Barnum

Firecrackers had just celebrated the thirty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States in the small town of Bethel, Connecticut, when the first son by his second wife...

The New York to which Barnum emigrated late in the winter of 1834 is a New York with which we must become acquainted. Its population was slightly more than 200,000, and Mrs. Mar...

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 lear...

After a long and stormy passage of nineteen days, during which Barnum entertained the passengers with choice samples of practical jokes, the packet _Yorkshire_ arrived at Liverp...

Upon his return to New York from Europe, Barnum found that he had many new friends. “I could hardly credit my senses,” he wrote in a newspaper article at the time, “when I disco...

The conceit that to induce Jenny Lind to sing in this country would add to his reputation and fortune and to her fortune and reputation came to Barnum in October, 1849. He had b...

After the conductor on the Philadelphia-New York train had guessed that Jenny Lind was a dancer, Barnum began to remove all possible misconceptions in the public mind concerning...

Barnum wrote that he “did not know a waking moment that was entirely free from anxiety” during the nine months of the Jenny Lind tour; but, despite the labor and annoyances of t...

Barnum’s interest in the future of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and its suburbs as a manufacturing center was one of the abiding influences of his financial life, and he did more th...

Upon his return to England Barnum was greeted cordially by those who had admired him in the days of his reputation. His autobiography, in spite of the few scathing reviews, had...

General Tom Thumb had exhibited himself throughout the United States on his own account with great success, and after Barnum had recovered from bankruptcy with his aid the Gener...

After he had sensationally married his dwarfs, to the immense credit of the American Museum, Barnum had time in his fifty-fifth year for rest, reading and recreation, but he did...

An immense traveling show, combining all the elements of the museum, menagerie, and variety performance, was not Barnum’s own conception, at least in 1870, when he first joined...

It was Bailey’s custom often to do things first and then consult Barnum, or rather, tell him what had been done, so that in his last years Barnum’s function at the circus was as...

In November of 1890, when he was eighty years old, Barnum suffered an attack of acute congestion of the brain, which kept him in bed for three weeks, and the physicians decided...