Robert Wilson – Barnum: An American Life

Robert Wilson is a man. There is a man named Barnum. It is a life for our times, and the biography Barnum deserves, because it is the first full-dress biography in twenty years. The Wall Street Journal.

The world has never seen a showman like P.T. Barnum. Robert Wilson argues that he is one of the most important figures in American history.

P.T. Barnum’s name is still inspiring wonder 125 years later. Robert Wilson captures the full genius, infamy, and allure of the ebullient showman, who, from birth to death, repeatedly reinvented himself. He built a fortune that made him one of the first millionaires in the United States. He was 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 As an entertainer, Barnum courted controversy, yet he was also a man of strong convictions, guided in his work not by a desire to deceive, but an eagerness to thrill and bring joy to his audiences. He almost certainly never uttered the famous line, There’s a sucker born every minute, instead taking pride in giving crowds their money’s worth and more.

Robert Wilson is an editor. The American Scholar is a scholar. The story is gripping. There is a man named Barnum. It has the same spirit as the man himself. This is an engaging, insightful, and richly researched new biography. The New York Journal of Books. Wilson makes the case for P.T. Barnum to be included among the icons of American history as a figure who represented and created a distinctly American sense of optimism.

Mr. Wilson’s book shows how one complicated, contradictory, morally ambiguous man struggled to improve himself while being single-mindedly determined to give delight to millions. The biography Barnum deserves is a life for our times. The Wall Street Journal.

The book’s message is clear: Barnum was a self-made man in the American grain. The New York Times Book Review.

The public was willing to be tricked if there was enough entertainment to be had in the process. Wilson’s book is relevant because of the theory of Barnum’s genius. The New Yorker.

Wilson makes a convincing case that the legendary showman’s many faults should be considered in tandem with his accomplishments, which changed the course of American entertainment forever. Wilson’s book is a thoughtful biography of a fascinating public figure. Newsday.

Wilson’s biography is a brisk, laudatory biography. The Star-Tribune is in Minneapolis.

Robert Wilson, editor of American Scholar, has written an engaging, insightful, and richly researched new biography of Barnum. The New York Journal of Books.

Barnum was a complex public figure, a character begging for deep examination, and Wilson presents a true timeline of Barnum as a thinker, a believer, a businessman, and a family man. With Wilson at the wheel, a road trip through well-trod history becomes a truly remarkable ride, as we see his opinions change, he learns from his mistakes, and he experience victory and defeat over and over. The book review in Seattle.

The pages of this thoughtful, deeply researched and revealing book contain an impressive biography of the notorious nineteenth-century showman. An American Life often reads like a cautionary tale for our times. The Chicago Review of Books.

A well-written biography of the great showman. Robert Wilson has a lot of research to do. This work is estimable. A.H. Saxon is the author of P. T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man.

Robert Wilson’s biography gives readers the real Phineas Taylor Barnum, giving them brilliantly presented facts that far surpass anything previously imagined about his colorful, controversial subject. Jeff Guinn is the author of Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson. Read less. About the author.

Get it immediately. Robert Wilson wrote Barnum: An American Life.

Robert Wilson has edited several books, including Preservation, Civilization, and The American Scholar. He was on staff at USA Today and The Washington Post. He is the author of biographies of Mathew Brady, Clarence King, and P.T. Barnum. It’s not like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it Permission is granted for this excerpt. All rights belong to the person.

There is a man named Barnum. This is the introduction. Do you know Barber?

I should say that Barnum is a representative man. As Washington represented their resistance to oppression in the century preceding, he represents the enterprise and energy of his countrymen.

Across the Atlantic was written by John Delaware Lewis.

The man who would become America’s greatest showman received a visit from a museum owner in Boston who needed his help. He went to the office of P. T. Barnum in New York City with a box that he claimed contained the remains of a mythical creature. When the object was unwrapped, it looked like the head and torso of a monkey was part of a large fish. There was a story to go with this desiccated corpse, but he had no idea what to do with it. Several acts and exhibitions were collaborated on by the two establishments. The American Museum was an old museum on lower Broadway that was recently acquired and dedicated to natural history, art and artifacts. The growing renown of the new museum, along with Barnum’s already established reputation as an impresario with a knack for publicity, made him a logical person for Kimball to go to for advice.

The grotesque specimen was different from the beautiful mythological beings that people had imagined for centuries. He offered to give the object to the public. He created a bold strategy to get people interested in the creature after giving it a name.

Barnum had a plan to get free publicity from the press. He sent letters to friends in cities in the South, telling them a story about a British scientist who had acquired a mythical creature in the Fiji Islands and was going to put it on display in London. Every few days a friend from a different southern city would mail one of Barnum’s letters, which were written as news reports of local events, to a different New York newspaper. While he was whetting the appetite of the press, Barnum had posters made of beautiful, bare-breasted mermaids with long blond Curls, implying that this was what the Fejee Mermaid had once looked like. By the time he reached New York, the press was in a frenzy, and Barnum gave three different newspapers an unsigned report that he had written defending the existence of mermaids. It was only when all three newspapers published the same story on the same day that they realized they had been deceived. The editors did not show it by withholding coverage. The new exhibit would mean new ads in the newspapers every day.

Most people who came to see the Fejee Mermaid and hear the ersatz naturalist talk about it were not taken in. Even if they doubted that the specimen had ever been the lovely, storied creature in the posters, it was still worth seeing and judging for themselves. The showman kept going despite the skepticism of his patrons. He kept the customers coming with a constant stream of ads warning that the display would soon be leaving for London. The flow of visitors slowed and he sent the Fejee Mermaid out on the road. When he first saw the specimen, his plan had come to him in an instant.

Even though he was not proud of the exhibit, he could not resist the success of his publicity scheme. Even as a young man he had a constant sense of what the public wanted, yet he could be brazenly manipulated and unafraid of controversy. He was successful as a showman, but it was possible for him to push too far. He put on tour an elderly slave woman who claimed to be the 161-year-old former nursemaid to George Washington, and the newspapers and other guardians of public virtue howled, condemning him for exploiting her. At times, he was criticized less for his actions than for his attitude. When he published the first version of his autobiography in 1855, some reviewers were not impressed by his original sins but by his pride in admitting to them. He was often seen as a man who would do anything for a buck, and by the time he was middle-aged, the quip Where’s Barnum? was applied to any novelty, discovery, or invention of the day, under the assumption that he would soon show up to

Get it immediately. Robert Wilson wrote Barnum: An American Life.

Barnum’s early career mistakes would damage his reputation for the rest of his life. After his death in 1891, his image in the public mind was changed to say, There’s a sucker born every minute. He was no better than a huckster who used fast talk to trick people out of their money and give them nothing in return. Even to this day, these words serve as shorthand for Barnum’s philosophy as a showman, but no evidence exists that he ever spoke or wrote them. They completely misrepresented the man as he really was.

The life of Barnum is more consequential than his reputation suggests. He changed both himself and the business over the decades, earning the respect of Americans of every station, even though he began his career in a business that was often considered less than respectable. The title of a later version of his autobiography says that people knew all about his early stumbles and successes because he had so determinedly placed himself in the public eye. He didn’t hesitate to show his flaws, but he would also reveal in time that he was a man who was steered by his ideals, becoming a better person. Barnum embodied many of the best aspects of the American character, as he became a steady, civic-minded, fun-loving man who cultivated a close relationship with his audience. He won over the public with his unflagging energy, good humor, patriotic zeal for the Union side in the Civil War, and his commitment to charitable causes.

His connection to the circus is what he is known for today, but it was only in the last quarter of his life. Jenny Lind, who created a sensation in America in the early 1850s, was one of his many acts and traveling shows. He was a best-selling author, an inspiring lecturer on temperance, a real-estate developer, a builder, a state legislator, and the mayor of the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was a candidate for Congress, but lost to his cousin. He was a promoter and self-promoter without peer, a relentless advertiser and an imaginative conjurer of events and exhibits to draw the interest of potential patrons.

Barnum worked to change the image of public entertainment in America. In the middle of his career, the American Museum included a lecture room where both dramas and melodramas were presented. Theaters weren’t considered morally or physically safe for children and families at the time. Prostitutes often plied their trade in the balconies, and sober people were hard to find in the orchestra seats. The museum and the lecture room were free of drunkenness, improper behavior, and anything else that could cause offense to people who might otherwise keep them away. The moral quality of his dramas and the safety of his exhibit spaces were emphasized by him. He and James A. Bailey brought this commitment to the rough-and-tumble world of the traveling circus, presenting entertainment that even Barnum’s many preacher friends could defend, in a setting that was appropriate for families and children.

He was respected and admired across the globe by the end of his life. When the Barnum & Bailey Circus traveled through the American heartland in the late 19th century, it was Barnum who would often go out to meet the show in order to increase attendance. Special trains were put on to carry the circus-goers from the rural areas to the cities. The reason for these excursions was to see the showman more than the show. He was close to a global celebrity at the time. The great general made a two-year tour of the world after his second term as president. Grant replied that he was not the best known American living after Barnum said to him, General, I think you are the best known American living. The constant inquiry was, Do you know Barnum?

During his decades as a showman, Barney developed a relationship with his audience that was central to his success. The single word most associated with Barnum in his lifetime was humbug. In his 1865 book, The Humbugs of the World, he wrote that the definition of deceive is to impose on. Today’s definitions include the words hoax, fraud, impostor, nonsense, and trick. He said that the book was written to save the rising generation from being bamboozled by the unscrupulous, whether in religion, business, politics, medicine, or science. Not all forms of humbug were bad for Barnum. He claimed that the definition of humbug was focused on this benign variety, which he defined as novel expedients, by which to suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear. In other words, what he did. The crux of the matter was that a person who attracted patrons in this way but then fails to give them a full equivalent for their money would not get a second chance from customers.

humbuggery was a harmless way to get people in the door, but it depended on how satisfied they were once inside. I don’t believe in duping the public, but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them. For a long time, he only charged a quarter for children to visit his museum, and 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 800-313-5780 The exhibit featured the giants and little people of both sexes, the bearded ladies, fat children, and stick-like men, as well as the American Indians, Chinese princesses, and Siamese twins. They would be exposed to what he said was a million objects inside his museum. When public education, photography, the telegraph, the railroad, and the newspaper were all making the world a smaller and more knowable place, people flocked to Barnum’s museum, and when he took displays to other cities, he rarely failed to draw big crowds.

As a businessman, Barnum never apologized for making a lot of money, but he did believe that his museum gave his patrons the chance to learn. He came to believe that if a little trick was needed to get people to see the serious exhibits, then they should be doing it. He would often hint at the dubiousness of his latest sensation, even promoting his skeptics’ views, and then challenge his audience to judge for themselves. If people were moved to go back for a second look, paying a second quarter, it would be good for business, but it would also recognize the need for his customers to exercise their own critical skills. He winked at them so they could be part of the fun. They would say Good old Barnum when they realized what they were seeing. He made them feel excited about their growing understanding of the world beyond the rural homestead, the isolated village, or the crowded urban neighborhood.

The democratization of the United States and Europe took place in the 19th century, as the old monarchical and aristocratic structures came tumbling down. The period’s great narrative of breaking social boundaries was embodied by Barnum, who was born ten years into the century and died nine years before its end. Europeans saw him as a representative of the American character and Americans saw him as an example of what it meant to be one of them. He was born into a family that was 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 Through hard work, a lot of brass, and a genius for exploiting the new technologies related to communication and transportation, he became world famous and wealthy beyond his dreams. He was able to do it all by appealing to popular tastes and interests. He understood what ordinary Americans wanted, as they sought forms of entertainment beyond staring into the fire of an evening or listening to readings from the Bible after the family supper.

We live in an ahistorical age, one that is quick to condemn historical figures using the standards of the present. We dismiss them for their worst qualities even if they are counterbalanced by their best qualities. Today, Barnum is often compared to politicians who lie shamelessly to the public, to deceptive advertisers, or to sleight-of-hand businessmen. This does not tell the full story of who he was. America had some of its worst impulses, but also many of its best. He came to represent a lot of what was most admirable about his young country, and he did so with a sense of humor and a joy in living that is rare in today’s public figures. He led a life characterized by both struggles and successes. His life is worth celebrating.