PT Barnum: More Complicated Than You've Heard

it's Clive Owen. You're thinking, yeah, Hugh Jackman, Man, where's that top hat? Like a champ? He does? Um, I don't know how much you went on the internet for this one, because this is a pretty comprehensive article actually was, but um, The Greatest Showman really set the Internet on fire Man and a lot of like it really brought out a lot of people saying like, whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Yeah, this is the the

very definition of the word fantasy. Yeah, it seemed like that movie was can be best described as a musical whitewashing mm hmm in every sense of that word. So let's destroy it. Yeah, I mean after reading this, I didn't think, like man P. T. Barnum, what a complete a whole. No, he was just a lot more complicated than that and did a lot of stuff that you just shouldn't just pass over because you can't figure out lyrics too. What what why? What raps with racism? Uh? Yeah,

I mean he was. He was definitely an enigma and um, it seems like he did some good. But also, I mean he was a hustler man for sure. So this is what I didn't fully understand until researching this chuck. He he was He's known as the greatest showman, right, but there were plenty of other showmen out there at the time, which makes sense because you have to have something to compare, to be compared to, to be the greatest, right. But I I guess I had just assumed he was

like the first or the originator. No, he was not the first showman. He was a great showman. What he really left his mark on was introducing America to pure, unadulterated hucksterism and using it for marketing. Humbug that's what he called it, and he had he had a lot of quotes somewhere somewhere, definitely something he said like every crowd has a silver lining, which means you can shake it out of him and get some money from a bunch of people. Right, Yeah, the one about a sucker

board every minute. That's never been successfully attributed to him. Well, yeah, And one thing is for sure, and uh is that his autobiography is I think if you order it, it comes with a salt lick, so you can just lick on that salt while you're reading it. Right. I don't know what that means, but it seems like something that they would do. Yeah, I mean he he uh. I think when the man is writing about himself, it's like, you know what, you may just want to believe a

third of this. I would take it with a grain of salt, but so much so that you need an actual salt lick. I got it, now, I got it. So, So there is one quote that I think kind of describes this guy best, or at least his philosophy, and it also kind of reveals like you can't call him harmless, but also the intentions were not entirely evil, right, he had a quote it said that, um, people don't mind being deceived so long as they're being amused at the same time, which it does, and it largely lets him

off the hook as far as being a huckster. Right. But the thing that that The Greatest Showman really glossed over, just outright ignored, was that a lot of the the amusements that he was presenting to the public were extraordinarily degrading two people at the time, Um, they were super racists. There were, um, just a lot of There was just a lot of exploitation. He made his money not just

by hustling Americans, but by exploiting other Americans too, right. Um. And again, like this, a lot of this is contextual. It's not necessarily fair for later generations to judge previous generations, although it's really fun to do. Um. But yes, you could say, like this guy was exploitative even even in compared even compared to like his contemporary right. Perhaps so he is just this very complex character who I think you and I can agree was not an evil person.

He just did some horrible things here there. Should we go back in time? Yes, let's all right, let's go back to the beginning, let's hop in the way back machine, which is appropriately steampunky right now. It takes many forms. I don't know if people realize that it has a clock without the glass and you can see the parts inside, but it doesn't actually function. It's strictly for decoration. So let's go back to eight ten, back to Bethel, Connecticut,

where this man was born, Mr Phineas Taylor Barnum. Um. He had sort of a mixed family life. He I mean, he was they point out in this article. He was firmly American. His great great great grandfather came over from England as an indentured servant in the seventeenth century. Eventually became a landowner, but they didn't It's not like they had a ton of money. His dad, Filo great name, yeah, all these are great names. Was he was not super successful. Um. So it was kind of up to young pt to

Um to make his own way in life. Right as his father was a farmer, which introduced um Phineas to the idea that he really hated like manual, mindless work. Now, he didn't like doing that farm work, but it's that's not to say he didn't like work. He just liked very specific kinds of work where his energies were appropriately chanted building people out of money. Sure, yeah, I mean that was that was kind of it. He liked. Um. He was the definition of the word enterprising, right, she

could figure out a way. He could look at something literally look at something that you couldn't you could almost not give away, you certainly couldn't sell, and turn it into pure profits like like he got into lauteries for a little while once, right, Yeah, I mean he went he went to work. He left the farm into work at a country store and realized quickly, like, just because you're in the country doesn't mean there aren't like swindlers and cheaters out here. So he kind of learned some

of the tricks of the trade there. His old man died when he was fifteen, uh, and he was kind of his his mom had his mom had to get a job. But he was basically like, all right, it's kind of up to me now to provide for my family. So he moved got that another job as a store clerk, and as you said, got into lotteries. Yeah, And he was early on pursuing a career at clerkship, which I guess is a thing. But but yeah, so there's this. He saw easy money and lottery, so he set up

one himself. Apparently when he was working for these owners of the store, um, they were away at one point and he got his eyes on some um tin kitchenware that just would not sell. So he took some other stuff that wouldn't sell at that store. These things weren't his, by the way, and he traded him for a bottle collection of I guess was the thing that people wanted at the time. And he put those things up as prizes, right, and he started a lottery and these were the prizes,

and there were cash prizes. But he ended up selling like a thousand tickets or something like that in this little town store, um based on these prizes and some cash prizes, saying like half of all tickets were going to be winners and you might win a bottle or you might win like a tin muffin pan, but you could also win this cash. And so these things that had just been sitting on these shelves forever were suddenly turned into something valuable thanks to his marketing expertise. And

this is while he's still a teenager. Yeah, it's we've covered this and something before that. Lotteries were a thing back then that someone could just cook up, you know, Like it's not like the lotteries we have today, like be sanctioned, uh, sanctioned ways of stealing people's money, right, But back then, you could just cook up a lottery in a small town and be like, you know what I've got. Uh. It was almost like a Ponzi thing, like I can raise money, give away some of that

money and prizes, and then keep the rest, right. I think that was in our lotteries episode. Oh really yeah, Okay, Well, in order to do that, though, you have to be

a natural born salesperson, which is what he was. You really do And like lottery has been played like a theme throughout his early career, like that's how he ended up making his initial I don't know if fortune is the right word, but that's how he staked himself and his family was through lotteries and working in stores and then eventually owning stores like general stores, grocery stores, that

kind of thing. But the lotteries are where he made his money, and he actually figured out that you could make more money with less work than having to go to the trouble of setting up a lottery. Like you said, anybody could just set up a lottery, um by taking tickets from somebody else's lottery and selling them further out at an increased price. But then he figured out one more thing, Chuck, You didn't even have to go out and sell these things yourself. You could hire other are

people to sell them even further out. All you had to do was give them the tickets and collect the money that they brought you. So he ended up making money by basically expanding other people's lotteries for a while, that's right. And in the middle of this, and he had moved to Brooklyn at this point, he's kind of kind of hopping all over the place there in the northeast. But uh and and to be fair, we're hopping kind of all over his early life right now. Yeah, chronologically. Yeah. Yeah.

So in this time period he met um who would become his wife, a woman named Charity Hallett, who he described in his autobiography as a fair, rosy cheeked buxom girl, beautiful white teeth. Did I mention she had big boobs, but those teeth, man. Uh. So they would get married

and I think they had four daughters, Um. But during all this time he he did he had a little Josh Clark in him, because how do you mean, Well, he was writing letters to local papers that weren't getting published, so he said, you know what, I'm gonna start my own paper. Yeah, where he clarked himself a paper I'll see you all in hell media. Yeah, and much like yourself, you started your own paper, which was kind of cool. Sure, I mean like, if people won't print your crank ideas,

go start your own paper. It's like if you want to get your manifesto out there and either either yeah, either become un obomb or esque, which we don't recommend, or start your own paper. That's right. And his was called Harold of Freedom, which is terrible. And this is where it gets a little weird because he he kind of went after people. Um was eventually hit with a

libel suit and spent sixty days in jail. But that sold a lot of papers, and he was also hailed as a hero because apparently he was legitimately exposing corruption. So to me, Chuck, that one really stood out, um, because it shows just how huge this guy's life still where he is. That that even if you make a movie out of it all. The best you can hope for is to pick like five or six or ten

different things and try to find a thread throughout him. Right, whether that's an accurate portrayal or not, it can't possibly be, because this guy's life was just so enormous and he did so many things, and he was such an outsize character that a lot of times you either vilify him or glorify him, and it was much more a combination of both of those things. And I think that example

really says it all. Like he had his his notions, and he started his own paper and ended up going to jail and subscription boosted, so he ended up making money from it. But at the same time, he was legitimately trying to call out corruption in this town that he cared about. So his character was much more complex than than you get just from just about any source unless you read biographies about him. Agreed. Um, So finally he says, or I'm sorry, Connecticut said no more lotteries

in Connecticut. So he's like, all right, what am I doing here? Even if I can't do this little scam? He's like, I love this time, but not that much. So in eighteen thirty four, he left the paper, shut that down, moved his family to New York City, and uh, should we take a break? Perfect ail, Right, we're in New York City and we'll be back right after this. If you want to know then you're in luck. Just listen up to chuck shoo. Shoot, I got a falafel? Is it good? It's pretty good? Is it from the

Hallau guys? Of course? Man? Who else you going to get a falafel from? That's good stuff? Yeah? Uh so, man, this guy really just reading through this thing. He did so many jobs, right, he was a factotem dozens and dozens of jobs through his lifetime. Yeah, and I'm glad he didn't just stick to clerking, right, or even lottery. He had this thing like something about show business attracted this guy. I don't know what it was. Maybe nobody but him knows what it was. Maybe he doesn't even

know what it was. But he was attracted to the idea of like wowing and amusing and amazing crowds. And he he did that pretty early on. I think he was twenty five when he got into exhibiting a human being who he purchased and owned for a while, which

by the way does not show up in the Greatest Showman. Right, And this is after in New York he started a boarding house for a while and co owned a grocery store for a while, right, And so like his life is full of him just trying to do these kind of regular things and then being like, Nope, I gotta go buy a lady and put her on display. Right, And this is after Chuck. By the way, he had come down with smallpox for a while. Oh did we miss a small box. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like,

this guy had a huge life. But let's get a Joyce Heath right, because she is a very controversial part of um P. T. Barnum's life. She was the first, his first foray in the show business. And there's no other way to put it. Like he purchased her. She was a slave and elderly slave, um who he purchased from another promoter who had been touting her as General George Washington's nursemaid from when George Washington was a child. This is eighteen thirty five, right, she was supposedly a

hundred and sixty one years old. Yeah, so he negotiates a price. He went, he went and sour, and she was blind, she had no teeth, she was partially paralyzed, but she could talk and tell her story. Yeah, she told stories about young George as a boy. And and to be fair, she she was already being exploited. It's not like he which is not great, but it's not

like Barnum introduced this into her life. No, he just purchased her and took it over, took over the exploitation for for a thousand dollars, and he toured with her until she died. Um not that long later, just like a year later, not even inty six. He made a lot of dough Um and it was it was sort of a watershed moment for him where I think he was like, wait a minute, I've realized that I can get people um in a room by cooking up these stories and and getting things in the newspaper and printing

these posters. Uh. And even if, like if if business was down, he would do these crazy things like one of them when business was down, appearing with Heth. At one point he accused her of being a robot what they called at the time an automaton in an anonymous letter to the editor in a newspaper. Yeah, a robot made of whalebone rubber in springs. So everyone was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not only is she George Washington's nurse maid, but she's

really a robot. Right. What that did was it got the people who had been avoiding going to see her, because even at the time, people were like, this is pure exploitation. This woman is being exhibited like a giraffe would be or something like that. She's an old lady's working or ten to twelve hours a day. Some people think that he worked her to death literally, um. And so there was part of the press that was saying

and reporting on this with with great distaste. So there's a segment of American society who would not be caught dead seeing George Washington's a hundred and sixty year old nurse maide, but they would conceivably go see an autonomouton if that's really what was going on. So he managed to dupe the very people who were critical of this exploitation that he was undertaking. He got everybody in that one. Well, yeah,

and it gets even worse. Um. Finally, when she passed away, he actually sold tickets to a public autopsy in a saloon so people could come look at this poor woman's insides. And this is where it was finally revealed. Doctor said she's maybe like eight eight one years old at most, right, And this was so so Jane um McGrath kind of walks past, like what a controversy this was. Like this guy had been like very much touting that she was the nurse Maide, like he supposedly had the bill of

sale to George Washington's father for her. So like he was saying, like, this is legitimately hundred and six year old woman, so in this autopsy that he charged for. When when it was exposed that she was actually half that age, um, it was there was a bit of disgrace there and he had to learn to roll with

the punches. And it was about this time that that he basically said to himself, you can you can take this as a lesson and go on the straight and narrow, maybe get back into clerking, or you can double maybe triple and quadruple down on this and and see where that goes. And he chose the ladder of the two for sure, that's right. He sure did. The next thing that he did the next person that he kind of took under his wing. Was his greasy greasy wing? Was

someone called signore senior? Is that senior? Yeah? Was it spelled that way? Uh? That is the Italian spelling of senor. Oh well, let me turn it on then, s an Daniel Antonio. Antonio had an extra bit in there. Senor Antonio is another way to say, well, sure, if you're a dullard, I'm a bit of a dullard. Chuck. I think you know that after ten years, So this guy, we're really milking that tenure thing. Huh. I've got my s y s k ten your army short. I see that.

It's very nice, thank you. I've been working on my bucksomeness. You're quite bucksom. So. Senor Antonio was a balancer. He's he's one of these guys like a plate spinner, walked on stilts, juggles. Um. He could throw things in the air and catch them very fast. Yeah, he's like a hippie. Yeah exactly. He would be on tour with he'd had those little sticks what are those called, devil sticks? Devil sticks or a hackey sack, any of those things. You pull a hackey stack out of his ear at any moment.

So this guy, he said, all right, you need to be my newest client. I will make you famous. Change your your stage name from Senior Antonio to Senor Viva La because that's a little more I don't know, exciting. I guess Senor Antonio. Yeah, it's a lateral move. Uh. Here's the thing, though, is there were a lot of dudes out there spinning plates. So he it wasn't like he was so unique, but uh, Barnum thought, you know what, I think you're better than the rest. So here's what

I'll do. And again this is just another example of how how good he was at promotion. He said, I'll do a free performance for a theater. Uh, and I'll even be your assistant on stage. And people came, and so the theater said, all right, I guess if people come for free, they'll pay. I think I think what he was saying was he Yeah, I think that's exactly. I think you're right. He just wild them enough. I

think that's that's the impression I have. Yeah. But even still, despite Vivala being genuinely good, he was I think head and shoulders above most of his contemporary spinners. Yeah, I think people saw in the press. Oh there's a really good plate spinner. We saw a plate spinner at you know, the at the office last week. So I'm not gonna go anywhere to see another plate spinner. I'm certainly not

gonna pay. So Barnum had a pretty good idea, but it actually came out of um an uncomfortable situation that fell into his lap with Robert's another plate spinner. Yeah, so this is a rival plate spinner who apparently would go to prove West Coast. Yeah, he was. He was a crip and he would go to uh Vivalo's performances and heckle him. I guess you call that plate spinning boo,

terrible plate spinning stuff like that. And so uh p T. Barnum cooked up a thing where he was like, all right, I'll of for one thousand American dollars to anyone who can perform Vivalo's act in public. Roberts accepted. But here's what really happened. As he got together with Roberts and they all three hatched a plan to do these kind of staged competitions, right, So they promoted in the spinning competitions East Coast, West Coast plate spinning rivalry is going

on right now. Everybody's gonna come see this, and everybody did. And in that first performance, Roberts as was staged, conceded he could not replicate Vivala's act. It was too good. But I would love to see Vivola replicate my act. And I challenge you, Senor Vivola, to replicate my act tomorrow night at this same theater. And they kept going back and forth like that, Um, with this staged rivalry that they they they made some cash off of thanks

to Barnum's ingenuity. They did. Finally, in eighteen thirty six, the circus comes into the picture. He joined a traveling circus. Barnum did as a ticket seller, which I take it to mean he doesn't sit in a booth and sell tickets, but he goes around town selling tickets. Yeah, like chambers of commerce or something like that. Yeah. And of course he got a little uh commission off this thing, so he was making some dough. Favola joined the same circus

as a performer. Of course they were attached at the hip at that point. That was Chang and Ang bunker you're thinking of. That's a dad joke. It totally um, and this one I thought was a little bit weird. Apparently the circus proprietor, a guy named Turner, was into practical jokes, and not very good ones. Because this practical joke was he convinced the crowd that Barnum was the

reverend from Avery who had been acquitted of murder. But everyone thought that this guy had committed murder, and back then no one knew anyone looked like So he said, this guy is from Avery, and he almost got lynched. Apparently, yeah, like from Avery's name was not very well liked in the area. He was at the very least he, through having an adulterous affair with a young woman, had induced her to kill herself, or at worst, had murdered her

to prevent her from having his illegitimate child. But he's gonna quit it, right, Andy's a reverend, did we mentioned Um? So yeah, the crowd, like, according to Barnum, almost killed him. That's a real funny joke, I know. But then later on, Jane says that Um that Barnum got got even with him with his own practical joke. I could find nothing anywhere, including in Barnum's autobiography that that mentions that I think he covered his toilet and seran rep cruads. That's so nasty.

Uh No, No, he gave him an upper decker grows. That's even worse. So apparently these guys got into business together and it became a thing where people would go see the circus, where the two ringmasters would would kind of go at each other with these practical jokes, right,

that became a thing. So so there's a transition going on, another transition now he is he started out store clerking, lottery ng when got into show business where it's like basically a Colonel Tom two different performers, and then now he's transitioning into the circus. But by now he's been like married to the road about as much as he's been married to Charity as as well. And from all accounts, um like he was very much in love with her and they were like he was faithful and they were

they were a real couple. But he was on the road a lot. There's just no if and or butts about it. He was out there on the road quite a bit. So transitioning to a circus was basically the same thing. It was just a little bigger of an outfit, so it was like a step up. But you got to also keep in mind here that he's spending a lot of time on the road at a time when travel was really long and really tough. That's right, And so he eventually decides working for when else's circus is

for the birds, I'm gonna start my own. You buy some horse and wagons. I'm gonna get a clown. You gotta have a clown. Uh. I think he still had Vivala at the time. Yeah, and started Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater toward all over the place for a little while, and then they disbanded. Right, Nothing never seemed

to work out for very long. No, I think that Um he got fed up and says with some of the rivalries with other showmen, Um that they, you know, you would build your whole circus around like an act, and all of a sudden, the act would be like, I'm I'm sick of this, I'm sick of being on the road. I'll see you later, and all of a

sudden your circus would fall apart. I think they were kind of tenuous outfits, right, but he he The thing about Barnum was like something about this called to him like he would when his circus collapsed and he was out in the middle of the country on the road and he had to go back home. The first thing you would do is start figuring out his next circus or his next act, or whatever it was. He would go back out again. He he was into fact indefatigable

and into fatiguablele in that sense. Uh. Yeah, so I mean we'll quickly speed through the next couple of years. He did a little steamboat circus for a little while along the Mississippi River. Um, that didn't come along. He tried to do a respectable business again. Uh, went into business with a guy who manufactured grease paste and cologne. That did all right for a little while, but then that failed. Uh. And then this whole time, he still feels that pool to the tent. Right. He sold illustrated

bibles for a little while. Finally, here's the thing he wanted stability, Like being out on the road was tough, as Steve Perry, right, but he wanted this this to be tied to show business in some way. Finally, one day, and I think the eighteen forty one, he um he had another big break or another big vision. There was a there was a place in New York museum and what you would call today a museum that was up for sale in I'm not sure where it was, but it was in New York, right, and it was called

Scudder's American Museum. And Barnum heard that um Scudder wanted to get out and was putting the whole collection up for fifteen grand, which is a substantial amount of money and definitely more money than than Barnum had. But he said, that's it right there. I can have a permanent place where people come to me, and I can be home with my wife and daughters, but I can still have this daily interaction with show business. I gotta buy that thing well, and it will also accomplish this is um.

I can still have my freak show performers. But because it's a museum, somehow it has a little bit more respectability because apparently at the time, theaters weren't like they are today. It wasn't like we're going to the theater. Theaters could be a little bit like a a second tier entertainment, right. It was like hoi POLOI tawdry. Crowds went to the theater that was associated with like burlesque or something like that, or even like um human oodities

exhibition stuff like that that was theater stuff. A museum like Scudder's, like respectable people could go there. So what Barnum did was he he bought a museum and then dragged it down into the mud, right And this this whole the way he financed the museum, I didn't fully understand,

to be honest. Do you want me to explain it if you want, or we could just say he ended up with the museum in eighteen forty one through a lot of work, and I think that's that's fair enough because it is a little bit like you know, Robin Peter to pay Paul. It wasn't just a straight up purchase. Let's just say that, right. But so one thing that you can say about this museum, which he renamed Barnum's

American Museum, it was a big success. And one of the reasons it was a big success was because he was he tirelessly worked at finding new and interesting ways to market the thing, right um, and by I'm not sure exactly when, but by a very short time after he opened it, I think that same year, in one um he he was charged. He charged twenty five cents a person for admission. He had something like four thousand

visitors a day. And he took this thing, like I say that he dragged the word museum down in the mud. He definitely added and expanded to the definition of museum. And then he also had this lecture hall where he had like performances that you would see like in a circus or something like that. And he turned this place into an emporium just something huge in a an enormous spectacle. And something like eight hundred and fifty thousand pieces were on display in his museum. So you definitely got your

quarters worth for sure. Yeah, and those are just the pieces he also, I mean as far as the circus element, he had everything covered. He had dancers, musicians, plate spinners, ventriloquists. Well you gotta have the plate spin He had little people, he had big people. He had ladies with beards, and robots and puppets and animals. He had drafts and grizzly bears. Like he really had everything humming on all cylinders at

this point. Yeah, he really did um. And again there was still there was that whole thread of like you know, there are people being exploited. There were people who were complicit in that. There were people who were Um. Anyone who came to the museum was gawking at, you know, the weirdness of these other people or whatever, which again today is very odd to us, but at the time um was still odd. Like that's the thing that I

think it's lost on people. Like there were sideshows and things like that, but Barnum took it to an extraordinary degree and really ran with it and became extremely rich as a result. Actually, should we take a break. I'm ready to all right, the museum's coming along. We're gonna take a break. We'll be back right after this. If you want to know you're in luck, just to chuck, Okay,

we're back. Yeah. So we mentioned earlier about the humbug Um this kind of hucksterism in his biography there or autobiography, which was rewritten by himself, by the way, after people read the first version and said, what a jerk. Yeah. Yeah, he was like just openly boastful and braggart about how much he exploited people and how much he duped the

American public. He turned it down a little bit in this in the revision, but he he did talk a little bit about being slightly embarrassed about kind of how shameless he was. But then again in the next line he would say, but you know what, this is how everyone is in my business. I'm just better at it than them. Basically, yeah, he said, Um, he said, oh, there's a great quote. I can't find it anywhere though where Basically if he if he oh, here it is um.

If his advertising was quote more audacious than his competitors, it was not because I had less scrupled than they, but more energy, far more ingenuity, and better foundation for such promises. He thought a lot of himself. He definitely did. But he also worked pretty hard at it, for sure. And I think if you, if you compared apples to apples at the time, Barnum's jam was way better than anybody else's jam. Yeah, for sure. So uh. He had three really big successes in a row with his with

his museum here. The first one was called the Fiji Mermaid f E j E and um and this was a big, big deal. He got a man named Levi Lyman or Levy Lyman. He was an old colleague of his, and he said, here's what I'll do. You're gonna you are now, Dr J. Griffin. You're a naturalist for the British Lyceum of Natural History, which was not a real place, and you were the you're an ownership of what we'll call the Fiji mermaid, which was a uh what do we call it in a taxidermy? Rogue taxidermy. Yeah, it

was rogue taxidermy. It totally was. It was like a jackalope, except what was it. It was a head of a baboon torso and orange and tang and a fish tail just for good measure. Yeah, And as far back as they can tell, it was probably made by a Japanese sailor in the eighteen twenties and it passed through a few hands before Barnum finally leased it and put it on display. I wonder where that thing is now. I looked. I I don't know there are other Fiji mermaids out there.

There was it was like kind of a thread of rogue taxidermy in the mid nineteenth century, and I think Harvard has went on display. But I looked to find out where P. T. Barnum's is, and um, I can't find. It's probably like on Richard Branson's headboard or something. It may have actually burned up in one of the many fires that plagued PiZZ Barnum's life. Things are going to get fiery here in this last bit too. Yeah well, ay, well,

let's get back to the Fiji mermaid though. Okay, so Dr J. Griffin is touring, touring with this supposedly touring with this mermaid, right sure, and Barnum, but the guy's

actually not out there touring. Barnum basically creates out a whole cloth tour of this mermaid, writes letters about how great this thing is uh in different people's names, and then mails them two friends that live around the country and asks them to mail those letters in to two newspapers in New York, talking about how this thing has to be seen to be believed. Yeah, so people came far and wide to see this piece of taxidermy. Yeah. And by the way, this whole Jay Griffin thing, like

this guy was posing as him. He was giving public lectures made up as a naturalist, British naturalist, and he was an American promoter. He had nothing to do. He was just making all this stuff up. But he would give like public lectures on it, like the audacity. It's amazing. Uh So the second big victory was when he met

up with a four year old named Charles Stratton. Uh he was a little person, his cousin actually, and he stopped growing when he was two ft tall and he changed his name, rebranded him as General Tom Thumb and that name probably rings a bell. They became very famous together. He said, he was eleven years old, and they were a a media and ticket selling sensation. Yeah. They would be like invited in to meet like royalty whatever country they toured. Um, he was a huge hit at the museum.

It was like a big deal for both barnol Man and Charles Stratton. The sensation, that's the best way to put it. In The final big victory of of the trifecta when he was in Europe with UM with Stratton, he heard of Jenny Lynn. He was a Swedish opera singer and this was the kind of thing where he was like, you know what, she doesn't have a beard. She's all she is as a talented singer. But she's amazing and this would really legitimize me if I did

like a straight up act for a change. So even though she's big over here, they don't know about her in America and she could blow up there. So I'm gonna offer her a thousand dollars per performance, which was a ton of money and a big risk, but he made about a half a million dollars with her or more. We branded the Swedish Nightingale by trotting her around the United States. And uh, she was like beyond a sensation in the United States. Yeah, that was another thing too.

I mean, like she was pretty big in Europe, but I don't think she was well known, if known at all, in America. But by the time she showed up for the tour starting in eighteen fifty, he had managed to get, like you said, just turned her into a national sensation. Like people had like beat a beatlemania for this lady. Um. This article says that she was not a very nice person. I didn't see that anywhere else, and I actually saw that.

So after the contract between her and Barnum was up in eighteen fifty one, she continued to tour America with like an actual orchestra, I believe um. And she made three hundred thousand dollars in eighteen fifties money Um from this whole American tour and donated every single penny of it to Sweden's public school system, which burgeoning at the time. Yeah, so I don't know what Jane was talking about, but I think she just kind of didn't find America very cultured,

is what I get. But apparently Jane didn't like that America probably wasn't very cultured, right, But I thought that was pretty neat man. She took all that money and donated it to the public school system in Sweden. That's crazy. But yeah, so, so Barnum was not legitimized thanks to that. I think it actually didn't go all that well. But he did enrich himself thoroughly through Jenny Lynn, for sure, that's right. But he go broke again because he's P. T.

Barnum and that's what he does. On the eighteen fifties, he bought up a lot of land near Bridgeport, Connecticut, because he wanted to make east Bridgeport. That happened in place. Uh. He invested in a in the Jerome Clock Company wanted to relocate it to east Bridgeport. It was not a smart thing to do. The company went bankrupt and all of a sudden he was broke again, and this is fire number one. He moves out of his mansion because he's broke, and then when after he had moved out,

the mansion burned down. Right, But if he had to move out, you would think that he had relinquished ownership. So why does it matter as far as his life goes, unless he had a bunch of money stuffed into the insulation or something. I don't know, making bad thing going on. It might have just been a footnote or something, or he maybe maybe he did no I guess if he had moved out then I didn't known it. It's I

just thought that was a little weird. Yeah, so he Um, he was in debt like big time, like broke bankrupt, in debt um because of this terrible clock company thing, which you should always take as a reason to never put all of your eggs in one basket, which I

guess is what he did. But he managed to um emerge from debt after I think five years UM, and he ended up during this time, he pawned his museum, but he also put the name of the museum in his wife's name, who was not bankrupt, and so they were able to make some income off of the lease for the museum, and then when he managed to buy the museum back after five years, he just went like right back to it, like like like he didn't miss a beat. Yeah, I mean this this tenure period from

eighteen fifty eighteen sixty he went broke. He did the smart thing, like he said, with his wife. He started giving lectures about making money. He went on tour again with Tom Thumb. He got a dead whale. He bought a dead whale and said, surely people will pay money to see this. So he was still doing all this crazy stuff. Um, he bought a hippopotamus, he bought two beluga whales. Like, it's just crazy the things that he

was doing. Also, Chuck, we have to say that the title of the lecture tour the Art of money getting. It's not even the art of making money, the art of money getting. Yea. So um so the the he's his stars starting to rise again at the very least, his fortunes are reversing from from you know, just doing any kind of work he can get his hands on. And then all along this way, like Barnum was a pretty he was what's known as the jackson Ian Democrat.

Jack Andrew Jackson was a populist president, and um he was Uh I think, didn't we lay? Uh? He was the one who was responsible for the Trail of tears. Right, I'm pretty sure that was Andrew Jackson. It was remember our two part on Trail of Tears. Okay, so he was he was um P. T. Barnum was of this man's party. He was Jackson supporter. And then the Civil War breaks out and all of a sudden, Um Barnum

has this like total conversion. He was not like an outright bigoted racist who worked to keep African Americans enslaved, worked as a Confederate sympathizer anything like that. He was fairly unremarkable and pretty normal, like for example, at his at his museum, Um, if you were black, you couldn't come in. It was a segregated museum. But that was like a lot of businesses at the time. So he was a very normal pedestrian person as far as his

politics go, and and and socially as well. But something happened and around the time of the Civil War and he converted and actually became an abolitionist, huge union supporter, and um just basically became patriotic and dedicated this idea of preserving the Union and abolishing slavery. Yeah, and he used that museum as a sort of ground zero for his cause. Uh. He had speeches, he had plays that sort of endorsed this. He had Southern copper heads that

were protesting outside. They threatened his life. And then he said, at this point, you know what, I might as well just get into politics, um, legitimately. And in April of eighteen sixty five, he actually won an election to the Connecticut General Assembly, where he worked really hard to ratify the thirteenth Amendment and supported another cause to allow the rights of black people to vote in Connecticut. Yeah. So like he was, he was legitimately dedicated to the cause

of abolition, which is totally bizarre. Right. And about this time, too, is when the revisions to his autobiography are starting to get much more contrite, much less boastful, um, and even more apologetic. Uh so he he like he something happened and he was converted to um the right side of history. I guess you could call it, you know. Yeah, So

here's where fire number two comes in. After a few months after this election, his museum burned down along with the animals in the exhibit, which is super sad is the first of like two animal fires. Uh. He opened a new museum a couple of months after that. Three years later that museum burned down. Didn't want to rebuild that one. Uh. And then finally in the eighteen seventies, like it took a long long time before he became the P. T. Barnum that most people know as the

big circus guy, right, the greatest show on Earth guy. Yeah, he um hooked up with Barnum and Bailey after hooking up with a guy named William Cameron or Coup I'm not sure which one it is, Um, But he had P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Circus. That was eighteen seventy one. And then, Um, did you cover the

eighteen seventy two fire. No, there was another fire that killed circus animals that the winter at the winter Um uh camp, which is on the site of where Madison Square Garden is right now, there's a horrific fire in the winter Camp in eighteen seventy two killed a bunch of other circuits animals, which this is this is why this is one of the reasons why years later Um Barnum and Bailey's Wrinkling Brothers Circus went away was because of animals. Yeah, and he, I mean he was by

the time this uh fire happened. That the what was it called the Hippo Theatron? I think so he uh, he was very successful with that circus circus he started with Coupe or coup. Uh. They've made about four grand in the first year, and it was the very first circus to kind of do the traditional thing that we all think of is travel by train, acrobats, clowns, exotic animals, stuff like that. Uh. And that's when it officially was

called the Greatest show on Earth. So the Hippo Theatron, such a strange word, burns down and then he's visiting his friend in England, uh, John Fish. And this is when his wife, Charity passes away. And as Jane put it, he was supposedly to grief stricken to return for her funeral, But the grief must have subsided quickly because he secretly married Fish's daughter at sixty three years old. He married twenty two year old Nancy Fish about three and a

half months later after his wife passed. No word about her teeth no no, or her brass eyes. So um, they got married secretly fourteen weeks after Charity died, and then and when they came to the US, they had

a public wedding nine months after that. So um, yeah, he married her, and I guess he was with her until his death, right, Well, yeah, in eighteen sixty or I'm sorry, seventy five, he took a break from the circus, got back into politics and became the mayor of Bridgeport for a little while, not US Bridgeport, though he's talking trash about the Bridgeport And apparently he gets a little on his high horse now because even though he was a drinker, pretty heavy drinker for a while, he quit

drinking and then campaigned against um like Sunday sales and saloons and kind of got a little self righteous, it seems like. Yeah. He also sponsored the Comstock Law in Connecticut, which banned contraception, which puts a lot of onus onto

the ladies. Um. And it was in place apparently until nineteen sixty five and was a really important word in their chuck sponsored like that means you're the person who brought it to the General Assembly, not you didn't just vote yes on it, Like you're the one who said, everybody, everybody, let's ban contraception for a hundred years and it was successful. Actually, so yeah, he was. He was a weird dude with a lot of different weird um thoughts about things and

that were sometimes very contradictory over time. And then finally, ironically here at the very end of this podcast, in eighteen eighty he partnered with one James A. Bailey for P. T. Barnham's Great London Combined. It's it's a terrible name for a circus, worst circus name ever. Then he had the word circus in there, and uh, this is when he got Jumbo the Elephant, which it was. Jumbo was a legendary attraction until eighty five when Jumbo was killed by

a train and probably caught fire too. And did you know we were just in Boston that Toughs University their mascot is Jumbo the Elephant. No, I didn't know that. Yeah, my buddy Robert explained that to me. And um, apparently Barnum was one of the early Um what do you what do you call the people who give universities a lot of money? Uh, endowment and donors grand person. Sure, he was all of that. What is that word? I know what you're talking about. He was all that two

toughs and so Jumbo the elephant became their mascot. And I think because it does say in here he he displayed Jumbo's preserved hide and skeleton. I think it was, or maybe is on display at toughs Um. I'm not sure if it still is, but I think at one time it was. So wait a minute, this guy also gave a substantial amount of money to help found a university. I don't know found, but to the university. That's a benefactor. Is that the word benefactor? Yeah? Maybe the found found it.

And I'm not sure the timeline there. Man, that's that's really crazy. He did lot of stuff. So go jumbos, Yeah, the fighting jumbos or the passive aggressive jumbos or the stomping jumbos. Yeah, that's a pretty kid. So Barnem and Bailey weren't together for too long. Initially they parted ways but then again joined in seven ultimately finally for the

Barnum and Bailey circus. Yep, they broke up and then they got back together, and then it stayed that way until two thousand and sixteen, I think, and then the circus finally closed down. I went to that thing as a kid. I think we talked about that. Sure I did too, um and now we will only go to the Big Apple Circus, as you know. And I took a long break because Emily and I were tired of going, and then uh, now we got a kid. My mom was like, you know, you gotta start going again. You

have to. So we went this year. How was it. Oh, it's okay. You know, I'm not the biggest circus guy. I've realized. Are you afraid of clowns? No? Not these? Are you afraid of acro bat? I could take these clowns. Um No. And actually the acrobats at the Big Apple Circus or the the what's it called, it's the famous ones. The family, Oh, the Flying Zamboni's Yeah, or was it Zamboni's not Zamboni's, I don't remember. It's something like that, but it's them. It's still still that family. Wow, that's

really that's something. And they you know, they did a great job. But at the end of the day, I'm just kind of about a third of the way through, I'm looking at my watch you know. Oh, I got you. I've seen a couple of circus so lates. Those are the last circus as I saw. Those are okay. But we saw the Michael Jackson one in Las Vegas and man Alive was good. Yeah, there's a Michael Jackson cirque. Yes, dude.

And I have to tell you, like, I'm not some die hard Michael Jackson fan, but you don't have to be this to appreciate this. It is amazing, like like it's worth going to Vegas to go see, turning around and going home. I don't know. There's probably a few I bet we hear from some Michael Jackson anti Michael Jackson fans. Uh. Finally, p T. Barnum has a stroke during a performance. He has one weird, strange wish at the end of his life is to have his obituary

published before he dies. Yeah. I don't know why I did that, maybe too, I don't know either. I think I don't know, but that's a heck of a way to end this podcast. And so maybe he wanted to feel the public outpouring or something. Uh, it could be that, or he wanted to proof read it or something. I don't know, but if he wanted. If that was what he was after, why didn't they just um send it to him ahead of time to actually published it. Yeah, it's weird. Well, we'll find out one day when we

die and go to heaven and meet P. T. Barnum. Agreed, So are you got anything else? Nope, there's probably tons more that we missed. And if you know something about Pete Barnum that we didn't know, let us know. We'll just add to this guy's story over time. Okay. Uh. In the meantime, if you want to read this great article by Jay McGrath, type im P. T. Barnum in the search bar. How stuff works. Since I said search bars, time for listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this

Uni Bomber follow up. Okay. I was into that one, The UNI Bomber. Yeah, yeah, that was a good episode. That was a good tenth anniversary episode. Milk. Hey, guys, congratulation on ten years milk, Milk. I look forward to many more listen to Uni Bomber and thought it would share something that covers a related, if somewhat different, aspect of the story about ten years ago when I was still a wee law student taking a legal ethics course. One of the situations we discussed was Ted Kazinski and

the ethical dilemma his lawyers faced. Criminal defendants had the absolute right to dictate certain aspects of their representation, like whether or not flee guilty, but there are other aspects of the representation that the lawyer controls, the most notable

being trial strategy. While lawyers should always listen to the clients overall goals, sometimes as necessary to override a client's wishes on how to achieve their goals, but because the client's desired strategy is either legally incorrect, unethical, or simply ill advise, Kazynski's case presented an interesting ethical problem for the attorneys because he refused to allow them to pursue what they perceived to be his best defense and his

only hope of avoiding the death penalty, namely claiming he was not guilty by reason of mental disease, known as the insanity defense. The conflict was that, on one hand, his attorneys had a duty to zealously represent him, but Kazinski objected so vehemently to the chosen defense. At at one point he attempted to go pro say a k a represent himself, which would have been an utter disaster. Uh. As you noted, he pled guilty, so we'll never know what they would have decided to do had he conned

a trial. But his case is one which most lawyers thought about or discussed at some point in their careers. That is good Fordham Walk go Rams And that is from Deb. Thanks Deb, appreciate that. Yeah, I remember what kind of saying like this whole thing was. He didn't he played guilty because they didn't want to plead insane because his ramblings would have been the ramblings of a convicted insane mad man. Very interesting. Uh again, thanks Deb.

We always love hearing from lawyers out there. That whole joke about lawyers at the bottom of the sea being a good start. We have always found it tasteless. So get in touch with us. You can via Twitter. I'm at josh Um Clark and at s y s K podcast, and Chuck is at movie Crush, Chuck's on Facebook dot com,

Slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant and slash stuff. You should know you can send us and Jerry an email to Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the Web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com. Mhm m