P. T. Barnum

Phineas Taylor Barnum was born on July 5, 1810, in Bethel, Connecticut, and died on April 7, 1891, in Bridgeport. He was an American showman, businessman, author, publisher, philanthropist, and politician, though he described himself more simply: “I am a showman by profession ... and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.” He lived in an age of newspapers, public lectures, museums, touring acts, and fast-growing cities, and he learned how to turn attention into a business. He is remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding, with James Anthony Bailey, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Barnum’s appetite for enterprise appeared early. His father, Philo Barnum, was an innkeeper, tailor, and storekeeper; his mother was Irene Taylor. His maternal grandfather, Phineas Taylor, known as Uncle Phin, was a Whig, legislator, landowner, justice of the peace, lottery schemer, and practical joker who had a strong influence on him. In his twenties, Barnum ran a general store, worked in book auctioning, speculated in real estate, and operated a statewide lottery network. In 1831, troubled by the Congregational Church’s involvement in Connecticut politics, he founded a weekly newspaper, The Herald of Freedom, in Bethel. His editorials led to libel suits, prosecution, and two months in prison.

In 1834, Barnum moved to New York City. The next year, at 25, he began his career as a showman by purchasing and exhibiting Joice Heth, a blind and nearly paralyzed enslaved woman who was being billed as George Washington’s 161-year-old former nurse. Slavery had already been outlawed in New York, but Barnum used a loophole to lease her for a year. He forced her to work long hours, and after her death in 1836, he hosted a public autopsy to show her actual age. This episode stands among the harsher facts of his rise, showing how his gift for promotion was tied, from the beginning, to exploitation as well as spectacle.

After a period of mixed success with Barnum’s Grand Scientific and Musical Theater and difficult years following the Panic of 1837, Barnum bought Scudder’s American Museum in Manhattan in 1841 and renamed it Barnum’s American Museum. He upgraded the building, added exhibits, and made it a public attraction with flags, giant animal paintings, a rooftop garden, hot-air balloon rides, live acts, curiosities, models, and a menagerie. In 1842, he introduced the “Feejee” mermaid, a hoax made from the body of a monkey and the tail of a fish. He later exhibited Charles Stratton as General Tom Thumb and promoted acts including the Native American dancer Do-Hum-Me.

Barnum also reached audiences beyond the museum. In 1850, he promoted the American tour of Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, paying her an unprecedented $1,000 per night for 150 nights. Economic reversals in the 1850s, caused by unwise investments, litigation, and public humiliation, pushed him into debt, but he recovered through a lecture tour as a temperance speaker. Later, he entered public office. In 1865, he served two terms in the Connecticut legislature as a Republican for Fairfield and spoke in favor of ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment. In 1875, he was elected mayor of Bridgeport, where he worked on water supply, street gas lighting, and enforcement of liquor and prostitution laws. He also helped begin Bridgeport Hospital in 1878 and served as its first president.

Barnum entered the circus business at 60, establishing P. T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome in 1870. He was married to Charity Hallett from 1829 until her death in 1873, and they had four children; in 1874 he married Nancy Fish. He died of a stroke at home in 1891 and was buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, which he had designed. For a quotes website, Barnum is a figure to handle with care: clever, tireless, inventive, and often troubling. Lines such as “Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant” still fit the public memory of a man who spent his life studying attention, appetite, and the price of persuasion.