") 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. 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. 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. The roof was transformed to a strolling garden with a view of the city, where Barnum launched
hot-air balloon rides daily. 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.
Fiji mermaid and Tom Thumb 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. 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." 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 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), and the
Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts. By late 1846, Barnum's American Museum was drawing 400,000 visitors per year. but he offered her the chance to sing in the US at $1,000 a night for 150 nights, with all expenses paid. 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. Barnum borrowed heavily on his mansion and his museum to raise the money to pay Lind. 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. The blatant commercialism of Barnum's ticket auctions distressed Lind, 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. 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.
Diversified activities '', 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. 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." 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. , 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". 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. 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. ==Circus==