself starred in this feature film. By the way, director Steven Spielberg himself says that he became a director only because of this film.
20th Century Fox's The Greatest Showman will be released in December 2017. Hugh Jackman will play Phineas Barnum.
The musical "Barnum" was staged in 1980 and ran on Broadway for several decades. It begins with the aria There is a Sucker Born Ev’ry Minute - “Every minute a sucker is born.” This phrase, attributed to Phineas Barnum, has long been an American business saying.
The music for one of the performances of Barnum's circus was written by Stravinsky, and this ballet was staged by the founder of American ballet, George Balanchine - this is the famous “Elephant Ballet”. And never again in history have there been more, um, massive, but such graceful ballerinas.
Barnum's close friend Mark Twain once published an advertisement in 1874 for the sale of passenger seats on the tail of Comet Coy Coggy. And he suggested applying for tickets to the Barnum agency,
And on the other side of the world, Alexander Kuprin, in his story “The Daughter of the Great Barnum,” described the “crazy 19th century” as follows: “Three names sounded louder than all the names in the last century: Napoleon, Edison and Barnum.” Agree, this is no small assessment from a classic of completely different, non-English-language literature.
For almost a century, since 1919, the main circus in the world has been called Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In history, there were other surnames in the name - these are commercial nuances, mainly owners and directors, but the main surname in this list was and is the surname of Phineas Barnum. Founder, motor and soul.
Phineas was born in Bethel, Connecticut, USA, where his father ran a hotel and store. Barnum's first business was running a small store, then he was involved in the lottery, which was widespread at that time in the United States. After failure in this endeavor, he organized in 1829 a weekly newspaper, The Herald of Freedom, in the city of Danbury (Connecticut). After several libel suits against the newspaper and a trial that resulted in Barnum's imprisonment, he moved to New York City (1834).
Washington's Nanny
In 1835, he began his career as a showman by purchasing and exhibiting a blind and almost completely paralyzed black slave, Joice Heth, for whom he paid $1,000, a hefty price even for a healthy slave. During the screenings, Barnum claimed that the woman was over 160 years old and was George Washington's own nanny. With this woman and a small company, he made well-publicized, successful tours of America until 1839, despite the fact that Joyce Heth died in 1836.
Barnum skillfully manipulated the public's attention. After people began to doubt the veracity of Barnum's statements, rumors arose that this was not a living woman, but a skillfully crafted robot doll. The public again bought up tickets to Barnum's performances. When the woman died, Barnum made the autopsy a spectacle, inviting professors and medical students to prove to everyone that Joyce was not a robot. During the autopsy, it turned out that she was no more than 80 years old, but then rumors spread that Barnum had cleverly replaced the robot doll with a human body, so as not to reveal the inventor of the doll, who wished to remain anonymous.
American Museum
After a period of failure, in 1841 he acquired the Scudder American Museum, located in New York at the intersection of Broadway and Ann Street. After a significant expansion of exhibitions, renamed Barnum's American Museum, this place becomes one of the most popular exhibition complexes in the United States. Barnum achieved particular success in 1842 with the show of the famous Lilliputian Charles Stratton, who performed under the stage name General Tom Thumb, as well as the “Fiji Mermaid”, which he showed in collaboration with his Boston colleague Moses Kimball (Moses Kimball). The collection also included the unique Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker. In 1843, Barnum hired dancer Do-Hum-Me, a Native American girl who was the daughter of a Sac chief.
Throughout 1844-1845, Barnum toured Stratton's performances throughout Europe. While visiting England, he received an invitation to Queen Victoria.
An outstanding example of his entrepreneurial spirit was the invitation of the Swedish singer Jenny Lind to America for 150 concerts at $1,000 each, with all expenses paid by the entrepreneur. The tour began in 1850 and was a great success for both Lind and Barnum.
Barnum and Bailey Circus
Barnum retired from the variety business in 1855, but, forced to pay off his creditors in 1857, returned to his former occupation. In 1862 he began showing the giantess Anna Swan. On July 13, 1865, a fire occurred that burned Barnum's American Museum to the ground. Barnum quickly rebuilt the museum elsewhere in New York, but that too burned down in March 1868. Finally, in 1871 in Brooklyn (a modern borough in New York), together with W. C. Cope (William Cameron Coup), he founded P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome - a combination of circus, menagerie and freak show, proclaimed itself "The Greatest Show on Earth" in 1872. The show had several variations of the title: "P. T. Barnum's Traveling World's Fair, the Great Roman Hippodrome, and the Greatest Show on Earth," and after being merged in 1881 with James Anthony Bailey and James L. Hutchinson ) - “P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United", soon shortened to "Barnum & London Circus".
Best of the day
Among the oddities that performed in the circus was Russian Fyodor Evtishchev, originally from Kostroma, a dog-faced boy hired by Barnum in 1884 at the age of 16. Barnum made up a story for him, according to which the boy did not speak, but only barked and growled on stage.
In 1885, Barnum and Bailey separated again, but in 1888 they reunited under the name "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth", later - "Barnum & Bailey Circus". The highlight of the program was Jumbo, a six-ton African elephant purchased from the London Zoo in 1882.
After Barnum's death, the circus was eventually sold to Ringling Bros. on July 8, 1907, for $400,000.
Author and whistleblower
Barnum wrote several books, including The Humbugs of the World (1865), Struggles and Triumphs (1869), and The Art of Money-Getting (1880).
Barnum published many editions of his autobiography (the first in 1854, the last in 1869). Besides trying to sell them for profit, he simply gave some away to friends and officials along with his autographs. Such specimens are now of some value to collectors. Other publications sold in wide circulation and played an advertising role for potential visitors to circus performances. In each subsequent edition, Barnum added new chapters covering the time since the previous edition. Sometimes he could edit existing chapters. His autobiography was extremely frank for the time and was considered by some to be scandalous. Historiographers have found very few factual errors in Barnum's autobiographies, although they criticize Barnum's intentional omission of some events, insufficient coverage of some details, and biased presentation and interpretation in his favor.
Widely distributing his autobiography was one of Barnum's most successful methods of self-promotion. The autobiography was so popular that some people considered it necessary to purchase and read each new edition. Some collectors have been known to boast that they have copies of each edition in their library. Barnum eventually waived his copyright claims, allowing other publishers to print and sell inexpensive editions. At the end of the 19th century, the number of copies of his autobiography printed in North America was second only to the New Testament.
Often called the "Prince of Humbugs", Barnum saw nothing wrong with entertainers or salesmen using gimmicks (humbugs, as he called them) in their work. However, he was disdainful of raising money through common fraud, especially spiritualism and mediums, which were widespread in those days. A model for magicians Harry Houdini and James Randi, Barnum openly demonstrated the "dealer's tricks" used by mediums to deceive and swindle the relatives of the deceased. In his book The Humbugs of the World, he offered a $500 reward to any medium who could prove the ability to communicate with the dead without any deception.
Politician and reformer
Barnum was actively involved in the political strife that preceded the American Civil War. As mentioned earlier, Barnum's first experience as an impresario was with his slave, Joyce Heth, and in 1850 he participated in a hoax to market a potion that (in his words) would turn blacks into whites.
Barnum's organization of minstrel shows dates back to this period - performances by white actors disguised as blacks. He not only organized such performances, but also sponsored a dramatization of writer Harriet Beecher Stowe's political novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853). Unlike the novel, the play (staged in the American Museum building) ended with a happy ending in the form of the liberation of Tom and his comrades from slavery. Inspired by the success of this show, Barnum staged another play in Beecher Stowe.
By 1860, Barnum had joined the Republican Party. Despite earlier claims that “politicians have always been a distaste for me,” Barnum was elected to the Connecticut State Legislature as a Republican representative from Fairfield and served two terms. While debating the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution to end slavery and enfranchise blacks, Barnum gave an eloquent speech to the legislature in which he argued that “the human soul is not to be taken lightly, whether in the body of a Chinese, a Turk, an Arab, or a Hottentot.” “It’s still the same immortal soul!”
In 1867, Barnum ran for the US Congress, but was unsuccessful. In 1875 he was elected mayor of Bridgeport for a year. His decisive actions in this post were aimed at improving water supply and street gas lighting, as well as tightening legislative regulation of prostitution and the sale of alcoholic beverages. Barnum contributed to the creation of Bridgeport City Hospital (1878) and became its first director.
King of Swindle
“Every minute another simpleton is born” was the man’s motto.
In his activities, Barnum successfully used methods actively used in modern advertising and marketing. Skillfully manipulating rumors, he played on human curiosity, earning huge profits from this. As soon as interest in Barnum's next trick began to subside, a new trick was immediately born, often building on the previous one: when the highlight of the European tour program, the dwarf Charles Stratton, suddenly began to grow, Barnum invented and organized a grandiose spectacle - a wedding of dwarfs, in which Stratton married a midget Lavinia Warren. Ticket prices for this show were available only to very wealthy people.
The media of the time, newspapers, were often used by Barnum in very clever ways. Traveling across America with the mummy of a supposedly real mermaid, he, on behalf of a certain person, sent a letter to a newspaper in which he described several events in the life of the town where the traveling circus stopped, necessarily including in these events a mention of the grandiose furor caused among the residents by the display of this very mermaid .
A psychological phenomenon was named after Barnum (the Barnum effect).
Family
Barnum was married twice and had four children.
During his life, Barnum built 4 palaces in Bridgeport (Connecticut), giving them the names: Iranistan, Lindencroft, Waldemere and Marina. Iranistan was the most outstanding: fanciful luxury, domes, turrets and openwork stucco, reminiscent of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton (England). The mansion was built in 1848, but burned down in 1857.
Barnum died on April 7, 1891 and was buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport. A statue in his honor was erected near the water in Seaside Park in 1893; Barnum donated this land to the park in 1865.
Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum (Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum) born July 5, 1810. Most people have heard of him because of the circus named after him, but in fact, he was a very important historical figure. Barnum is included in the list of the 100 most influential figures in American history. The list includes George Washington (#2), Benjamin Franklin (#23) and Sam Walton (#72, creator of Wal-Mart). Barnum got #67. Obviously, he had more merit than just creating a traveling circus.
So what did P. T. Barnum do? First, he had incredible insight. He also had a keen sense of what would pique people's interest. But his greatest talent was perhaps his ability to create and promote entertainment.
Barnum's first business opened in May 1828. He opened a small store that initially sold cakes, biscuits, raisins and ale. This was the version of today's store. Later, he added items he acquired in New York: pocket knives, combs, and the like, as well as oyster stews and lottery tickets. Barnum soon met a man named Huck Bailey, who began entering the store. Barnum describes him as “...a showman. He imported the first elephant ever brought to the United States and made a fortune showing it. He subsequently took an active part in mobile menageries, and then very successfully controlled the movement of steamships along the northern rivers.” In other words, at the age of 18, Barnum came across a man who made a lot of money doing what for Barnum, over time, turned into art.
At this point, Barnum had several unsuccessful business ventures. He opened a village store, but the idea failed. He tried to sell books, but most of his stock was stolen. He bought and started publishing a weekly newspaper, but was sued for libel and spent time in prison. He sold lottery tickets on credit and was unable to repay the loan.
In 1835, Barnum moved his family to New York City to start over. He writes in his autobiography "I learned that I could make money quickly and in large amounts, whenever I wanted." But he came to New York essentially penniless. It is from this position that P.T. Barnum started his career as a showman. The morals of the mid-19th century were already very different from the ferocity of the dark Middle Ages, but the insufficiently educated and cultured people of that time still wanted “bread and circuses.”
He started his show business with Joyce Heta, a very old black woman who claimed to be a 161-year-old former slave of George Washington's father. The advertisement read: Everyone who saw this extraordinary woman is satisfied with the veracity of her age calculation. The evidence of the Bowling family, who are quite respectable, is strong, but the original bill of sale of Augustine Washington, with his own handwriting, and other evidence which the owner has in his possession, will satisfy even the most distrustful.
Of course, Joyce Heta wasn't actually 161 years old, but she looked like it. She was almost paralyzed (having only one arm), completely blind and toothless. However, she could talk, sing and have conversations with people, and she knew a lot about Washington and his family. Barnum purchased "Father Washington's Slave" on credit for $1,000. He demonstrated it in New York. From that time on, Barnum's income was about $1,500 a week. He achieved this by creating a huge amount of advertising: brochures, posters, booklets, newspaper advertisements proclaiming that she was “George Washington’s sister.” And when interest in her disappeared in New York, Barnum took her on a trip to cities such as Providence and Boston. After she died in February 1836, Barnum continued to profit from the deception. He charged 50 cents for admission to her autopsy, and doctors told the crowd of 1,500 onlookers that, indeed, Heta was much younger than 161 years old; she most likely died in her seventies.
While showing Joyce Heth in Albany, Barnum met with a juggler named Signor Antonio and offered to pay him $20 a week to produce the show. Barnum changed his name to the more exotic-sounding “Signor Vivalla,” actively promoted him, and was soon earning more than $50 a night from his performances in theaters.
Barnum's next venture was a museum in New York. In 1841, Barnum purchased Scudder's American Museum on Broadway in New York. He exhibited "500,000 natural and man-made curiosities from every corner of the globe," and walked around the museum with a sign that read, "This is the way out." The real exit was in a different location, and visitors to the Barnum Museum had to pay an additional 25 cents to re-enter the museum and see the exhibit to the end!
This museum, renamed Barnum's American Museum, was successful for many years. Barnum added several now-legendary attractions over the next few years, including Boy Thumb (a tiny man whose real name was Charles Stratton) and the Fiji Mermaid (who was actually the mummified upper half of a monkey, with papier-mâché fish tail).
Barnum employed many people who were living attractions at the time:
1. Seven Sutherland Sisters.
The sisters were able to make more money as entrepreneurs than circus attractions, but they gained initial fame on circus tours and then paved their way to wealth. The Barnum and Bailey Circus hosted Fletcher Sutherland's daughters Sarah, Victoria, Isabella, Grace, Naomi, Mary and Dora Sutherland in a musical performance to close out the show. After captivating the audience with their vocal cords, the sisters had to let their hair down at the end of their performance, leaving their curly brunette locks to fall to the floor. In total, the Sutherland sisters had over 12 meters of hair. Their father realized that the sisters wouldn't make much money from singing too much, so he used their long locks to develop and sell a hair tonic. Hair tonics were good business in the 19th century when long hairstyles were in vogue. Sutherland's tonic, for example, contained the following ingredients: borax, salt, quinine, bay rum, glycerin, rose water, alcohol and soap. With free advertising in the form of a circus giveaway, the tonic sold quickly, bringing in $90,000 in its first year on the market. The sale of the tonic allowed the Sutherland sisters to leave the circus along with their legendary manes. They squandered their fortune and lost their tonic empire, eventually collapsing at the turn of the century when short hairstyles became fashionable
Myrtle Corbin was born in Tennessee in 1868 with four legs. Technically, the extra pair of legs belonged to Corbin's twin sister, who was unable to fully develop. Between Corbin's own legs dangled two small ones, attached to her pelvis. The girl's family quickly realized Myrtle's financial potential and threw her into the sideshow circuit at the age of 13. Corbin and her extra limbs amazed viewers. In contrast to her "monstrous" form, Myrtle was presented as a highly cultured and educated person, described as "gentle in disposition as the summer sun and joyful as the day is long." The marketing worked and Corbin earned about $450 a week at the peak of her popularity. Its popularity coincided with the advent of teratology, or the study of physical anomalies. which made her famous in the medical world. Articles detailing Corbin's physical condition and her first experience of childbirth in 1889 were published in medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the British Medical Journal, and the American Journal of Obstetrics, which described her as belonging to a "class of mixed monsters." "
Connected at the bottom of the spine, they were born into slavery in 1852. Disabled children in slave conditions were considered a useless burden, since plantation owners were not going to feed the extra mouth that could not work in the fields. But the rare event of Millie and Christina growing together made them more valuable as a potential sideshow subject, and as a result, the twins were bought and sold several times before they were 6 years old. Eventually, merchant Joseph Pearson Smith bought Millie-Christine and her family, and his wife taught the twins reading, writing, singing and dancing. Touring for almost 30 years, Millie-Christine displayed her talent for singing. Under the name "two-headed Nightingale", the twins sang in the United States and Europe, performed at P.T. Barnum American Museum in New York and even for Queen Victoria. In 1882 alone, Millie-Christine earned a combined income of $25,000 while touring. This was amazing for a black woman, or any woman in America at that time, and is one of the reasons it is considered one of the greatest successes in sideshow history. Millie-Christine died in 1912, after Millie fell ill with tuberculosis.
4. Lavinia Warren, Miss Thumb.
When Lavinia Warren tied the knot with the mega-popular Boy Thumb in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln threw the tiny newlyweds a wedding reception at the White House. The New York Times named the 80-centimeter bride the “Beauty Queen.” The joyous and heavily publicized event was the culmination of the sideshow and led the average American to accept the so-called "freak" as one of their own. The couple escaped from the circus tent and became genuine celebrities. P.T. Barnum began exhibiting Charles Stratton, known as Boy Thumb, in England in 1843, when the little man was only 11 years old. Twenty years later, Stratton was one of the most famous "freaks" in the world, and his wedding to Lavinia Warren was largely a PR stunt orchestrated by Barnum. Lavinia Warren herself began traveling in 1858 with a show owned by her uncle, and in 1862 she joined Barnum at the American Museum in New York. Soon after, Stratton noticed Warren and began trying to start a romantic relationship with her, which delighted Barnum. After the couple announced their engagement, Barnum's American Museum was besieged by crowds wanting to catch a glimpse of the petite bride. After Stratton's death in 1883, Warren married another little man, the actor Count Primo Magri, but the time for such shows and their stars had already run out.
In 1850, Barnum introduced famed opera singer Jenny Lind, known as the “Swedish Nightingale,” to the United States. Despite her popularity in Europe, Lind was virtually unknown in the United States and Barnum had never heard her sing. But he had no doubt that she would be a success, and he was right - Lind was well received by the Americans and held 95 concerts with Barnum as manager.
It wasn't until 1871 that Barnum founded his own circus, calling it P.T. Barnum's Great Travel Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Circus." In 1872 he gave it the name "The Greatest Show on Earth". In 1881, Barnum teamed up with James Bailey, creating what eventually became "Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth." P.T. Barnum died in 1891, having read his own obituary before he died.
Here's how it's told: A few weeks before he died in his sleep, on April 7, 1891, Barnum read his own obituary: The New York Sun, responding to Barnum's comment that the press says good things about people after they die, printed his lifetime obituary on the front page with the headline, "The Great and Only Barnum - He Demands to Read His Obituary - He's Here."
XIX century.
Phineas Taylor Barnum | |
---|---|
Phineas Taylor Barnum | |
Birth name | English Phineas Taylor Barnum. |
Date of Birth | 5'th of July(1810-07-05 ) |
Place of Birth | Bethel, Connecticut, USA |
Date of death | April 7(1891-04-07 ) (80 years old) |
A place of death | Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA |
A country | |
Occupation | showman, businessman, politician, autobiographer, circus performer |
Autograph |
![]() |
Media files on Wikimedia Commons |
He gained wide fame for his hoaxes and organized a circus named after him.
Showman
Phineas was born in the city of Bethel ( Bethel, Connecticut, USA), where his father ran a hotel and store. Barnum's first business was running a small store, then he was involved in the lottery, which was widespread at that time in the United States. After failure in this endeavor, he organized a weekly newspaper, The Herald of Freedom, in 1829 (with English - “Herald of Freedom”) in Danbury, Connecticut. After several libel suits were filed against the newspaper and a trial that resulted in Barnum's imprisonment, he moved to New York ().
Washington's Nanny
Barnum skillfully manipulated the public's attention. After people began to doubt the veracity of Barnum's statements, rumors arose that this was not a living woman, but a skillfully crafted robot doll. The public again bought up tickets to Barnum's performances. When the woman died, Barnum made the autopsy a spectacle, inviting professors and medical students to prove to everyone that Joyce was not a robot. During the autopsy, it turned out that she was no more than 80 years old, but then rumors spread that Barnum had cleverly replaced the robot doll with a human body, so as not to reveal the inventor of the doll, who wished to remain anonymous.
American Museum
The British public became very excited. Not to see General Tom Tam was to be hopelessly behind fashion, and from March 20 to July 20, the little General's "apartments" in the Egyptian Hall were constantly overcrowded, and the takings during this period amounted to about five hundred dollars a day, and sometimes significantly exceeded this amount. Once, in front of the exhibition windows in Piccadilly, as many as sixty carriages of the most distinguished citizens were counted. All the illustrated magazines featured portraits of the little General, polkas and quadrilles were named in his honor, and songs were sung about him.
An outstanding example of his entrepreneurial spirit was the invitation of the Swedish singer Jenny Lind ( Jenny Lind) to America with 150 concerts at $1000 each, with all expenses paid by the entrepreneur. The tour began in 1850 and was a great success for both Lind and Barnum.
Barnum and Bailey Circus
Barnum retired from the variety business in 1855, but, forced to pay off his creditors in 1857, returned to his former occupation. In 1862 he began showing the giantess Anna Sven. On July 13, 1865, a fire occurred that burned Barnum's American Museum to the ground. Barnum quickly rebuilt the museum elsewhere in New York, but that too burned down in March 1868. Finally, in Brooklyn (a modern borough in New York), together with W. C. Coup (William Cameron Coup), he founded "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome"- a combination of circus, menagerie and freak show, which in 1872 proclaimed itself “The Greatest Show on Earth” (eng. "The Greatest Show on Earth"). The show had several variations of the title: "P. T. Barnum's Traveling World's Fair, the Great Roman Hippodrome, and the Greatest Show on Earth," and after being merged in 1881 with James Anthony Bailey and James L. Hutchinson. James L. Hutchinson) - “P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United", which was soon shortened to Barnum & London Circus(Barnum and London Circus).
Among the oddities that performed in the circus was Russian Fyodor Evtishchev, originally from St. Petersburg, a dog-faced boy recruited by Barnum in 1884 at the age of 16.
Barnum made up a story for him, according to which the boy did not speak, but only barked and growled on stage.
After Barnum's death, the circus was eventually sold to Ringling Bros. on July 8, 1907, for $400,000.
Politician and reformer
Barnum was active in the political strife that preceded the American Civil War. As mentioned earlier, Barnum's first experience as an impresario was with his slave, Joyce Heth, and in 1850 he participated in a hoax to market a potion that (in his words) would turn blacks into whites.
Barnum's organization of minstrel shows dates back to this period - performances by white actors disguised as blacks. He not only organized such performances, but also sponsored the dramatization of the political novel by writer Harriet Beecher Stowe “Uncle Tom's Cabin” (). Unlike the novel, the play (staged in the American Museum building) ended with a happy ending in the form of the liberation of Tom and his comrades from slavery. Inspired by the success of this performance, Barnum staged another play in Beecher Stowe.
By 1860, Barnum had joined the Republican Party. Despite earlier claims that “politicians have always been a distaste for me,” Barnum was elected to the Connecticut State Legislature as a Republican representative from Fairfield and served two terms. While debating the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution to end slavery and enfranchise blacks, Barnum gave an eloquent speech to the legislature in which he argued that “the human soul is not to be taken lightly, whether in the body of a Chinese, a Turk, an Arab, or a Hottentot.” “It’s still the same immortal soul!”
In 1867, Barnum ran for the United States Congress, but was unsuccessful. In 1875 he was elected mayor of Bridgeport for a year. His decisive actions in this post were aimed at improving water supply and street gas lighting, as well as tightening legislative regulation of prostitution and the sale of alcoholic beverages. Barnum contributed to the creation of Bridgeport City Hospital (1878) and became its first director.
King of Swindle
Family
Barnum was married twice and had four children. He married for the second time a year after the death of his first wife.
During his life, Barnum built 4 palaces in Bridgeport (Connecticut), giving them the names: Iranistan, Lindencroft, Waldemere and Marina. Iranistan was the most outstanding: fanciful luxury, domes, turrets and openwork stucco, reminiscent of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton (England). The mansion was built in 1848, but burned down in 1857.
Barnum died on April 7, 1891 and was buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport. A statue in his honor was erected near the water in Seaside Park in 1893; Barnum donated this land to the park in 1865.