What's on the 6th Floor?
The greatest prankster of the nineteenth century, P.T. Barnum (1810-1891) was impresario, humbug, circus owner, lecturer, speculator, politician, and America’s greatest showman. For decades he reigned supreme as he presented one curiosity and extravaganza after another. He had a huge gift for entertaining and amusing the American public.
Barnum for all his faults and failed schemes was a dreamer. He had a talent for knowing what types of things would entertain the public. Didn't matter to him if he had freakish people, wild animals, and often items he invented to thrill the people.
In my opinion... Barnum lived to entertain...yes money was important as was his religion... but to me Barnum was always envisioning new ways to enthrall his audience.
A good show promoter focuses on their events not on their own ego... When you create a show to draw attention to yourself, you'll get it but most likely you won't like it for long. Barnum knew this... He produced the "Greatest Shows on Earth". He used his name on shows like his Barnum and Bailey circuses to brand them. That way lesser circuses would be recognizable as a fake.
Years ago I met Bill Goodman from the "Gun and Knife Show". He used his name on his show for the same reason. Most promoters know that ego has no place in the business. You just make a target out of yourself that way. Keep your goals for the audience out front....
Barnum for all his faults and failed schemes was a dreamer. He had a talent for knowing what types of things would entertain the public. Didn't matter to him if he had freakish people, wild animals, and often items he invented to thrill the people.
In my opinion... Barnum lived to entertain...yes money was important as was his religion... but to me Barnum was always envisioning new ways to enthrall his audience.
A good show promoter focuses on their events not on their own ego... When you create a show to draw attention to yourself, you'll get it but most likely you won't like it for long. Barnum knew this... He produced the "Greatest Shows on Earth". He used his name on shows like his Barnum and Bailey circuses to brand them. That way lesser circuses would be recognizable as a fake.
Years ago I met Bill Goodman from the "Gun and Knife Show". He used his name on his show for the same reason. Most promoters know that ego has no place in the business. You just make a target out of yourself that way. Keep your goals for the audience out front....
P. T. Barnum Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810-April 7, 1891), known as P. T. Barnum, a prominent Universalist, the most influential American showman of the nineteenth century, was the founder of the first important public museum and creator of the modern three-ring circus.
“If Barnum could not get his hands on a genuine curiosity for his museum, he had no problem making one up. He often mislabeled displays, claiming that ordinary items were really historically important artifacts.
Thus a wooden club was transformed into ‘the very one that killed the esteemed Captain Cook.’ A boat oar became ‘the very tool with which Miles Standish himself rowed his fellow pilgrims to our great American shores.’ And a deer antler became a ‘rare specimen of the horn of the mysterious elusive unicorn.’” --Candace Fleming, The Great and Only Barnum (2009)
Barnum’s celebrities included the curious Feejee Mermaid; General Tom Thumb, the Man in Miniature; the singer extraordinaire known as the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind; conjoined twins Chang and Eng, Madame Josephine Clofulia, the Swiss Bearded Lady, and Jumbo the elephant.
Phineas was born on July 5, 1810 in the small Connecticut community of Bethel to Irena Taylor and Philo F. Barnum. Barnum's first job was clerking in his father's country store. As a young man in the 1820s and the 1830s he worked as a clerk in Brooklyn, ran a fruit and confectionary store back home, and was a lottery agent in Pennsylvania. In 1829 he married Charity Hallett. In time they had four children.
Between 1831 and 1834 Barnum edited his own newspaper in Danbury, the Herald of Freedom. He started the paper to combat what he perceived to be sectarian attempts to bring about a union of church and state. Three times charged with libel for statements he made about opponents, he was once convicted and was incarcerated for 60 days.
He spent his time in jail comfortably. "I had my room papered and carpeted previously to taking possession," he wrote. He had a constant stream of visitors including a pastoral visit from a local Universalist minister. His release was a public relations event. (Of course it was...)
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