Struggles amd Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P.T. Barnum

Knowing that a visit to my varied attractions and genuine curiosities was well worth to any one three times the amount asked as an entrance fee, I confess that I was not so scrupulous, as possibly I should have been, about the methods used to call public attention to my establishment. The one end aimed at was to make men and women think and talk and wonder, and, as a practical result, go to the Museum. This was my constant study and occupation.

It was the world’s way then, as it is now, to excite the community with flaming posters, promising almost everything for next to nothing. I confess that I took no pains to set my enterprising fellow-citizens a better example. I fell in with the world’s way; and if my “puffing” was more persistent, my advertising more audacious, my posters more glaring, my pictures more exaggerated, my flags more patriotic and my transparencies more brilliant than they would have been under the management of my neighbors, it was not because I had less scruple than they, but more energy, far more ingenuity, and a better foundation for such promises. In all this, if I cannot be justified, I at least find palliation in the fact that I presented a wilderness of wonderful, instructive and amusing realities of such evident and marked merit that I have yet to learn of a single instance where a visitor went away from the Museum complaining that he had been defrauded of his money. Surely this is an offset to any eccentricities to which I may have resorted to make my establishment widely known.

Very soon after introducing my extra exhibitions, I purchased for $200, a curiosity which had much merit and some absurdity. It was a model of Niagara Falls, in which the merit was that the proportions of the great cataract, the trees, rocks, and buildings in the vicinity were mathematically given, while the absurdity was in introducing “real water” to represent the falls. Yet the model served a purpose in making “a good line in the bill” – an end in view which was never neglected – and it helped to give the Museum notoriety. One day I was summoned to appear before the Board of Croton Water Commissioners, and was informed that as I paid only $25 per annum for water at the Museum, I must pay a large extra compensation for the supply for my Niagara Falls. I begged the board not to believe all that appeared in the papers, nor to interpret my show-bills too literally, and assured them that a single barrel of water, if my pump was in good order, would furnish my falls for a month.

It was even so, for the water flowed into a reservoir behind the scenes, and was forced back with a pump over the falls. On one occasion, Mr. Louis Gaylord Clark, the editor of the Knickerbocker, came to view my museum, and introduced himself to me. As I was quite anxious that my establishment should receive a first-rate notice at his hands, I took pains to show him everything of interest, except the Niagara Falls, which I feared would prejudice him against my entire show. But as we passed the room the pump was at work, warning me that the great cataract was in full operation, and Clark, to my dismay, insisted upon seeing it.

“Well, Barnum, I declare, this is quite a new idea; I never saw the like before.”

“No?” I faintly inquired, with something like reviving hope.

“No,” said Clark, “and I hope, with all my heart, I never shall again.”

But the Knickerbocker spoke kindly of me, and refrained from all allusions to “the Cataract of Niagara, with real water.” Some months after, Clark came in breathless one day, and asked me if I had the club with which Captain Cook was killed? As I had a lot of Indian war clubs in the collection of aboriginal curiosities, and owing Clark something on the old Niagara Falls account, I told him I had the veritable club with documents which placed its identity beyond question, and I showed him the warlike weapon.

“Poor Cook! poor Cook!” said Clark, musingly. “Well, Mr. Barnum,” he continued, with great gravity, at the same time extending his hand and giving mine a hearty shake, “I am really very much obliged to you for your kindness. I had an irrepressible desire to see the club that killed Captain Cook, and I felt quite confident you could accommodate me. I have been in half a dozen smaller museums, and as they all had it, I was sure a large establishment like yours would not be without it.”

A few weeks afterwards, I wrote to Clark that if he would come to my office I was anxious to consult him on a matter of great importance. He came, and I said:

“Now, I don’t want any of your nonsense, but I want your sober advice.”

He assured me that he would serve me in any way in his power, and I proceeded to tell him about a wonderful fish from the Nile, offered to me for exhibition at $100 a week, the owner of which was willing to forfeit $5,000, if, within six weeks, this fish did not pass through a transformation in which the tail would disappear and the fish would then have legs.

“Is it possible!” asked the astonished Clark.

I assured him that there was no doubt of it.

Thereupon he advised me to engage the wonder at any price; that it would startle the naturalists, wake up the whole scientific world, draw in the masses, and make $20,000 for the Museum. I told him that I thought well of the speculation, only I did not like the name of the fish.

“That makes no difference whatever,” said Clark; “what is the name of the fish?”

“Tadpole,” I replied with becoming gravity, “but it is vulgarly called ‘pollywog.’ ”

“Sold, by thunder!” exclaimed Clark, and he left.

A curiosity, which in an extraordinary degree served my ever-present object of extending the notoriety of the Museum was the so-called “Fejee Mermaid.” It has been supposed that this mermaid was manufactured by my order, but such is not the fact. I was known as a successful showman, and strange things of every sort were brought to me from all quarters for sale or exhibition. In the summer of 1842, Mr. Moses Kimball, of the Boston Museum, came to New York and showed me what purported to be a mermaid. He had bought it from a sailor whose father, a sea captain, had purchased it in Calcutta, in 1822, from some Japanese sailors. I may mention here that this identical preserved specimen was exhibited in London in 1822, as I fully verified in my visit to that city in 1858, for I found an advertisement of it in an old file of the London Times, and a friend gave me a copy of the Mirror, published by J. Limbird, 335 Strand, November 9, 1822, containing a cut of this same creature and two pages of letter-press describing it, together with an account of other mermaids said to have been captured in different parts of the world. The Mirror stated that this specimen was “the great source of attraction in the British metropolis, and three to four hundred people every day pay their shilling to see it.”

This was the curiosity which had fallen into Mr. Kimball’s hands. I requested my naturalist’s opinion of the genuineness of the animal and he said he could not conceive how it could have been manufactured, for he never saw a monkey with such peculiar teeth, arms, hands, etc., and he never saw a fish with such peculiar fins; but he did not believe in mermaids. Nevertheless, I concluded to hire this curiosity and to modify the general incredulity as to the possibility of the existence of mermaids, and to awaken curiosity to see and examine the specimen, I invoked the potent power of printer’s ink.

Since Japan has been opened to the outer world it has been discovered that certain “artists” in that country manufacture a great variety of fabulous animals, with an ingenuity and mechanical perfection well calculated to deceive. No doubt my mermaid was a specimen of this curious manufacture. I used it mainly to advertise the regular business of the Museum, and this effective indirect advertising is the only feature I can commend, in a special show of which, I confess, I am not proud. I might have published columns in the newspapers, presenting and praising the great collection of genuine specimens of natural history in my exhibition, and they would not have attracted nearly so much attention as did a few paragraphs about the mermaid which was only a small part of my show. Newspapers throughout the country copied the mermaid notices, for they were novel and caught the attention of readers. Thus was the fame of the Museum, as well as the mermaid, wafted from one end of the land to the other. I was careful to keep up the excitement, for I knew that every dollar sown in advertising would return in tens, and perhaps hundreds, in a future harvest, and after obtaining all the notoriety possible by advertising and by exhibiting the mermaid at the Museum, I sent the curiosity throughout the country, directing my agent to everywhere advertise it as “From Barnum’s Great American Museum, New York.” The effect was immediately felt; money flowed in rapidly and was readily expended in more advertising.

While I expended money liberally for attractions for the inside of my Museum, and bought or hired everything curious or rare which was offered or could be found, I was prodigal in my outlays to arrest or arouse public attention. When I became proprietor of the establishment, there were only the words: “American Museum,” to indicate the character of the concern; there was no bustle or activity about the place; no posters to announce what was to be seen; – the whole exterior was as dead as the skeletons and stuffed skins within. My experiences had taught me the advantages of advertising. I printed whole columns in the papers, setting forth the wonders of my establishment. Old “fogies” opened their eyes in amazement at a man who could expend hundreds of dollars in announcing a show of “stuffed monkey skins”; but these same old fogies paid their quarters, nevertheless, and when they saw the curiosities and novelties in the Museum halls, they, like all other visitors, were astonished as well as pleased, and went home and told their friends and neighbors and thus assisted in advertising my business.

For other and not less effective advertising, – flags and banners, began to adorn the exterior of the building. I kept a band of music on the front balcony and announced “Free Music for the Million.” People said, “Well, that Barnum is a liberal fellow to give us music for nothing,” and they flocked down to hear my outdoor free concerts. But I took pains to select and maintain the poorest band I could find – one whose discordant notes would drive the crowd into the Museum, out of earshot of my outside orchestra. Of course, the music was poor. When people expect to get “something for nothing” they are sure to be cheated, and generally deserve to be, and so, no doubt, some of my out-door patrons were sorely disappointed; but when they came inside and paid to be amused and instructed, I took care to see that they not only received the full worth of their money, but were more than satisfied. Powerful Drummond lights were placed at the top of the Museum, which, in the darkest night, threw a flood of light up and down Broadway, from the Battery to Niblo’s, that would enable one to read a newspaper in the street. These were the first Drummond lights ever seen in New York, and they made people talk, and so advertise my Museum.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ROAD TO RICHES

THE MOST POPULAR PLACE OF AMUSEMENT IN THE WORLD – THE MORAL DRAMA – REFORMING THE ABUSES OF THE STAGE – FAMOUS ACTORS AND ACTRESSES AT THE MUSEUM – ADDING TO THE SALOONS – AFTERNOON AND HOLIDAY PERFORMANCES – FOURTH OF JULY FLAGS – THE MUSEUM CONNECTED WITH ST. PAUL’S – VICTORY OVER THE VESTRYMEN – THE EGRESS – ST. PATRICK’S DAY IN THE MORNING – A WONDERFUL ANIMAL, THE “AIGRESS” – INPOURING OF MONEY – ZOOLOGICAL ERUPTION – THE CITY ASTOUNDED – BABY SHOWS, AND THEIR OBJECT – FLOWER, BIRD, DOG AND POULTRY SHOWS – GRAND FREE BUFFALO HUNT IN HOBOKEN – N. P. WILLIS – THE WOOLLY HORSE – WHERE HE CAME FROM – COLONEL BENTON BEATEN – PURPOSE OF THE EXHIBITION – AMERICAN INDIANS – P. T. BARNUM EXHIBITED – A CURIOUS SPINSTER – THE TOUCHING STORY OF CHARLOTTE TEMPLE – SERVICES IN THE LECTURE ROOM – A FINANCIAL VIEW OF THE MUSEUM – AN “AWFUL RICH MAN.”

THE American Museum was the ladder by which I rose to fortune. Whenever I cross Broadway at the head of Vesey Street, and see the Herald building and that gorgeous pile, the Park Bank, my mind’s eye recalls that less solid, more showy edifice which once occupied the site and was covered with pictures of all manner of beasts, birds and creeping things, and in which were treasures that brought treasures and notoriety and pleasant hours to me. The Jenny Lind enterprise was more audacious, more immediately remunerative, and I remember it with a pride which I do not attempt to conceal; but instinctively I often go back and live over again the old days of my struggles and triumphs in the American Museum.

The Museum was always open at sunrise, and this was so well known throughout the country that strangers coming to the city would often take a tour through my halls before going to breakfast or to their hotels. I do not believe there was ever a more truly popular place of amusement. I frequently compared the annual number of visitors with the number officially reported as visiting (free of charge), the British Museum in London, and my list was invariably the larger. Nor do I believe that any man or manager ever labored more industriously to please his patrons. I furnished the most attractive exhibitions which money could procure; I abolished all vulgarity and profanity from the stage, and I prided myself upon the fact that parents and children could attend the dramatic performances in the so-called Lecture Room, and not be shocked or offended by anything they might see or hear; I introduced the “Moral Drama,” producing such plays as “The Drunkard,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Moses in Egypt,” “Joseph and His Brethren,” and occasional spectacular melodramas produced with great care and at considerable outlay.

Mr. Sothern, who has since attained such wide-spread celebrity at home and abroad as a character actor, was a member of my dramatic company for one or two seasons. Mr. Barney Williams also began his theatrical career at the Museum, occupying, at first, quite a subordinate position, at a salary of ten dollars a week. During the past twelve or fifteen years, I presume his weekly receipts, when he has acted, have been nearly $3,000. The late Miss Mary Gannon also commenced at the Museum, and many more actors and actresses of celebrity have been, from time to time, engaged there. What was once the small Lecture Room was converted into a spacious and beautiful theatre, extending over the lots adjoining the Museum, and capable of holding about three thousand persons. The saloons were greatly multiplied and enlarged, and the “egress” having been made to work to perfection, on holidays I advertised Lecture Room performances every hour through the afternoon and evening, and consequently the actors and actresses were dressed for the stage as early as eleven o’clock in the morning, and did not resume their ordinary clothes till ten o’clock at night. In these busy days the meals for the company were brought in and served in the dressing-rooms and green-rooms, and the company always received extra pay.

Leaving nothing undone that would bring Barnum and his Museum before the public, I often engaged some exhibition, knowing that it would directly bring no extra dollars to the treasury, but hoping that it would incite a newspaper paragraph which would float through the columns of the American press and be copied, perhaps, abroad, and my hopes in this respect were often gratified.

I confess that I liked the Museum mainly for the opportunities it afforded for rapidly making money. Before I bought it, I weighed the matter well in my mind, and was convinced that I could present to the American public such a variety, quantity and quality of amusement, blended with instruction, “all for twenty-five cents, children half price,” that my attractions would be irresistible, and my fortune certain. I myself relished a higher grade of amusement, and I was a frequent attendant at the opera, first-class concerts, lectures, and the like; but I worked for the million, and I knew the only way to make a million from my patrons was to give them abundant and wholesome attractions for a small sum of money.

About the first of July, 1842, I began to make arrangements for extra novelties, additional performances, a large amount of extra advertising, and an outdoor display for the “Glorious Fourth.” Large particolored bills were ordered, transparencies were prepared, the free band of music was augmented by a trumpeter, and columns of advertisements, headed with large capitals, were written and put on file.

I wanted to run out a string of American flags across the street on that day, for I knew there would be thousands of people passing the Museum with leisure and pocket-money, and I felt confident that an unusual display of national flags would arrest their patriotic attention, and bring many of them within my walls. Unfortunately for my purpose, St. Paul’s Church stood directly opposite, and there was nothing to which I could attach my flag-rope, unless it might be one of the trees in the church-yard. I went to the vestrymen for permission to so attach my flag rope on the Fourth of July, and they were indignant at what they called my “insulting proposition”; such a concession would be “sacrilege.” I plied them with arguments, and appealed to their patriotism, but in vain.

Returning to the Museum I gave orders to have the string of flags made ready, with directions at daylight on the Fourth of July to attach one end of the rope to one of the third story windows of the Museum, and the other end to a tree in St. Paul’s churchyard. The great day arrived, and my orders were strictly followed. The flags attracted great attention, and before nine o’clock I have no doubt that hundreds of additional visitors were drawn by this display into the Museum. By half-past nine Broadway was thronged, and about that time two gentlemen in a high state of excitement rushed into my office, announcing themselves as injured and insulted vestrymen of St. Paul’s Church.

“Keep cool, gentlemen,” said I; “I guess it is all right.”

“Right!” indignantly exclaimed one of them, “do you think it is right to attach your Museum to our Church? We will show you what is ‘right’ and what is law, if we live till to-morrow; those flags must come down instantly.”

“Thank you,” I said, “but let us not be in a hurry. I will go out with you and look at them, and I guess we can make it all right.”

Going into the street I remarked: “Really, gentlemen, these flags look very beautiful; they do not injure your tree; I always stop my balcony music for your accommodation whenever you hold week-day services, and it is but fair that you should return the favor.”

“We could indict your ‘music,’ as you call it, as a nuisance, if we chose,” answered one vestryman, “and now I tell you that if these flags are not taken down in ten minutes, I will cut them down.”

His indignation was at the boiling point. The crowd in the street was dense, and the angry gesticulation of the vestryman attracted their attention. I saw there was no use in trying to parley with him or coax him, and so, assuming an angry air, I rolled up my sleeves, and exclaimed, in a loud tone, —

“Well, Mister, I should just like to see you dare to cut down the American flag on the Fourth of July; you must be a ‘Britisher’ to make such a threat as that; but I’ll show you a thousand pairs of Yankee hands in two minutes, if you dare to attempt to take down the stars and stripes on this great birth-day of American freedom!”

“What’s that John Bull a-saying,” asked a brawny fellow, placing himself in front of the irate vestryman; “Look here, old fellow,” he continued, “if you want to save a whole bone in your body, you had better slope, and never dare to talk again about hauling down the American flag in the city of New York.”

Throngs of excited, exasperated men crowded around, and the vestryman, seeing the effect of my ruse, smiled faintly and said, “Oh, of course it is all right,” and he and his companion quietly edged out of the crowd. The flags remained up all day and all night. The next morning I sought the vanquished vestrymen and obtained formal permission to make this use of the tree on following holidays, in consideration of my willingness to arrest the doleful strains of my discordant balcony band whenever services were held on week days in the church.

On that Fourth of July, at one o’clock, P. M., my Museum was so densely crowded that we could admit no more visitors, and we were compelled to stop the sale of tickets. I pushed through the throng until I reached the roof of the building, hoping to find room for a few more, but it was in vain. Looking down into the street it was a sad sight to see the thousands of people who stood ready with their money to enter the Museum, but who were actually turned away. It was exceedingly harrowing to my feelings. Rushing down stairs, I told my carpenter and his assistants to cut through the partition and floor in the rear and to put in a temporary flight of stairs so as to let out people by that egress into Ann Street. By three o’clock the egress was opened and a few people were passed down the new stairs, while a corresponding number came in at the front. But I lost a large amount of money that day by not having sufficiently estimated the value of my own advertising, and consequently not having provided for the thousands who had read my announcements and seen my outside show, and had taken the first leisure day to visit the Museum. I had learned one lesson, however, and that was to have the egress ready on future holidays.

Early in the following March, I received notice from some of the Irish population that they meant to visit me in great numbers on “St. Patrick’s day in the morning.” “All right,” said I to my carpenter, “get your egress ready for March 17”; and I added, to my assistant manager: “If there is much of a crowd, don’t let a single person pass out at the front, even if it were St. Patrick himself; put every man out through the egress in the rear.” The day came, and before noon we were caught in the same dilemma as we were on the Fourth of July; the Museum was jammed and the sale of tickets was stopped. I went to the egress and asked the sentinel how many hundreds had passed out?

“Hundreds,” he replied, “why only three persons have gone out by this way and they came back, saying that it was a mistake and begging to be let in again.”

“What does this mean?” I inquired; “surely thousands of people have been all over the Museum since they came in.”

“Certainly,” was the reply “but after they have gone from one saloon to another and have been on every floor, even to the roof, they come down and travel the same route over again.”

At this time I espied a tall Irish woman with two good-sized children whom I had happened to notice when they came in early in the morning.

“Step this way, madam,” said I politely, “you will never be able to get into the street by the front door without crushing these dear children. We have opened a large egress here and you can pass by these rear stairs into Ann Street and thus avoid all danger.”