Half-plate daguerreotype of PT Barnum and Tom Thumb, circa 1850. Wikimedia Commons.
Step right up and witness the 208-Year-Old Man! Unquestionably the most astonishing curiosity in all the world!
How else would P.T. Barnum promote today, July 5th—his 208th birthday?
After all, pitching a 208-year-old man wouldn’t be far off from his first claim to fame –Joice Heth, the supposed 161-year-old caretaker of George Washington.
It was 1835 when a young Barnum got a taste of his budding powers of publicity with Heth. She was completely blind, had no teeth, weighed under 50 pounds, and moved very little. Yet, she was very social around visitors and enjoyed recounting anecdotes of the young president-to-be and his family.
Heth was a hit. Both the public the press generally accepted the claim of her age. Although the truth didn’t necessarily matter – the prospect was fascinating and entertaining. In fact, when a newspaper printed a letter from a visitor claiming Heth was nothing more than a cleverly crafted automaton with a ventriloquist operator, her popularity grew. People had to see for themselves.
A post-mortem report eventually determined Heth was a mere 80 years old – though some refused to believe it.
Soon after, Barnum found even greater success with Tom Thumb. Barnum first met four-year-old Charles S. Stratton in 1842. He stood 25 inches tall at the time. Barnum bumped his age to 11 and molded the young boy into General Tom Thumb: singer, dancer, and all-around entertainer.
The two toured the world for years, performing in front of European royalty, and returned to America in 1847 as millionaires. Tom Thumb remains a household name 176 years later.
Newspaper ad for Barnum’s Fejee Mermaid, 1842.
The showman was also famous for the FeJee Mermaid phenomenon in the early 1840s. The unusual creature — which was simply a monkey’s head and torso fused to a fish’s tail — evoked much public debate over its authenticity.
In the mid-1860s, the sight to see was the Cardiff Giant – a 10-foot petrified man. A New York tobacconist named George Hull had the giant carved out of gypsum as a hoax to see if people would believe that giants once roamed the earth. The public bought it.
Capitalizing on the success of the hoax, Hull sold the giant to a Syracuse banker, David Hannum (who believed it was real). With its popularity soaring, Barnum offered $50,000 for the attraction. Hannum rejected the bid, so the impresario had his own Cardiff Giant carved and exhibited. Barnum claimed he’d purchased the authentic giant, and that Hannum was now displaying a fake.
When the banker read this news, he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” History has since erroneously attributed the quote to Barnum.
The Cardiff Giant, from “Struggles and Triumphs, or Forty Years’ Recollections of PT Barnum,” 1877.
Hannum later sued, but lost when Hull admitted the hoax, meaning Barnum had simply spoken the truth about his phony giant.
The original Cardiff Giant is still on display—at the Cooperstown Museum.
Over the years, Barnum also exhibited Chang and Eng Bunker, the original Siamese twins, numerous bearded ladies, giants, little people, armless wonders, fat people and other oddities and exotic peoples at his American Museum and New American Museum in lower Manhattan, and his traveling circuses.
In 1888, he merged his circus with a fellow named James Bailey. And the “Greatest Show on Earth” was born, just three years before his death in 1891. Ringling Bros. would eventually purchase the Barnum & Bailey show in 1907.
Sadly, that show came to a close in 2017 after 146 years of entertaining audiences. But other circuses and sideshows continue, keeping Barnum’s spirit alive and well.
NOTE: I wrote a version of this article in 2010 for AOL Weird News.
