P. T. Barnum

Barnum was born in Bethel, Connecticut, the son of innkeeper, tailor and storekeeper Philo Barnum (1778–1826) and Philo's second wife, Irene Taylor. Barnum's maternal grandfather Phineas Taylor was a Whig, legislator, landowner, justice of the peace, and lottery schemer who had a great influence upon him.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

Barnum ran several businesses, including a general store, a book-auctioning trade, real estate speculation and a statewide lottery network. He started a weekly newspaper in 1831 called The Herald of Freedom in Bethel, Connecticut.{{cite book |last= Barnum |first= Phineas Taylor |title = Barnum's Own Story: The Autobiography of P.T. Barnum |date= 1927 |publisher= Viking Press | location= New York |page= 41|chapter= Chapter V, Brief Editorial Career, Removal to New York |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=0CQYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41 }} His editorials against the elders of local churches led to libel suits and prosecution, and he was imprisoned for two months. While incarcerated, Barnum sought the help of Rev. L.F.W. Andrews, publisher of the Gospel Witness from Hartford. Barnum and Andrews then published a joint paper, the Herald of Freedom and Gospel Witness.{{cite news| title = Gospel Witness, A Card| work= Herald of Freedom and Gospel Witness| location = Bethel, CT| date = October 17, 1832| page= 1| volume= 2| issue = 1| via=Connecticut Digital Archive |url = https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/60002%3A92#page/1/mode/2up }} They dissolved their partnership a year later in October 1833.{{cite news| title = Bad News | work= Boston Post| location = Boston, MA| date = October 29, 1883| page= 2| volume= 5| issue = 39| via=Newspapers.com |url = https://www.newspapers.com/image/56416882/?terms=%22Herald%20of%20freedom%22&match=1 }} Barnum then moved the publication of the paper to neighboring Danbury, Connecticut.{{cite book |last= Bailey |first= James Montgomery |title = History of Danbury, Conn. 1684–1896 |date= 1896 |publisher= Burr Printing House | location= New York |page= 197|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=RcbiAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22herald+of+freedom%22+1831&pg=PA197 }}

In November 1834, after publishing 160 issues of the Herald of Freedom, Barnum passed control of the paper to his brother-in-law, John W. Amerman, who published the paper for another year in Norwalk, Connecticut. When Amerman sold the paper to Mr. George Taylor, the Barnum family's connection to the Herald of Freedom ended.{{cite book |last= Barnum |first= Phineas Taylor |title = Struggles and Triumphs or Forty Years' Recollections of P.T. Barnum |date= 1872 |publisher= Warren, Johnson & Co | location= Buffalo, NY |chapter = Chapter IV Struggles for Livelihood | url= https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50115/pg50115-images.html#CHAPTER_IV }} Barnum sold his store in 1834.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

He began his career as a showman in 1835 at the age of 25 with the purchase and exhibition of a blind and almost completely paralyzed slave woman named Joice Heth, whom an acquaintance was billing around Philadelphia as George Washington's 161 year-old former nurse. Slavery was already outlawed in New York, but Barnum exploited a loophole that allowed him to lease Heth for a year for $1,000, borrowing $500 to complete the sale. Barnum forced her to work for 10 to 12 hours per day, and she died in February 1836 at no more than 80 years of age. Barnum hosted a live autopsy of Heth's body in a New York saloon to demonstrate her actual age before spectators paying 50 cents each.{{citation |url= https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-pt-barnum-greatest-humbug-them-all-180967634/ |title= P. T. Barnum Isn't the Hero the 'Greatest Showman' Wants You To Think |last= Mansky |first=Jackie| work = smithsonianmag.com |publisher= Smithsonian |date= December 22, 2017}}{{cite web|url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/freed/Barnum/joiceheth.html|title=Joice Heth| first=Robin |last=Freed| publisher=MA candidate, University of Virginia American Studies Department |access-date=April 8, 2007|archive-date=May 18, 2002|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20020518211717/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/freed/Barnum/joiceheth.html}}

{{Main|Barnum's American Museum}}

File:The Fairy Wedding group - From photographic negative in Brady's National Portrait Gallery, from photographic negative by Brady. LCCN2017659631.jpg") and his bride Lavinia Warren, alongside her sister Minnie and George Washington Morrison Nutt ("Commodore Nutt")]]

Barnum had a year of mixed success with his first variety troupe, Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater, followed by the Panic of 1837 and three years of difficult circumstances.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} He purchased Scudder's American Museum in 1841, located at Broadway and Ann Street in Manhattan. Renaming it Barnum's American Museum, he improved it, upgrading the building and adding exhibits.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

It became a popular showplace. He added a lighthouse lamp that attracted attention up and down Broadway and flags along the roof's edge that attracted attention in daytime, while giant paintings of animals between the upper windows drew attention from pedestrians.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} The roof was transformed to a strolling garden with a view of the city, where Barnum launched hot-air balloon rides daily.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} A changing series of live acts and curiosities were added to the exhibits of stuffed animals, including albinos, giants, little people, jugglers, magicians, exotic women, detailed models of cities and famous battles and a menagerie of animals.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

File:barnumad.png located on Ann Street in Manhattan]]

In 1842, Barnum introduced his first major hoax: a creature with the body of a monkey and the tail of a fish known as the "Feejee" mermaid. He leased it from fellow museum owner Moses Kimball of Boston who became his friend, confidant and collaborator.Schweitzer, Marlis. "Barnum's Last Laugh? General Tom Thumb's Wedding Cake in the Library of Congress." Performing Arts Resources 2011; 28.: 116. Associates Programs Source Plus. Web. December 8, 2012.{{cite journal | last1 = Stabile | first1 = Susan M. | year = 2010 | title = Still(Ed) Lives |journal=Early American Literature |volume = 45 | issue = 2| pages = 371–95 | doi=10.1353/eal.2010.0020| s2cid = 201754107 }} Barnum justified his hoaxes by calling them advertisements to draw attention to the museum. He said, "I don't believe in duping the public, but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them."{{harvnb|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|1995|p=47}}

He followed the mermaid act by exhibiting the four-year-old actor Charles Stratton, billed as the 11-year-old General Tom Thumb. Stratton was taught to imitate famous figures such as Hercules and Napoleon.

In 1843, Barnum hired the Native American dancer Do-Hum-Me, the first of many Natives that he would present. During 1844–45, he toured with General Tom Thumb in Europe and met Queen Victoria, who was amused{{cite web| url= http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/401800.html|title='We are not amused' – the meaning and origin of this phrase| first=Gary|last=Martin|website=Phrasefinder|date=December 11, 2023 }}{{Failed verification|date=May 2021}} but saddened by Stratton, and the event was a publicity coup. It opened the door to visits with royalty throughout Europe, including the tsar of Russia, and enabled Barnum to acquire many new attractions, including automatons and other mechanical marvels. During this time, he bought other museums, including artist Rembrandt Peale's Philadelphia Museum (the nation's first major museum),{{cite web| url= http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/peales-philadelphia-museum/ |title=Peale's Philadelphia Museum | publisher = Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia| website= philadelphiaencyclopedia.org}} and the Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts.{{cite book|title=The Golden Age of Baltimore Theater: A History from Shakespeare to Vaudeville|year=2024|first=Charles|last= Mitchell|isbn=9781467154482|publisher=The History Press}} By late 1846, Barnum's American Museum was drawing 400,000 visitors per year.

{{Main|Jenny Lind's tour of America}}

File:Jenny Lind New York Concert.jpg, New York, venue of Lind's first American concerts]]

Barnum became aware of the popularity of Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale", during his European tour with Tom Thumb when her career was at its height in Europe. Barnum, admittedly unmusical, had never heard Lind's voiceRogers, Francis. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/739200 "Jenny Lind"], The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 3 (July 1946), pp. 437–48 {{subscription required}} but he offered her the chance to sing in the US at $1,000 a night for 150 nights, with all expenses paid.{{harvnb|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|1995|p=92}}

Lind demanded the fee in advance, and Barnum agreed. She used the fee to raise a fund for charities, principally endowing schools for poor children in Sweden.Miller, Philip L. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051579 "Review: P. T. Barnum Presents Jenny Lind: The American Tour of the Swedish Nightingale"], American Music, Spring 1983, pp. 78–80 {{subscription required}} Barnum borrowed heavily on his mansion and his museum to raise the money to pay Lind. He was still short of funds, so he persuaded a Philadelphia minister that Lind would be a positive influence on American morals, and the minister lent him the final $6,000. The contract also afforded Lind the option of withdrawing from the tour after 60 or 100 performances, paying Barnum $50,000 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=50000|start_year=1850}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) if she did so.

Lind and her small company sailed to the US in September 1850. She was a celebrity before she arrived, following Barnum's months of preparations. Nearly 40,000 people greeted her at the docks and another 20,000 at her hotel, and merchandise was sold.{{harvnb|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|1995|p=99}} When Lind realized how much money she stood to earn from the tour, she insisted upon a new agreement, which Barnum signed on September 3, 1850. This paid Lind the original fee plus the remainder of each concert's profits after Barnum's $5,500 management fee. Lind was determined to accumulate as much money as possible for her charities.

File:Panorama of Humbug with Jenny Lind.jpg

The tour began with a concert at Castle Garden on September 11, 1850. It was a major success, recouping Barnum four times his investment. Washington Irving proclaimed, "She is enough to counterbalance, of herself, all the evil that the world is threatened with by the great convention of women. So God save Jenny Lind!" Tickets for some of her concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them at auction, and public enthusiasm was so strong that the press coined the term "Lind mania".Linkon, Sherry Lee. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/30227283 "Reading Lind Mania: Print Culture and the Construction of Eighteenth-Century Audiences"], Book History, Vol. 1 (1998), pp. 94–106 {{subscription required}} The blatant commercialism of Barnum's ticket auctions distressed Lind, and she persuaded him to reserve a substantial portion of tickets at reduced prices."Jenny Lind's Progress in America", The Observer, October 6, 1850, p. 3.

On the tour, Barnum's publicity always preceded Lind's arrival and generated enthusiasm, as he had as many as 26 journalists on his payroll.Hambrick, Keith S. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4232081 "P. T. Barnum Presents Jenny Lind – The American Tour of the Swedish Nightingale"], Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring, 1981), pp. 208–09 {{subscription required}} After New York, the company toured the East Coast with continued success and later traveled through the southern states and Cuba. By early 1851, Lind had become uncomfortable with Barnum's relentless marketing of the tour, and she invoked a contractual right to sever her ties with him. They parted amicably, and she continued the tour for nearly a year under her own management. Lind performed 93 concerts in the US for Barnum, earning her about $350,000, while Barnum netted at least $500,000, {{Inflation|US|500000|1851|fmt=eq}}."America", The Times, June 28, 1851, p. 5.

File:P. T. Barnum letter to Henry Ashley, 1882-06-28.jpg, on paper headed with Barnum's monogram. ]]

Barnum's next challenge was to change public attitudes about the theater, which was widely regarded as a salacious enterprise. He wanted theaters to become palaces of edification and delight as respectable middle-class entertainment. He built New York City's largest and most modern theater, naming it the Moral Lecture Room. Barnum hoped that this would avoid seedy connotations, attract a family crowd and win the approval of the city's moral crusaders. He started the nation's first theatrical matinées to encourage families and to lessen the fear of crime.

The theater opened with The Drunkard, a thinly disguised temperance lecture. Barnum had become a teetotaler after returning from Europe. He followed it with melodramas, farces and historical plays performed by highly regarded actors. He edited Shakespearean plays and other works such as Uncle Tom's Cabin to render them more palatable for family audiences.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

Barnum organized flower shows, beauty contests, dog shows and poultry contests, but the most popular were baby contests. In 1853 he started the pictorial weekly newspaper Illustrated News. He completed his autobiography one year later, which sold more than one million copies over the course of numerous revisions. Mark Twain loved the book, but the British Examiner thought it "trashy" and "offensive" and wrote that it inspired "nothing but sensations of disgust" and "sincere pity for the wretched man who compiled it."{{harvnb|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|1995|p=120}}

In the early 1850s, Barnum began investing to develop East Bridgeport, Connecticut. He extended substantial loans to the Jerome Clock Company to lure it to move to his new industrial area, but the company went bankrupt by 1856, taking Barnum's wealth with it. This began four years of litigation and public humiliation. Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed that Barnum's downfall showed "the gods visible again", and other critics celebrated Barnum's public dilemma. However, Tom Thumb offered his services, as he was touring on his own, and the two began another European tour. Barnum also started a lecture tour, mostly as a temperance speaker. By 1860, he emerged from debt and built a mansion that he called Lindencroft, and he resumed ownership of his museum.

File:Barnum and Commodore Nutt.jpg, photograph by Charles DeForest Fredricks]]

Barnum created America's first aquarium and expanded the wax figure section of his museum. His "Seven Grand Salons" demonstrated the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The collections expanded to four buildings, and he published a museum guidebook that claimed 850,000 "curiosities".{{harvnb|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|1995|p=138}} Late in 1860, Siamese twins Chang and Eng emerged from retirement and appeared at Barnum's museum for six weeks. Also in 1860, Barnum introduced Zip the Pinhead, a microcephalic black man who spoke a mysterious language created by Barnum. In 1862, Barnum discovered giantess Anna Swan and dwarf Commodore Nutt, a new Tom Thumb with whom Barnum visited President Abraham Lincoln at the White House. A year earlier, President Lincoln had visited on February 19, 1861, to which Barnum sent notice to the press for publicity.Dennett, Andrea Stulman. Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1997. https://doi.org/10.18574/9780814744215.

During the Civil War, Barnum's museum drew large audiences seeking diversion from the conflict. He added pro-Union exhibits, lectures and dramas, and he demonstrated commitment to the cause. He hired Pauline Cushman in 1864, an actress who had served as a spy for the Union, to lecture about her "thrilling adventures" behind Confederate lines. Barnum's Unionist sympathies incited a Confederate sympathizer to start a fire in 1864. Barnum's American Museum burned to the ground on July 13, 1865, from a fire of unknown origin. Barnum reestablished it at another location in New York City, but this was also destroyed by fire in March 1868. The loss was too great the second time, and Barnum retired from the museum business.

{{anchor|Barnum circus}}

{{Main|Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus}}

File:Winter Quarters of the Great Barnum-London Show.jpg]]

File:Barnum & Bailey 1902.jpg

Barnum did not enter the circus business until he was 60 years old. He established "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome" in Delavan, Wisconsin in 1870 with William Cameron Coup. It was a traveling circus, menagerie and museum of "freaks" that assumed various names: "P. T. Barnum's Travelling World's Fair, Great Roman Hippodrome and Greatest Show on Earth", and "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" after an 1881 merger with James Bailey and James L. Hutchinson, soon shortened to "Barnum & Bailey's". This was the first circus to display three rings.{{cite journal | last1 = Mosier | first1 = Jennifer L | year = 1999 | title = The Big Attraction: The Circus Elephant And American Culture | journal = Journal of American Culture | volume = 22 | issue = 2| page = 7 | doi=10.1111/j.1542-734x.1999.2202_7.x}}

The show's first primary attraction was Jumbo, an African elephant that Barnum purchased in 1882 from the London Zoo. The Barnum and Bailey Circus still contained acts similar to his Traveling Menagerie, including acrobats, freak shows and General Tom Thumb. Barnum persisted in growing the circus in spite of more fires, train disasters and other setbacks, and he was aided by circus professionals who ran the daily operations. He and Bailey parted ways in 1885, but they rejoined in 1888 with the "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth", later the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which toured the world.

Barnum was among the first circus owners to move his circus by train, a suggestion by Bailey and other business partners, and probably the first to own his own train. He became known as the "Shakespeare of Advertising" because of his innovative and impressive ideas.{{Citation|date=October 10, 2015|pages=103–113|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc.|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781119201908.ch8|isbn=978-1-119-20190-8|title = There's a Customer Born Every Minute|chapter = The Shakespeare of Advertising's Rules for Jumbo Success}} In this new business venture, Barnum leaned on the advice of Bailey and other business partners.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

{{more citations needed section|date=February 2021}}

File:Barnum Humbug.jpg (1851)]]

Barnum wrote several books, including Life of P. T. Barnum (1855), The Humbugs of the World (1865), Struggles and Triumphs (1869), Forest and Jungle, or, Thrilling Adventures in All Quarters of the Globe[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/24499#/summary Forest and jungle, or, Thrilling adventures in all quarters of the globe : An illustrated history of the animal kingdom, written in easy and instructive form for boys and girls. ] and The Art of Money-Getting (1880).[http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/ The Art of Money-Getting]

Barnum was often called the Prince of Humbugs and felt that entertainers and vendors perpetrating hoaxes (or "humbugs") in promotional material were justified if the public received value in return. However, he was contemptuous of those who accrued money through fraud, especially the spiritualist mediums popular in his day. He testified against noted "spirit photographer" William H. Mumler in his trial for fraud, and he exposed the tricks employed by mediums to cheat the bereaved. In The Humbugs of the World, Barnum offered $500 ({{Inflation|index=US|value=500|start_year=1865|fmt=eq}}) to any medium who could prove the power to communicate with the dead.

Barnum was significantly involved in politics. He mainly focused on race, slavery and sectionalism in the period preceding the American Civil War. He opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which supported slavery, and left the Democratic Party because it had endorsed slavery. Barnum joined the new anti-slavery Republican Party.

Barnum claimed that "politics were always distasteful to me", but he was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1865 as a Republican representing Fairfield.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofptbarnum00barn|title=The life of P. T. Barnum|last=Barnum|first=Phineas|year=1888|work=Ebook and Texts Archive – American Libraries|publisher=Buffalo, N.Y.: The Courier Company. p. 237}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0705.html|title=The Great Showman Dead|date=April 8, 1891|work=The New York Times|access-date=July 21, 2007|quote=Bridgeport, Connecticut, April 7, 1891. At 6:22 o'clock to-night the long sickness of P. T. Barnum came to an end by his quietly passing away at Marina, his residence in this city.}} He hired spies to acquire insider information on the New York and New Haven Railroad lines and exposed a secret that would raise fares by 20 percent.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}{{vague|date=May 2019}} He said during the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution: "A human soul, 'that God has created and Christ died for,' is not to be trifled with. It may tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab or a Hottentot—it is still an immortal spirit." He acknowledged that he had owned slaves when he lived in the South: "I whipped my slaves. I ought to have been whipped a thousand times for this myself. But then I was a Democrat—one of those nondescript Democrats, who are Northern men with Southern principles."{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G1M_nCbylxoC|title=The arts of deception: playing with fraud in the age of Barnum|last=Cook|first=James W.|date=2001|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-00591-4|oclc=876342914}}

Barnum was elected for the next four Connecticut legislature sessions and succeeded senator Orris S. Ferry. He was the legislative sponsor of an 1879 law that prohibited the use of "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception" and criminalized acting as an accessory to the use of contraception. This law remained in effect in Connecticut until it was overturned in 1965 by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Griswold v. Connecticut decision.{{cite web|url=http://federalbarcouncilquarterly.org/?p=396|title=P. T. Barnum, Justice Harlan, and Connecticut's Role in the Development of the Right to Privacy|date=December 13, 2014|publisher=Federal Bar Council Quarterly|access-date=May 9, 2018}}{{cite web|url=https://connecticuthistory.org/connecticut-and-the-comstock-law/|title=Connecticut and the Comstock Law|publisher=Connecticut History|access-date=May 9, 2018}}

Barnum campaigned for the U.S. Congress in 1867 and lost to his third cousin William Henry Barnum. In 1875, he served as mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut to improve the water supply, bring gas lighting to streets and enforce liquor and prostitution laws. He was instrumental in the inception of Bridgeport Hospital, founded in 1878, and was its first president.{{harvnb|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|Kunhardt|1995}}

File:P. T. Barnum Vanity Fair 16 November 1889.JPG, November 1888]]

Barnum enjoyed what he publicly dubbed "profitable philanthropy", saying: "If by improving and beautifying our city Bridgeport, Connecticut, and adding to the pleasure and prosperity of my neighbors, [and] I can do so at a profit, the incentive to 'good works' will be twice as strong as if it were otherwise."{{Cite book|title=Struggles and Triumphs; Or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum |author=Barnum, P. T. |year=1883 |publisher=Buffalo, N.Y.: The Courier Company |page=297}} He was appointed to the board of trustees of Tufts University prior to its founding. He extended several significant contributions to the school, including a gift of $50,000, {{Inflation|US|50000|1883|fmt=eq}}, in 1883 to establish a museum, later known as Barnum Museum of Natural History, and hall for the department of natural history.{{Cite web |first=Russell |last=Miller |title=Light on the Hill, Vol. 1 |url=http://dl.tufts.edu/catalog/tei/tufts:UA069.005.DO.00003/chapter/c4s2 |work=The Archives at Tufts University |publisher=Tufts University |date=July 16, 2008 |access-date=September 3, 2014 |archive-date=September 4, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140904000240/http://dl.tufts.edu/catalog/tei/tufts:UA069.005.DO.00003/chapter/c4s2 }} Tufts made Jumbo the Elephant the school's mascot. Tufts students are known as Jumbos.{{Cite web|title=Get to Know Tufts|url=http://www.tufts.edu/home/get_to_know_tufts/ |date=April 22, 2010}}

On November 8, 1829, Barnum married Charity Hallett,{{cite web|url=http://www.barnum.org/ntf00169.htm|first=Patrick W.|last=Barnum|publisher=Barnum Family Genealogy (official website)|title=A One-Name Study for the Barnum/Barnham Surname: Notes for Phineas Taylor Barnum / Charity Hallett|access-date=December 10, 2017|archive-date=December 11, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211053607/http://www.barnum.org/ntf00169.htm}} and they had four children: Caroline Cornelia (1833–1911), Helen Maria (1840–1915), Frances Irena (1842–1844) and Pauline Taylor (1846–1877).{{cite web|url= http://www.barnum.org/nti00491.htm|title= A One-Name Study for the BARNUM/BARNHAM Surname|publisher= Barnum.org|access-date= January 6, 2020|archive-date= February 20, 2020|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200220220309/http://www.barnum.org/nti00491.htm}} His wife died on November 19, 1873. In 1874, he married Nancy Fish, the daughter of his close friend John Fish and 40 years Barnum's junior.{{cite web|url=http://www.barnum.org/nti00015.htm|first=Patrick W.|last=Barnum|publisher=Barnum Family Genealogy (official website)|title=A One-Name Study for the Barnum/Barnham Surname: Notes for Nancy Fish|access-date=December 10, 2017|archive-date=December 11, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211053541/http://www.barnum.org/nti00015.htm}}

Barnum died from a stroke at home in 1891 at the age of 80. He is buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a cemetery that he designed.

Barnum built four mansions in Bridgeport, Connecticut: Iranistan, Lindencroft, Waldemere and Marina. Iranistan was the most notable, a Moorish Revival architecture designed by Leopold Eidlitz with domes, spires and lacy fretwork inspired by the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England. It was built in 1848 but it was destroyed by fire in 1857.[http://www.barnum-museum.org/core.htm Barnum Museum Core Exhibits] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070630081729/http://www.barnum-museum.org/core.htm |date=June 30, 2007 }} The Marina was demolished by the University of Bridgeport in 1964 in order to build a cafeteria.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

File:P. T. Barnum Monument (1887), Seaside Park, Bridgeport, CT - April 2016.JPG, Seaside Park, Bridgeport, Connecticut]]

File:Bridgeport obverse.jpg ]]

At his death, critics praised Barnum for his philanthropy and called him an icon of American spirit and ingenuity. He asked the Evening Sun to print his obituary just prior to his death so that he might read it. On April 7, 1891, Barnum asked about the box-office receipts for the day, and a few hours later, he died.

In 1893, a statue in Barnum's honor was erected by his former partners James Bailey, James A. Hutchinson and W. W. Cole at Seaside Park in Bridgeport.{{Cite news| title=Barnum Statue Unveiled |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1893/07/05/archives/barnum-statue-unveiled-bridgeports-people-pay-a-tribute-to-the.html |date=July 4, 1893 |work=The New York Times}}{{Cite book|author=George Curtis Waldo |title=History of Bridgeport and vicinity, Volume 1 |year=1917 |publisher=S. J. Clarke |pages=279–280 | url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofbridgep01wald#page/n337/mode/2up |isbn=978-1-144-35927-8 }} Barnum had donated the land for the park in 1865. His circus was sold to Ringling Brothers on July 8, 1907, for $400,000, {{Inflation|index=US|value=400000|start_year=1907|fmt=eq}}. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circuses ran separately until they merged in 1919, forming the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The United States Mint issued a commemorative coin in 1936 for Bridgeport's centennial celebration with Barnum's portrait for the obverse.{{cite news |last=Slater |first=Chuck |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/nyregion/a-coin-true-to-barnum-controversy-and-all.html |title=A Coin True to Barnum, Controversy and All |work=The New York Times |date=November 18, 2001}} Cartoonist Walt Kelly, a Bridgeport native, named a character in Barnum's honor in his Pogo comic strip. An ongoing{{cite web|url= https://barnumfestival.org|title=Welcome to the Barnum Festival|website=barnumfestival.org|access-date=September 1, 2024}} annual multi-week Barnum Festival has been held since 1949{{cite web | url= https://barnumfestival.org/history|title= History of the Barnum Festival}} in Bridgeport.Michael Knight, [https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/20/archives/barnum-festival-revels-in-hoopla-and-humbug.html "Barnum Festival Revels in Hoopla and Humbug"], The New York Times, June 20, 1975, p. 35. The Bethel Historical Society commissioned a life-sized sculpture to honor the 200th anniversary of his birth, created by local resident David Gesualdi and placed outside the public library.{{Cite news|last=Homayon |first=Marietta |url=http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Town-gets-grant-to-promote-Barnum-247169.php|title=Town gets grant to promote Barnum |work=The Danbury News-Times |date=July 8, 2004}} The statue was dedicated in September 2010.{{Cite news| author=FitzGerald, Eileen |url=http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Barnum-s-Ivy-Island-to-be-showcased-at-town-578735.php |title=Barnum's Ivy Island to be showcased at celebration |work=Danbury News Times |date=July 15, 2010}}

In 1883 Barnum cofounded, with Charles E. Tooker, the Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Steamboat Company, which continues to operate across Long Island Sound between Port Jefferson, New York and Bridgeport. The company owns and operates three vessels, one of which is named the M.V. PT Barnum.{{cite web |url=https://www.88844ferry.com/about-us/a-look-at-the-fleet/ |title=A Look at the Fleet |work=The Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Steamboat Company |access-date=April 18, 2021}}{{Cite journal|date=January 12, 1890|journal=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle|location=Brooklyn, New York|page=9, col. 5|url=http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83031151/1890-01-12/ed-1/seq-9/|issue=1890/01/12|title=SHOWMAN BARNUM'S BARN ATTACHED.|quote=Four mechanic's liens have been filed by workmen, of Port Jefferson, against P.T. Barnum, the showman, for labor and materials on the new barn put up last Fall on the farm of P.T. Barnum at Port Jefferson.}} The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport houses many of his oddities and curiosities.

• A Lady's Morals (1930) – played by Wallace Beery
• Jenny Lind (1932) – played by André Berley
• The Mighty Barnum (1934) – played again by Wallace Beery
• Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967) – played by Burl Ives
• Barnum! (1986) – played by Michael Crawford; a filmed version of the Broadway musical (see below), filmed in London
• Barnum (1986) – played by Burt Lancaster; made-for-TV movie
• P.T. Barnum (1999) – played by Beau Bridges; made-for-TV movie
• Gangs of New York (2002) – played by Roger Ashton-Griffiths
• The Greatest Showman (2017) – a pop musical loosely based around Barnum and his circus. Hugh Jackman plays Barnum and coproduced the film{{cite news |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/true-story-greatest-showman-how-accurate-are-characters-1063088 |title='The Greatest Showman': 8 of the Film's Stars and Their Real-Life Inspirations |first=Paulina |last=Cachero |date=December 20, 2017 |access-date=September 4, 2018 |work=The Hollywood Reporter}}{{cite magazine |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/12/greatest-showman-hugh-jackman-p-t-barnum-jenny-lind |title=The Greatest Showman: The True Story of P. T. Barnum and Jenny Lind |first=Betsy Golden |last=Kellem |date=December 22, 2017 |access-date=September 4, 2018 |magazine=Vanity Fair }}
• DC's Legends of Tomorrow (2018) – Billy Zane plays Barnum in season 3, episode 2 "Freakshow"
• I Didn't See You There (2022) – a disabled filmmaker from Barnum's hometown of Bethel meditates on the ableist legacy of the freak show

• Barnum (1980) – Broadway musical based on Barnum's life, starring Jim Dale
• The Greatest Showman (2026) – an upcoming stage musical based on the 2017 film

• The Great and Only Barnum; the Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum

• "U.S. Blues" – a song from the album From the Mars Hotel by the Grateful Dead
• "Killer Clowns" – a song from the EP Killer Clowns From Outer Space by The Dickies makes reference to P.T. Barnum and his associate James Anthony Bailey, as well as the often misattributed quote: "there's a sucker born every minute you know" ("There's one born every minute, don't you know?").

• The Life of P. T. Barnum: Written by Himself. Originally published New York: Redfield, 1855. Reprint: Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000. {{ISBN|0-252-06902-1}}.
• Struggles and Triumphs, or Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum. Originally published 1869. Reprint: Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2003. {{ISBN|0-7661-5556-0}} (Part 1) and {{ISBN|0-7661-5557-9}} (Part 2). {{Internet Archive|22589411.1719.emory.edu|1882 edition}}.
• Art of Money Getting, or, Golden Rules for Making Money. Originally published 1880. Reprint: Bedford, MA: Applewood, 1999. {{ISBN|1-55709-494-2}}.
• The Wild Beasts, Birds, and Reptiles of the World: The Story of Their Capture. Pub. 1888, R. S. Peale & Company, Chicago.
• Why I Am a Universalist. Originally published 1890. Reprint: Kessinger Pub Co. {{ISBN|1-4286-2657-3}}.

{{Div col|colwidth=20em}}

• Barnum effect
• Barnum's Aquarial Gardens, Boston, Massachusetts (1862–1863)
• Cardiff Giant
• Colonel Routh Goshen
• Carl Hagenbeck
• Forest King
• Human zoo
• Fedor Jeftichew
• Nellie Keeler
• Isaac W. Sprague
• Wild Men of Borneo
• Lucia Zarate
• Zip the Pinhead

{{Div col end}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• Adams, Bluford. E Pluribus Barnum: The Great Showman and the Making of U.S. Popular Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. {{ISBN|0-8166-2631-6}}.
• Alderson, William T., ed. Mermaids, Mummies, and Mastodons: The Emergence of the American Museum. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums for the Baltimore City Life Museums, 1992.
• Barnum, Patrick Warren. Barnum Genealogy: 650 Years of Family History. Boston: Higginson Book Co., 2006. {{ISBN|0-7404-5551-6}} (hardcover), {{ISBN|0-7404-5552-4}} (softcover), {{LCCN|2005903696}}
• Benton, Joel. The Life of Phineas T. Barnum, [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1576 Unique Story of a Marvellous Career: Life of Hon. Phineas T. Barnum by Benton].
• Betts, John Rickards. "P. T. Barnum and the Popularization of Natural History", Journal of the History of Ideas 20, no. 3 (1959): 353–368.
• Cook, James W. The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-674-00591-0}}. Relates Barnum's Fiji Mermaid and What Is It? exhibits to other popular arts of the nineteenth century, including magic shows and trompe-l'œil paintings.
• Harding, Les. Elephant Story: Jumbo and P. T. Barnum Under the Big Top. Jefferson, NC.: McFarland & Co., 2000. {{ISBN|0-7864-0632-1}}. (129 p.)
• Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. {{ISBN|0-226-31752-8}}.
• {{Cite book |last1=Kunhardt |first1=Philip B. Jr. |last2=Kunhardt |first2=Philip B. III |last3=Kunhardt |first3=Peter W. |title=P. T. Barnum: America's Greatest Showman |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-679-43574-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/barnumillustrate00kunh }}
• {{cite book |last=Lott |first=Eric |title=Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-19-507832-9 |pages=76–78 }}
• Reiss, Benjamin. The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum's America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-674-00636-4}}. Focuses on Barnum's exhibition of Joice Heth.
• Saxon, Arthur H. P. T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. {{ISBN|0-231-05687-7}}.
• Uchill, Ida Libert. Howdy, Sucker! What P. T. Barnum Did in Colorado. Denver: Pioneer Peddler Press, 2001. {{OCLC|47773817}}
• Jefferson, Margo. On Michael Jackson. New York: Pantheon, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-307-27765-7}}. Critique of Michael Jackson, including his obsession with P. T. Barnum and "Freaks."
• The Colossal P. T. Barnum Reader: Nothing Else Like It in the Universe. Ed. by James W. Cook. Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-252-07295-2}}.
• {{cite book |title=Barnum: An American Life |publisher= Simon & Schuster |year=2019 |isbn=978-1501118623 |first=Robert |last=Wilson}}
• Woolf, John. The Wonders: Lifting the Curtain on the Freak Show, Circus and Victorian Age (London: Michael O'Mara, 2019) {{ISBN|1782439935}}

{{external links|date=February 2019}}

{{Commons category}}

{{Wikiquote|P. T. Barnum}}

{{Wikisource author}}

Digital collections

• {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/p-t-barnum}}
• {{Gutenberg author |id=2816}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Phineas Taylor Barnum}}
• {{Librivox author |id=1855}}

Physical collections

• [http://www.barnum-museum.org/ The Barnum Museum]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150909210528/http://dl.tufts.edu/catalog/ead/tufts:UA069.001.DO.MS002 Phineas Taylor Barnum papers, 1818–1993]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070208200010/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/freed/Barnum/museumessay.html Barnum's American Museum]
• [http://www.lostmuseum.cuny.edu/home.html The Lost Museum] – A virtual reproduction of Barnum's American Museum; includes a collection of primary source materials

Biographical information

• [http://www.barnum.org/fam00169.htm P. T. Barnum's genealogy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180524211407/http://www.barnum.org/fam00169.htm |date=May 24, 2018 }} at the Barnum Family Genealogy website
• {{Find a Grave|56}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20051208054722/http://www.ringling.com/explore/history/ptbarnum_1.aspx P. T. Barnum at Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150913050348/http://dl.tufts.edu/catalog/tei/tufts:UA069.005.DO.00001/chapter/B00011 Entry on P. T. Barnum in the Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History]
• Full text of [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1576 The Life of Phineas T. Barnum] by Joel Benton, from Project Gutenberg

Scholarship and analysis

• [http://www.circusesandsideshows.com/owners/ptbarnum.html Barnum's circus affiliation]
• [https://ultrarunninghistory.com/p-t-barnum/ P.T. Barnum – Ultrarunning Promoter (1874)]
• [http://www.houseofdeception.com/Barnum's_Writing.html House of Deception] – An article about Barnum's handwriting & signature
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20041214085446/http://www.historybuff.com/library/refbarnum.html P. T. Barnum did not say "There's a sucker born every minute"]
• [http://www.ptbarnum.org P. T. Barnum, the Shakespeare of Advertising]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060215081501/http://www.bridgeportmath.org/bergh/index.html P. T. Barnum and Henry Bergh] Bergh was founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Other links

• [https://www.facebook.com/ptbarnum Facebook Page] Bethel Historical Society, P. T. Barnum Monument, "P. T. Barnum – The Lost Legend" Documentary.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20111026233445/http://historybuff.com/audio/barnum.mp3 An 1890 recording of Barnum's voice]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20111031011904/http://www.bridgeport.edu/welcome/locations/bridgeport.aspx Marina Mansion]
• [http://www.circus2circus.com Tribute to Ringling Bros.and Barnum & Bailey Circus by brothers Charles Elias Disney & Daniel H. Disney]
• {{IBDB name|424971}}

{{Barnum}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnum, P. T.}}

*

Category:1810 births

Category:1891 deaths

Category:American entertainment industry businesspeople

Category:19th-century American memoirists

Category:Burials at Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport

Category:Connecticut Democrats

Category:Connecticut Republicans

Category:Mayors of Bridgeport, Connecticut

Category:Members of the Connecticut House of Representatives

Category:Businesspeople from Bridgeport, Connecticut

Category:People from Fairfield, Connecticut

Category:Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

Category:Members of the Universalist Church of America

Category:Museum founders

Category:19th-century Christian universalists

Category:American circus owners

Category:American slave owners

Category:American abolitionists

Category:19th-century American businesspeople

Category:19th-century mayors of places in Connecticut

Category:19th-century members of the Connecticut General Assembly