P. T. Barnum

Biography

Born on July 5, 1810, in Bethel, Connecticut, P.T. Barnum became a successful promoter after moving to New York City. From 1841 to 1868, he ran the Barnum American Museum, which featured the "Feejee Mermaid," "General Tom Thumb" and other oddities. In 1871, he launched the traveling spectacle that would eventually become the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. After an illustrious career, Barnum died in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on April 7, 1891.

Childhood & Early Life
Phineas Taylor Barnum was born in Connecticut, United States to Philo Barnum, a store keeper and Irene Taylor. During his childhood he would attend the congregational church in Bethel and attend prayer meetings.
He served as a clerk for a brief period at the Universalist Church in Danbury, Connecticut and also gave speeches on Christian Universalism at Universalist gatherings.
Before moving to New York, he worked as a clerk in his father’s country store and ran a fruit and confectionary store.

Career
In 1829, he founded ‘The Herald of Freedom’, a weekly paper based in Danbury, Connecticut that reported the growing religious oppression and militant Calvinism.
His publications in ‘The Herald of Freedom’ were against the church, due to which many libel suits were filed against him. As a result, he was prosecuted and imprisoned for two months.
He moved to New York and began his career as a showman in 1835 and founded his first ‘variety group’, ‘Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater’.
In 1841, he bought the Scudder's American Museum at Broadway and Ann Street, New York City and renamed it to ‘Barnum's American Museum’, where he made his first fortune.
In 1842, he introduced the ‘Feejee mermaid’, a creature with the head of a monkey and a fish tail. He also exhibited Charles Stratton, a dwarf, who was known by the name of ‘General Tom Thumb’.
In 1843, he became the first showman to hire traditional Native American dancers called ‘Fu-Hum-Me’. These dancers always managed to amuse and attract a large audience.
From 1844 to 1845, he toured Europe along with ‘General Tom Thumb’. This tour acted as his vehicle of publicity and attracted attention from Queen Victoria and the Czar of Russia.

 In 1865, he was elected to the Connecticut legislature as a Republican candidate for Fairfield, where he served two terms.
In 1871, he established ‘P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome’ along with the William Cameron Coup. This was considered the largest circus in America at the time.
In 1875, he became the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut and served this position for a period of one year, during which time he worked to improve water supply and prostitution laws.
In 1881, he advertised for a show with the famous expression- ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’. This was the first circus to install three rings, which made it the largest circus in the world and the first one to be called the ‘three-ring circus’.