Selects: PT Barnum: More Complicated Than You've Heard

When your life is as outsized as the World’s Greatest Showman PT Barnum it’s pretty easy to - you know - gloss over the grimmer aspects when you turn it into an uplifting musical movie. But the way to understand a person is to look at them, warts and all. Josh and Chuck take a full accounting in this classic episode. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bankguy. Capital One, N-A, Member FDIC. Hi, everybody. Chuck here with the greatest show on earth. Wrangling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, you say? No, Stuff You Should Know the Podcast. That's right, it's Saturday, and that means it's time for another Selects. And this one is from May 2018. P.T. Barnum, more complicated than you've heard.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  And I picked this one, you guys, for two reasons. One, because I believe in this episode, I predicted that Hugh Jackman would play the man in a movie one day. One of my two predictions, along with Jared from Subway being a creep. And the other reason I picked it out is because I finally saw the movie The Greatest Show on Earth recently with my daughter. And I didn't like it so much. I didn't think it was that good.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  So I'm sorry to anyone who had a part in that movie. My daughter loved it. My wife loved it. I just thought it was okay. But this episode is great, so I hope you enjoy. P.T. Barnum, more complicated than you've heard.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:38Josh Clark?

  Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. Hello, hello, hello, hello.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  Jerry's got a top hat on.

• 2:51Josh Clark?

  I know. I don't know why.

• 2:53Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 2:54Josh Clark?

  She's trying to be all Mr. Monopoly.

• 2:57Speaker 04

  Or P T Barnum.

• 3:00Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah, I forgot he wore a top hat, allegedly. Oh no, he did. I saw a picture of it.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, Hugh Grant certainly did. Hugh Grant, Hugh Jackman. Hugh Laurie, I think it's Hugh Laurie.

• 3:12Josh Clark?

  That's who it was, yeah. No, it's Clive Owen you're thinking of.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, Hugh Jackman, man. He wears that top hat like a champ.

• 3:19Josh Clark?

  He does. I don't know how much you went on the internet for this one, because this is a pretty comprehensive article.

• 3:27Speaker 04

  It actually was, yeah.

• 3:28Josh Clark?

  But The Greatest Showman really set the internet on fire, man. And a lot of like, it really brought out a lot of people saying like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 3:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:41Josh Clark?

  Whoa.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:43Josh Clark?

  This is the very definition of the word fantasy.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it seemed like that movie was, can be best described as a musical whitewashing.

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. In every sense of that word.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  So let's destroy it.

• 4:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, after reading this, I didn't think like, man, P T Barnum, what a complete a-hole.

• 4:08Josh Clark?

  No, he was, it's just a lot more complicated than that and did a lot of stuff that you just shouldn't just pass over because you can't figure out lyrics to, what rhymes with racism?

• 4:23Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, I mean, he was, he was definitely an enigma. And um, seems like he did some good, but also, uh, I mean, he was a hustler, man.

• 4:34Josh Clark?

  For sure. So this is what I didn't fully understand until researching this Chuck. He, he was, he's known as the greatest showman, right? But there were plenty of other showmen out there at the time.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:47Josh Clark?

  Which makes sense because you have to have something to compare, be compared to, to be the greatest, right? But I, I guess I had just assumed he was like the first or the originator. No, he was not the first showman. He was a great showman.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:02Josh Clark?

  What he really left his mark on was introducing America to pure, unadulterated hucksterism.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 5:11Josh Clark?

  And using it for marketing.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  Humbug.

• 5:14Josh Clark?

  That's what he called it. And he had, he had a lot of quotes. Some were, some were definitely something he said, like every crowd has a silver lining, which means you can shake it out of them and get some money from a bunch of people, right?

• 5:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:28Josh Clark?

  The one about a sucker born every minute, that's never been successfully attributed to him a hundred percent.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, and one thing is for sure, and uh, is that his autobiography is, I think if you order it, it comes with a salt lick. So you can just lick on that salt while you're reading it.

• 5:46Josh Clark?

  Right. I don't know what that means, but that seems like something that they would do.

• 5:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, he, he, uh, I, I think when the man is writing about himself, it's like, you know what? You may just wanna believe a third of this.

• 6:01Josh Clark?

  I would take it with a grain of salt, but so much so that you need an actual salt lick.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  I got it now, I got it. So, so there is one quote that I think kind of describes this guy best, or at least his philosophy. And it also kind of reveals like, you, you can't call him harmless, but also the, the intentions were not entirely evil, right?

• 6:23Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:24Josh Clark?

  He had a quote, it said that, um,

• 6:27Josh Clark?

  People don't mind being deceived so long as they're being amused at the same time.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Which is kinda true.

• 6:34Josh Clark?

  It does, and it largely lets them off the hook as far as being a huckster, right? But, the thing that the Greatest Showman really glossed over, just outright ignored, was that a lot of the amusements that he was presenting to the public were extraordinarily degrading to people at the time. They were super racist, there were just a lot of, there was just a lot of exploitation. He made his money not just by hustling Americans, but by exploiting other Americans too, right?

• 7:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:08Josh Clark?

  And, again, like, a lot of this is contextual. It's not necessarily fair for later generations to judge previous generations, although it's really fun to do.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:19Josh Clark?

  But, yes, you could say like, this guy was exploitative, even compared to like, his contemporaries, right?

• 7:27Speaker 04

  Perhaps.

• 7:28Josh Clark?

  So he is just this very complex character, who I think you and I can agree, was not an evil person. He just did some horrible things here or there.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  Should we go back in time?

• 7:39Josh Clark?

  Yes, let's.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Alright, let's go back to the beginning. Let's hop in the Wayback Machine, which is appropriately steampunky right now.

• 7:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  It takes many forms, I don't know if people realize that.

• 7:49Josh Clark?

  It has a clock without the glass, and you can see the parts inside, but it doesn't actually function, it's strictly for decoration.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  So let's go back to 1810, back to Bethel, Connecticut, where this man was born, Mr. Phineas Taylor Barnum. He had sort of a mixed family life. I mean, he was, they point out in this article, he was firmly American. His great-great-great-grandfather came over from England as an indentured servant in the 17th century. Eventually, became a landowner, but they didn't, it's not like they had a ton of money. His dad, Philo, great name.

• 8:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, all these are great names.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  Was, he was not super successful, so it was kind of up to young P.T. to make his own way in life.

• 8:43Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah, his father was a farmer, which introduced Phineas.

• 8:49Josh Clark?

  To the idea that he really hated like manual, mindless work.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  Now, he didn't like doing that farm work.

• 8:55Josh Clark?

  But that's not to say he didn't like work. He just liked very specific kinds of work where his energies were appropriately channeled.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Like bilking people out of money.

• 9:04Josh Clark?

  Sure, yeah. I mean, that was, that was kind of it. He liked, um, he was the definition of the word enterprising, right?

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 9:11Josh Clark?

  He could figure out a way, he could look at something, literally, look at something that you couldn't, you could almost not give away, you certainly couldn't sell, and turn it into pure profits. Like, like, he got into lotteries for a little while once, right?

• 9:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, he went, he went to work, he left the farm, went to work at a country store and realized quickly, like, just because you're in the country, doesn't mean there aren't like swindlers and cheaters out here.

• 9:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Speaker 04

  So he kind of learned some of the tricks of the trade there. His old man died when he was 15, uh, and he was kind of, his, his mom had, his mom had to get a job. But he was basically like, alright, it's kind of up to me now to provide for my family. So he moved, got that, another job as a store clerk, and as you said, got into lotteries.

• 9:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and he was early on pursuing a career at clerkship, which I guess is a thing.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:00Josh Clark?

  But, but yeah, so there's this, he saw easy money in lottery, so he set up one himself. Apparently, when he was working for these owners of the store, um, they were away at one point, and he got his eyes on some, um, tin kitchenware that just would not sell.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:18Josh Clark?

  So he took some other stuff that wouldn't sell at that store. These things weren't his, by the way.

• 10:23Speaker 04

  Right.

• 10:23Josh Clark?

  And he traded them for a bottle collection, which I guess was a thing that people wanted at the time.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:29Josh Clark?

  And he put those things up as prizes, right? And he started a lottery, and these were the prizes. And there were cash prizes, but he ended up selling like a thousand tickets or something like that in this little town store, um, based on these prizes and some cash prizes, saying like, half of all tickets were going to be winners. And you might win a bottle, or you might win like a tin muffin pan, but you could also win this cash. And so these things that had just been sitting on these shelves forever were suddenly turned into something valuable, thanks to his marketing expertise. And this is while he's still a teenager.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, we've covered this in something before, that lotteries were a thing back then, that someone could just cook up. You know, it's not like the lotteries we have today, like the sanctioned, uh, sanctioned ways of stealing people's money.

• 11:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  But back then, you could just cook up a lottery in a small town and be like, you know what, I've got, uh, it was almost like a Ponzi thing, like I can raise money.

• 11:26Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  Give away some of that money in prizes and then keep the rest.

• 11:30Josh Clark?

  Right. I think that was in our lotteries episode.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 11:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Okay, well, in order to do that, though, you have to be a, a natural born salesperson, which is what he was.

• 11:41Josh Clark?

  You really do, and, and like, lotteries would play like a theme throughout his early career, like, that's how he ended up making his initial, I don't know if fortunes is the right word, but that's how he, he staked himself and his family, was through lotteries and working in stores and then eventually owning stores, like general stores, grocery stores, that kind of thing. But the lotteries are where he made his money, and he actually figured out that you could make more money with less work than having to go to the trouble of setting up a lottery, like you said, anybody could just set up a lottery, um, by taking tickets from somebody else's lottery and selling them further out at an increased price. But then he figured out one more thing, Chuck, you didn't even have to go out and sell these

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  things yourself, you could hire other people to sell them even further out. All you had to do was give them the tickets and collect the money that they brought you. So he ended up making money by basically expanding other people's lotteries for a while.

• 12:39Speaker 04

  That's right, and in the middle of this, and he had moved to Brooklyn at this point, he was kind of, kind of hopping all over the place there in the Northeast, but, uh...

• 12:47Josh Clark?

  And, and to be fair, we're hopping kind of all over his early life right now.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure.

• 12:52Josh Clark?

  Chronologically.

• 12:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, so in this time period, he met, um, who would become his wife, a woman named Charity Hallett, who he described in his autobiography as a fair, rosy-cheeked, buxom girl with beautiful white teeth. Did I mention she had big boobs?

• 13:09Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  Was the second line.

• 13:11Josh Clark?

  But those teeth, man.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  Uh, so they would get married, and I think they had four daughters, um, but during all this time, he, he did, he had a little Josh Clark in him, because...

• 13:25Josh Clark?

  How do you mean?

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Well, he was writing letters to local papers that weren't getting published, so he said, you know what, I'm gonna start my own paper.

• 13:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  Very, he clarked himself a paper.

• 13:35Josh Clark?

  I'll see you all in hell, media.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, and much like yourself, you started your own paper, which was kinda cool.

• 13:43Josh Clark?

  Sure, I mean, like, if people won't print your crank ideas,

• 13:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:46Josh Clark?

  go start your own paper.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  It's like, if you wanna get your manifesto out there and...

• 13:51Josh Clark?

  Either, yeah, either become Unobomber-esque, which we don't recommend, or start your own paper.

• 13:56Speaker 04

  That's right, and his was called The Herald of Freedom.

• 13:59Josh Clark?

  Which is terrible.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  And this is where it gets a little weird, because he kinda went after people,

• 14:06Speaker 04

  was eventually hit with a libel suit and spent 60 days in jail. But that sold a lot of papers, and he was also hailed as a hero, because apparently he was legitimately exposing corruption.

• 14:17Josh Clark?

  Right. So to me, Chuck, that one really stood out, because it shows just how huge this guy's life story is.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:28Josh Clark?

  That even if you make a movie out of it, the best you can hope for is to pick like five or six or 10 different things and try to find a thread throughout them, right?

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 14:37Josh Clark?

  Whether that's an accurate portrayal or not, it can't possibly be, because this guy's life was just so enormous, and he did so many things, and he was such an outsized character, that a lot of times you either vilify him or glorify him, and it was much more a combination of both of those things. And I think that example really says it all. Like, he had his notions, and he started his own paper, and ended up going to jail, and subscription boosted, so he ended up making money from it. But at the same time, he was legitimately trying to call out corruption in this town that he cared about. So, his character was much more complex than you get from just about any source, unless you read biographies about him.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, agreed. So, finally, he says, or I'm sorry, Connecticut said, "No more lotteries in Connecticut." So he's like, "All right, what am I doing here even, if I can't do this little scam?"

• 15:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he's like, "I love this town, but not that much."

• 15:37Speaker 04

  So, in 1834, he left the paper, shut that down, moved his family to New York City, and, uh, should we take a break?

• 15:44Josh Clark?

  Perfect time.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  All right, we're in New York City, and we'll be back right after this.

• 16:00Speaker 05

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• 17:47Speaker 04

  I got a falafel. Is it good? It's pretty good. Was, is it from the halal guys? Uh huh, of course. Oh, man. Who else are you going to get a falafel from? That's good stuff. Yeah. So, man, this guy really, just reading through this thing, he did so many jobs.

• 18:06Josh Clark?

  Right, he was a factotum.

• 18:07Speaker 04

  Dozens and dozens of jobs through his lifetime.

• 18:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I'm glad he didn't just stick to clerking, right? Or even lottery. He had this thing, like, something about show business attracted this guy.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:22Josh Clark?

  I don't know what it was. Maybe nobody but him knows what it was. Maybe he doesn't even know what it was. But he was attracted to the idea of, like, wowing and amusing and amazing crowds. And he did that pretty early on. I think he was 25 when he got into exhibiting a human being who he purchased and owned for a while. Which, by the way, does not show up in The Greatest Showman.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  Right, and this is after, in New York, he started a boarding house for a while. And co-owned a grocery store for a while.

• 18:58Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  And so, like, his life is full of him just trying to do these kind of regular things. And then being like, nope, gotta go buy a lady and put her on display.

• 19:09Josh Clark?

  Right. And this was after Chuck, by the way, he had come down with smallpox for a while.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Oh, did we miss a smallpox?

• 19:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, this guy had a huge life. But let's get to Joyce Heth, right? Because she is a very controversial part of P T Barnum's life. She was the first, his first foray into show business. And there's no other way to put it. Like, he purchased her. She was a slave, an elderly slave, who he purchased from another promoter, who had been touting her as General George Washington's nursemaid.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:46Josh Clark?

  From when George Washington was a child. This is 1835, right?

• 19:50Speaker 04

  You do the math.

• 19:51Josh Clark?

  She was supposedly 161 years old.

• 19:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he negotiates a price. He went and saw her, and she was blind, she had no teeth, she was partially paralyzed. But she could talk and tell her story.

• 20:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, she told stories about young George as a boy.

• 20:10Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. And to be fair, she was already being exploited. It's not like... He, which is not great, but it's not like Barnum introduced this into her life.

• 20:21Josh Clark?

  No, he just purchased her and took it over.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 20:24Josh Clark?

  Took over the exploitation for money.

• 20:27Speaker 04

  For, for a thousand dollars and he toured with her until she died, not that long later, just like a year later, not even. In 1836, he made a lot of dough. And it was, it was sort of a watershed moment for him where I think he was like, wait a minute. I've realized that I can get people

• 20:49Speaker 04

  in a room by cooking up these stories and, and getting things in the newspaper and printing these posters.

• 20:58Speaker 04

  And even if like, if, if business was down, he would do these crazy things like one of them. When business was down appearing with Heath at one point, he accused her of being a robot, what they called at the time, an automaton.

• 21:13Josh Clark?

  In an anonymous letter to the editor in a newspaper.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, a robot made of whalebone, rubber and springs. So everyone was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not only is she George Washington's nursemaid, but she's really a robot.

• 21:26Josh Clark?

  Right. And what that did was it got the people who had been avoiding going to see her because even at the time, people were like, this is pure exploitation. This woman is being exhibited like a giraffe would be or something like that. She's an old lady, she's working her 10 to 12 hours a day. Some people think that he worked her to death, literally. And so there was part of the press that was saying, and reporting on this with, with great distaste. So there's a segment of American society who would not be caught dead seeing George Washington's 160 year old nursemaid.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:03Josh Clark?

  But they would conceivably go see an automaton if that's really what was going on. So he managed to, to dupe the, the very people who were critical of this exploitation that he was undertaking. He, he got everybody in that one.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, and it gets even worse. Finally, when she passed away, he actually sold tickets to a public autopsy.

• 22:26Josh Clark?

  In a saloon.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  So people could come look at this poor woman's insides. And this is where it was finally revealed. Doctor said. She's maybe like eighty, eighty-one years old at most.

• 22:39Josh Clark?

  Right, and this was, so, so Jane McGrath kind of walks past like what a controversy this was. Like, this guy had been like very much touting that she was the nursemaid. Like, he supposedly had the bill of sale to George Washington's father for her. So like, he was saying like, this is legitimately a hundred and sixty-year-old woman. So, in this autopsy that he charged for, when, when it was exposed that she was actually half that age, it was, there was a bit of disgrace there. And he had to learn to roll with the punches. And it was about this time that, that he basically said to himself, "You can, you can take this as a lesson and go on the straight and narrow, maybe get back into clerking."

• 23:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:25Josh Clark?

  "Or you can double, maybe triple and quadruple down on this and, and see where that goes." And he chose the latter of the two, for sure.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  That's right, he sure did. Uh, the next thing that he did, the next person that he kind of took under his wing, was, uh, his greasy, greasy wing, was someone called, uh, Signor?

• 23:48Josh Clark?

  Signor.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Signor, is that Signor?

• 23:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Why is it spelled that way?

• 23:53Josh Clark?

  Uh, that is the Italian spelling of Signor.

• 23:56Speaker 04

  Oh, well, let me turn it on then. Signor Antonio, Antonio.

• 24:00Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  Antonio, Antonio. I added an extra bit in there.

• 24:06Josh Clark?

  Signor Antonio is another way to say it.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  Well, sure. If you're a dullard.

• 24:13Josh Clark?

  I'm a bit of a dullard, Chuck, I think you know that after ten years.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  So this guy, uh, we're really milking that ten-year thing, huh?

• 24:21Josh Clark?

  I've got my S Y S K ten-year Army shirt on.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  I see that, it's very nice.

• 24:25Josh Clark?

  Thank you, I've been working on my buxomness.

• 24:28Speaker 04

  You were quite buxom. So, Signor Antonio was a balancer. He's one of these guys, like a plate spinner, walked on stilts, juggles. He could throw things in the air and catch them very fast.

• 24:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he's like a hippie.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. He would be on tour with, he'd had those little sticks, what are those called?

• 24:48Josh Clark?

  Devil sticks?

• 24:49Speaker 04

  Devil sticks.

• 24:50Josh Clark?

  Or a hacky sack, any of those things.

• 24:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, he'd pull a hacky sack out of his ear at any moment. So this guy, he said, "All right, you need to be my newest client. I will make you famous. Change your stage name from Signor Antonio to Signor Vivala."

• 25:07Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  Because that's a little more, I don't know, exciting.

• 25:10Josh Clark?

  I guess. I like Signor Antonio, yeah.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  I did too.

• 25:14Josh Clark?

  It's a lateral move.

• 25:16Speaker 04

  Uh, here's the thing though, is there were a lot of dudes out there spinning plates, so it wasn't like he was so unique. But Barnum thought, "You know what? I think you're better than the rest. So here's what I'll do." And again, this is just another example of how, how good he was at promotion. He said, "I'll do a free performance for a theater, and I'll even be your assistant onstage." And people came, and so the theater said, "All right, I guess if people come for free, they'll pay."

• 25:47Josh Clark?

  I think, I think what he was saying was he, yeah, I think that's exactly, I think you're right.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  He just wowed them enough, I think.

• 25:54Josh Clark?

  That's, that's the impression I have.

• 25:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:56Josh Clark?

  But even still, despite Vivala being genuinely good, he was, I think, head and shoulders above most of his contemporaries.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  Most plate spinners.

• 26:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think people saw in the press, "Oh, there's a really good plate spinner." We saw a plate spinner at, you know, at the office last week, so I'm not going to go anywhere to see another plate spinner. I'm certainly not going to pay.

• 26:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:18Josh Clark?

  So Barnum had a pretty good idea, but it actually came out of a uncomfortable situation that fell into his lap with Roberts, another plate spinner.

• 26:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, so this is a rival plate spinner who apparently would go to-

• 26:33Josh Clark?

  He was west coast.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was, he was a Crip. And he would go to Vivala's performances and heckle them, I guess.

• 26:42Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  You call that plate spinning?

• 26:44Josh Clark?

  Boo, terrible plate spinning.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  Stuff like that, and so P T Barnum cooked up a thing where he was like, alright, I'll offer 1,000 American dollars to anyone who can perform Vivala's act in public. Roberts accepted, but here's what really happened is he got together with Roberts, and they all three hatched a plan to do these kind of staged competitions.

• 27:08Josh Clark?

  Right, so they, they promoted it in the press-

• 27:11Speaker 04

  Plate spinning competitions.

• 27:12Josh Clark?

  East coast, west coast plate spinning rivalry is going on right now.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  It's a hot battle.

• 27:16Josh Clark?

  Everybody's gonna come see this, and everybody did. And in that first performance, Roberts, as was staged, conceded he could not replicate Vivala's act. It was too good, but I would love to see Vivala replicate my act, and I challenge you, Signor Vivala, to replicate my act tomorrow night at this same theater.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:39Josh Clark?

  And they kept going back and forth like that.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 27:42Josh Clark?

  With this staged rivalry that they, they, they made some cash off of, thanks to Barnum's ingenuity.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  They did. Finally, in 1836, the circus comes into the picture.

• 27:52Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Uh, he joined a traveling circus, Barnum did, as a ticket seller, which I take it to mean he doesn't sit in a booth and sell tickets, but he goes around town selling tickets.

• 28:02Josh Clark?

  He had like chambers of commerce or something like that.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, and of course he got a little, uh, commish off this thing, so he was making some dough.

• 28:10Josh Clark?

  Vivala joined that same circus as a performer.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  Of course, they were attached at the hip at that point.

• 28:16Josh Clark?

  No, that was Chang and Ang, bunker you're thinking of.

• 28:21Speaker 04

  That's a dad joke.

• 28:22Josh Clark?

  It totally was.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  And this one, I thought was a little bit weird. Apparently, the circus proprietor, a guy named Turner, was into practical jokes, and not very good ones, because this practical joke was, he convinced a crowd that Barnum was the Reverend Ephraim Avery, who had been acquitted of murder, but everyone thought that this guy had committed murder. And back then, no one knew what anyone looked like. So he said, "This guy is Ephraim Avery." And he almost got lynched, apparently.

• 28:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like Ephraim Avery's name was not very well-liked in the area. He was, at the very least, he, through having an adulterous affair with a young woman, had induced her to kill herself, or at worst, had murdered her to prevent her from having his illegitimate child.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:13Josh Clark?

  But he'd been acquitted, right? And he's a reverend, did we mention? So, yeah, the crowd, like, according to Barnum, almost killed him.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  That's a real funny joke.

• 29:22Josh Clark?

  I know. But then, later on, Jane says that Barnum got even with him with his own practical joke. I could find nothing, anywhere, including in Barnum's autobiography that mentions that.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  I think he covered his toilet in Saran Wrap.

• 29:39Josh Clark?

  Oh, gross. That is so nasty.

• 29:43Speaker 04

  Uh, no, no, he gave him an upper decker.

• 29:46Josh Clark?

  Gross. That's even worse.

• 29:49Speaker 04

  So, apparently, these guys got into business together, and it became a thing where people would go see the circus where the two ringmasters would kind of go at each other with these practical jokes.

• 30:01Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  That became a thing.

• 30:03Josh Clark?

  So, there's a transition going on, another transition now. He is, he started out store clerking, lotterying, went, got into show business, where he's like, basically a Colonel Tom to different performers.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:18Josh Clark?

  And then now he's transitioning into the circus. But by now, he's been like married to the road about as much as he's been married to charity as well. And from all accounts, like he was very much in love with her and they were like, he was faithful and they were, they were a real couple, but he was on the road a lot. There's just no ifs, ands, or buts about it. He was out there on the road quite a bit. So transitioning to a circus was basically the same thing. It was just a little bigger of an outfit. So it was like a step up. But you got to also keep in mind here that he's spending a lot of time on the road at a time when travel was really long and really tough.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  That's right. And so he eventually decides, working for someone else's circus is for the birds. I'm gonna start my own. Buy some horses and wagons. I'm gonna get a clown. You gotta have a clown. Uh, I think he still had vivalla at the time.

• 31:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  And started Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater. Uh, toured all over the place for a little while, and then they disbanded.

• 31:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  Nothing ever seemed to work out for very long.

• 31:25Josh Clark?

  No, I think that, um, he got fed up, it says, with some of the rivalries with other showmen. Um, that they, you know, you would build your whole circus around like an act and all of a sudden the act would be like, I'm, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of being on the road. I'll see you later. And all of a sudden, your circus would fall apart. I think they were kind of tenuous outfits, right? But he, he, the thing about Barnum was like, something about this called to him, like, he would, when his circus collapsed and he was out in the middle of the country on the road and he had to go back home, the first thing he would do is start figuring out his next circus or his next act or whatever it was. He would go back out again. He was indefatigable.

• 32:10Josh Clark?

  Indefatigable, in that sense.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah. So, I mean, we'll quickly speed through the next couple of years. He, he did a little steamboat circus for a little while along the Mississippi River. Um, that didn't come along. He tried to do a respectable business again. Uh, went into business with a guy who manufactured a grease.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  Paste and Cologne, that did alright for a little while, but then that failed. And then this whole time, he still feels that pull to the tent.

• 32:44Josh Clark?

  Right, he sold illustrated bibles for a little while.

• 32:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:48Josh Clark?

  Finally, here's the thing, he wanted stability, like, being out on the road was tough, ask Steve Perry, right?

• 32:58Josh Clark?

  But, he wanted this to be tied to show business in some way.

• 33:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:04Josh Clark?

  Finally, one day, and I think the 1841, he had another big break or another big vision. There is a, there is a place in New York, a museum, and what you would call today a museum, that was up for sale in, I'm not sure where it was, but it was in New York, right?

• 33:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 33:26Josh Clark?

  And it was called Scudder's American Museum, and Barnum heard that Scudder wanted to get out, and was putting the whole collection up for 15 grand, which is a substantial amount of money, and definitely more money than Barnum had, but he said, "That's it, right there. I can have a permanent place where people come to me, and I can be home with my wife and daughters, but I can still have this daily interaction with show business, I gotta buy that thing."

• 33:54Speaker 04

  Well, and, it will also accomplish this, is, I can still have my freak show performers, but because it's a museum, somehow, it has a little bit more respectability.

• 34:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 34:08Speaker 04

  Because apparently, at the time, theaters weren't like they are today. It wasn't like, "We're going to the theater." Theaters could be a little bit like a second-tier entertainment.

• 34:19Josh Clark?

  Right, it was like, hoi polloi, tawdry crowds went to the theater. That was associated with like burlesque or something like that, or even like, um, human oddities exhibition, stuff like that, that was theater stuff. A museum, like Scudder's, like respectable people could go there. So what Barnum did was he bought a museum and then dragged it down into the mud.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  Right, and this whole, the way he financed the museum, I didn't fully understand, to be honest.

• 34:47Josh Clark?

  Do you want me to explain it?

• 34:48Speaker 04

  Uh, if you want.

• 34:50Josh Clark?

  Or we could just say he ended up with the museum in 1841 through a lot of work and.

• 34:55Speaker 04

  I think that's that's fair enough because it is a little bit like, you know, Robin Peter to pay Paul.

• 35:00Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  It wasn't just a straight up purchase. Let's just say that.

• 35:03Josh Clark?

  Right. But so one thing that you can say about this museum was he renamed Barnum's American Museum. It was a big success and one of the reasons it was a big success was because he was, he tirelessly worked at finding new and interesting ways to market the thing, right?

• 35:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:24Josh Clark?

  And by, I'm not sure exactly when, but by a very short time after he opened it, I think that same year in 1841, he was, he charged 25 cents a person for admission. He had something like 4,000 visitors a day.

• 35:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:45Josh Clark?

  And he took this thing, like I say that he dragged the word museum down in the mud. He definitely added and expanded to the definition of museum. And then he also had this lecture hall where he had like performances that you would see like in a circus or something like that. And he turned this place into an emporium, just something huge, an enormous spectacle. And something like 850,000 pieces were on display in his museum. So you definitely got your quarter's worth for sure.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. And those are just the pieces. He also, I mean, as far as the circus element, he had everything covered. He had dancers, musicians, plate spinners, ventriloquists.

• 36:26Josh Clark?

  Well, you gotta have the plate spinners.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  He had little people. He had big people. He had ladies with beards and robots and puppets and animals. He had giraffes and grizzly bears. Like, he really had everything humming on all cylinders at this point.

• 36:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he really did. And again, there was still, there was that whole thread of like, you know, there are people being exploited. There were people who were complicit in that. There were people who were, anyone who came to the museum was.

• 37:00Josh Clark?

  Gawking at, you know, the weirdness of these other people or whatever, which again, today is very odd to us, but at the time was still odd. Like, that's the thing that I think gets lost on people. Like, there were sideshows and things like that, but Barnum took it to an extraordinary degree and really ran with it and became extremely rich as a result, actually.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Should we take a break?

• 37:26Josh Clark?

  I'm ready to.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  All right, the museum's humming along. We're gonna take a break. We'll be back right after this.

• 37:30Speaker 09

  If you wanna know, then you're in luck. Just listen up to Josh and Chuck. Stuff you should know.

• 37:43Speaker 10

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• 38:35Speaker 07

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• 38:46Speaker 06

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• 39:30Josh Clark?

  Okay, we're back.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we mentioned earlier about the humbug, this kind of hucksterism. In his biography there, or autobiography, which was rewritten by himself, by the way, after people read the first version and said, "What a jerk."

• 39:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, he was like just openly boastful and a braggart about how much he exploited people and how much he duped the American public.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  He toned it down a little bit in this, in the revision, but he, he did talk a little bit about being slightly embarrassed about kind of how shameless he was, but then again, in the next line, he would say, "But you know what? This is how everyone is in my business. I'm just better at it than them, basically."

• 40:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he said, um, he said, oh, there's a great quote, I can't find it anywhere though, where basically, if he, if he, oh, here it is, "If his advertising was, quote, 'more audacious than his competitors, it was not because I had less scruple than they, but more energy, far more ingenuity, and a better foundation for such promises."

• 40:36Speaker 04

  He thought a lot of himself.

• 40:37Josh Clark?

  He definitely did, but he also worked pretty hard at it, for sure, and I think if you, if you compared apples to apples at the time, Barnum's jam was way better than anybody else's jam.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. So, uh, he had three really big successes in a row with his, with his museum here. The first one was called The Fiji Mermaid, F-E-E-J-E-E, and this was in 1842, um, and this was a big, a big deal. He got a man named Levi Lyman, or Levy Lyman. He was an old colleague of his, and he said, "Here's what I'll do. You're gonna, you are now Dr. J. Griffin. You're a naturalist for the British Lyceum of Natural History," which was not a real place, "and..." You were the, you were in ownership of what we'll call the Fiji Mermaid,

• 41:30Speaker 04

  which was a, what did we call it in the taxidermy? Rogue taxidermy?

• 41:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  It was rogue taxidermy.

• 41:38Josh Clark?

  It totally was.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  It was like a jackalope, except, what was it? It was a head of a baboon, torso of an orangutan, and a fish tail, just for good measure.

• 41:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and as far back as they can tell, it was probably made by a Japanese sailor in the 1820s, and it passed through a few hands before Barnum finally leased it and put it on display.

• 42:00Speaker 04

  I wonder where that thing is now?

• 42:01Josh Clark?

  I looked, I, I don't know. There are other Fiji mermaids out there. There was, it was like, kind of a thread of rogue taxidermy in the mid 19th century, and I think Harvard has one on display. But I looked to find out where

• 42:14Speaker 04

  The original?

• 42:14Josh Clark?

  P T Barnum's is, and I can't find it.

• 42:17Speaker 04

  It's probably like on Richard Branson's headboard or something.

• 42:20Josh Clark?

  It may have actually burned up in one of the many fires that plagued P T Barnum's life.

• 42:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, things are gonna get fiery here in this last bit, too.

• 42:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, anyway, let's get back to the Fiji Mermaid, though.

• 42:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 42:33Josh Clark?

  Okay, so Dr. J. Griffin is touring, touring with this, supposedly touring with this mermaid, right?

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 42:41Josh Clark?

  And Barnum, but the guy's actually not out there touring. Barnum basically creates out a whole cloth, a tour of this mermaid, writes letters about how great this thing is, in different people's names, and then mails them to friends that live around the country, and asks them to mail those letters in to newspapers in New York, talking about how this thing has to be seen to be believed.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, so people came far and wide to see this piece of taxidermy.

• 43:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and by the way, this whole J. Griffin thing, like, this guy was posing as him. He was giving public lectures

• 43:19Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:19Josh Clark?

  made up as a naturalist, a British naturalist, and he was an American Promoter, he had nothing to do with it. He was just making all this stuff up, but he would give like, public lectures on it.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 43:32Josh Clark?

  Like, the audacity, it's amazing.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  Uh, so the second big victory was, uh, when he met up with a four-year-old named Charles Stratton. Uh, he was a little person.

• 43:42Josh Clark?

  His cousin, actually.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  And he stopped growing when he was two feet tall, and he changed his name, rebranded him as General Tom Thumb, and that name probably rings a bell. They became very famous together. Uh, he said he was 11 years old, and they were a, a media and ticket-selling sensation.

• 44:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they would be like invited in to meet, like royalty, whatever country they toured. Um, he was a huge hit at the museum. It was like a, a big deal for, um, both Barnum and, and Charles Stratton.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 44:16Josh Clark?

  They, a sensation, that's the best way to put it.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  And the final big victory of, of the trifecta, when he was in Europe with, um, with Stratton, he heard of Jenny Lind. She was a Swedish opera singer, and this was the kind of thing where he was like, you know what? She doesn't have a beard. She's, all she is is a talented singer, but she's amazing. And this would really legitimize me if I did like a straight-up act for a change.

• 44:44Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  So, even though she's big over here, they don't know about her in America, and she could blow up there. So I'm gonna offer her a thousand dollars per performance, which was a ton of money and a big risk, but, uh, he made about a half a million dollars with her, or more. He branded the Swedish Nightingale by trotting her around the United States, and, uh, she was like, beyond a sensation in the United States.

• 45:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was another thing too. I mean, like, she was pretty big in Europe, but I don't think she was well-known, if known at all, in America. But by the time she showed up for the, the tour starting in 1850, he had managed to, like you said, just turn her into a, a national sensation. Like, people had like, Beatle, Beatlemania for this lady.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:29Josh Clark?

  This article says that she was not a very nice person. I didn't see that anywhere else. And I actually saw that so after the contract between her and Barnum was up in 1851. She continued to tour America with like an actual orchestra, I believe. And she made $300,000 in 1850s money from this whole American tour. And donated every single penny of it to Sweden's public school system.

• 45:58Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 45:59Josh Clark?

  Which was burgeoning at the time, yeah. So I don't know what Jane was talking about, but I think she just kind of didn't find America very cultured is what I get. But apparently Jane didn't like that.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Well, America probably wasn't very cultured in 1850.

• 46:15Josh Clark?

  Right. But I thought that was pretty neat, man. She took all of that money and donated it to the public school system in Sweden.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  Man, that's crazy.

• 46:22Josh Clark?

  But yeah, so Barnum was not legitimized thanks to that. I think it actually didn't go all that well, but he did enrich himself thoroughly through Jenny Lind, for sure.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  That's right, but he would go broke again because he's P T Barnum. And that's what he does. In the 1850s, he bought up a lot of land near Bridgeport, Connecticut, because he wanted to make East Bridgeport the happening place. He invested in the Jerome Clock Company, wanted to relocate it to East Bridgeport. It was not a smart thing to do. The company went bankrupt and all of a sudden he was broke again. And this is fire number one. He moves out of his mansion because he's broke. And then when, after he had moved out, the mansion burned down.

• 47:07Josh Clark?

  Right, but if he had to move out, you would think that he had relinquished ownership. So why does it matter as far as his life goes?

• 47:15Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 47:17Josh Clark?

  Unless he had a bunch of money stuffed into the insulation or something.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 47:21Josh Clark?

  He had a breaking bad thing going on.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  It might have just been a footnote or something. Or he may, maybe he did, no, I guess if he had moved out, then he didn't own it.

• 47:30Josh Clark?

  It's I just thought that was a little weird.

• 47:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:32Josh Clark?

  So he um, he was in debt, like big time, like broke, bankrupt, in debt. Um, because of this terrible clock company thing, which you should always take as a uh, a reason to never put all of your eggs in one basket. Which I guess is what he did, but he managed to um, emerge from debt after, I think, five years. Um, and he ended up during this time, he pawned his museum. But he also put the name of the museum in his wife's name, who was not bankrupt. And so they were able to make some income off of the lease of for the museum.

• 48:13Josh Clark?

  And then when he managed to buy the museum back after five years, he just went like right back to it. Like, like, like he didn't miss a beat.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, this, this ten year period from eighteen fifty to eighteen sixty, he went broke. He, he did the smart thing, like you said, with his wife. He started giving lectures about making money. He went on tour again with uh, Tom Thumb. He got a dead whale, he bought a dead whale and said, surely people will pay money to see this. So he was still doing all this crazy stuff. Um, he bought a hippopotamus. He bought two beluga whales, like it's just crazy, the things that he was doing.

• 48:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, also Chuck, we have to say that the title of the lecture tour, The Art of Money Getting.

• 49:01Speaker 04

  It's not even the art of making money, the art of money getting.

• 49:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So um, so the uh, the uh, he's, his star's starting to rise again. At the very least, his fortunes are reversing from, from, you know, just doing any kind of work he can get his hands on. And then all along this way, like Barnum was a pretty, he was what's known as a Jacksonian Democrat. Jack's Andrew Jackson was a populist president and um, he was uh, I think, didn't we lay? He was the one who was responsible for the Trail of Tears, right? I'm pretty sure that was Andrew Jackson. It was, remember our two part on Trail of Tears?

• 49:43Speaker 04

  I do.

• 49:44Josh Clark?

  Okay, so he was, he was um, P T Barnum was of this man's party. He was a Jackson supporter. And then the Civil War breaks out and all of a sudden, um.

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  Barnum has this like total conversion. He was not like an outright bigoted racist who worked to keep African Americans enslaved, worked as a Confederate sympathizer, anything like that. He was fairly unremarkable and pretty normal. Like, for example, at his museum, if you were black, you couldn't come in. It was a segregated museum.

• 50:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:22Josh Clark?

  But that was like a lot of businesses at the time. So he was a very normal pedestrian person as far as his politics go and socially as well. But something happened around the time of the Civil War and he converted and actually became an abolitionist, huge Union supporter, and just basically became patriotic and dedicated this idea of preserving the Union and abolishing slavery.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, and he used that museum as a sort of ground zero for his cause. He had speeches, he had plays that sort of endorsed this. He had Southern copperheads that were protesting outside. They threatened his life. And then he said at this point, you know what? I might as well just get into politics legitimately. And in April of 1865, he actually won an election to the Connecticut General Assembly, where he worked really hard to ratify the 13th Amendment and supported another cause to allow the rights of black people to vote in Connecticut.

• 51:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so like he was legitimately dedicated to the cause of abolition, which is totally bizarre, right? And about this time too is when the revisions to his autobiography are starting to get much more contrite, much less boastful, and even more apologetic. So he, like he, something happened and he was converted to the right side of history, I guess you could call it, you know?

• 51:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, so here's where fire number two comes in. After, a few months after this election, his museum burned down, along with the animals in the exhibit, which is super sad.

• 52:02Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 52:02Speaker 04

  This is the first of like two animal fires. He opened a new museum a couple of months after that. Three years later, that museum burned down.

• 52:10Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:11Speaker 04

  Didn't want to rebuild that one. Uh, and then finally, in the 1870s, like, it took a long, long time before he became the P.T. Barnum that most people know as the big circus guy.

• 52:25Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 52:25Speaker 04

  The greatest show on earth guy.

• 52:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he, um, hooked up with Barnum and Bailey after hooking up with a guy named, uh, William Cameron Coop, or Coop, I'm not sure which one it is. Um, but he had P.T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Circus.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, a little wordy.

• 52:44Josh Clark?

  That was 1871, and then, um, did you cover the 1872 fire?

• 52:50Speaker 04

  No.

• 52:51Josh Clark?

  There was another fire that killed all the circus animals. At the winter, at the winter, um, uh, camp, which is on the site of where, uh, Madison Square Garden is right now, there was a horrific fire in the winter camp in 1872, killed a bunch of other circus animals, which this is, this is why, this is one of the reasons why, years later, um, Barnum and Bailey's Ringling Brothers Circus went away, was because of animals.

• 53:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, and he, I mean, he was a, by the time this, uh, fire happened, at the, what was it called, the Hippothetron?

• 53:28Josh Clark?

  I think so.

• 53:30Speaker 04

  He, uh, he was very successful with that cir- uh, circus. He started with, uh, Coop, or Coop. Uh, they made about 400 grand in the first year, and it was the very first circus to kind of do the traditional thing that we all think of, is travel by train, acrobats, clowns, exotic animals, stuff like that.

• 53:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  Uh, and that's when it officially was called the greatest show on earth. So, the Hippothetron, such a strange word, burns down, and then he's visiting his friend in England, uh, John Fish, and this is when his wife Charity passes away.

• 54:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 54:07Speaker 04

  And as Jane put it, "He was supposedly too grief-stricken to return for her funeral, but the grief must have subsided quickly, because he secretly married Fish's daughter. Uh, at 63 years old, he married 22-year-old Nancy Fish."

• 54:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 04

  About three and a half months later, after his wife passed.

• 54:24Josh Clark?

  No word about her teeth.

• 54:26Speaker 04

  No, no, or her bra size.

• 54:29Josh Clark?

  So they got married secretly 14 weeks after Charity died. And then, and when they came to the US, they had a public wedding nine months after that. So, um, yeah, he married her and I guess he was with her until his death, right?

• 54:47Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, in 1860, or I'm sorry, 75, he took a break from the circus, got back into politics and became the mayor of Bridgeport for a little while.

• 54:57Josh Clark?

  Not East Bridgeport, though. He was talking trash about them.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Bridgeport. And apparently, he gets a little on his high horse now, because even though he was a drinker, pretty heavy drinker for a while, he quit drinking and then campaigned against, um, like Sunday sales and saloons and kinda got a little self-righteous, it seems like.

• 55:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he also sponsored the Comstock Law in Connecticut, uh, which banned contraception, which, uh, puts a lot of onus on to the ladies. Um, and it was in place apparently until 1965. And there's a really important word in there, Chuck, sponsored. Like, that means you're the person who brought it to the, uh, General Assembly. Not, you didn't just vote yes on it.

• 55:44Speaker 04

  Right, sure.

• 55:45Josh Clark?

  Like, you're the one who said, "Everybody, everybody, let's ban contraception for 100 years."

• 55:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:50Josh Clark?

  And, and it was successful, actually. So, yeah, he was, he was a weird dude with a lot of different weird, um, thoughts about things and that were sometimes very contradictory over time.

• 56:02Speaker 04

  And then finally, ironically, here at the very end of this podcast, in 1880, he partnered with one, James A. Bailey, for P T Barnum's Great London Combined.

• 56:14Josh Clark?

  It's such a terrible name for a circus.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Worst circus name ever. Didn't even have the word circus in there. And, uh, this is when he got Jumbo the Elephant, which, uh, it was, Jumbo was a legendary attraction until 1885, when Jumbo was killed by a train.

• 56:32Josh Clark?

  And probably caught fire, too.

• 56:34Speaker 04

  And did you know, we were just in Boston, that Tufts University, their mascot is Jumbo the Elephant?

• 56:40Josh Clark?

  No, I didn't know that.

• 56:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, my buddy Robert explained that to me. And, um, apparently Barnum was one of the early, uh...

• 56:49Speaker 04

  What do you call the people who give universities a lot of money?

• 56:52Josh Clark?

  Endowment, donors, grant person.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Sure, he was all of that.

• 57:00Josh Clark?

  What is that word? I know what you're talking about.

• 57:01Speaker 04

  He was all that to Tufts, and so Jumbo the Elephant became their mascot. And I think, because it does say in here, he displayed Jumbo's preserved hide and skeleton. I think it was, or maybe is, on display at Tufts.

• 57:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow.

• 57:17Speaker 04

  I'm not sure if it still is, but I think at one time it was.

• 57:19Josh Clark?

  So, wait a minute, this guy also gave a substantial amount of money to help found a university?

• 57:25Speaker 04

  I don't know "found," but to the university.

• 57:27Josh Clark?

  That's a benefactor, is that the word?

• 57:29Speaker 04

  Benefactor, yeah, maybe to found it, I'm not sure of the timeline there.

• 57:31Josh Clark?

  Man, that's really crazy. He did a lot of stuff.

• 57:34Speaker 04

  So, go Jumbos.

• 57:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the fighting Jumbos, or the passive-aggressive Jumbos, or what?

• 57:40Speaker 04

  The stomping Jumbos.

• 57:42Josh Clark?

  There you go, that's pretty good.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  So, Barnum and Bailey weren't together for too long initially, they parted ways, but then again, joined in 1887, ultimately, finally, for the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

• 57:55Josh Clark?

  Yep, they broke up and then they got back together, and then it stayed that way until 2016, I think, and then the circus finally closed down.

• 58:03Speaker 04

  I went to that thing as a kid, I think we talked about that.

• 58:06Josh Clark?

  Sure, I did too.

• 58:08Speaker 04

  And now, we will only go to the Big Apple Circus, as you know. And I took a long break, because Emily and I were tired of going. And then, now that we got a kid, my mom was like, you know, you gotta start going again.

• 58:21Josh Clark?

  You have to.

• 58:22Speaker 04

  So, we went this year.

• 58:24Josh Clark?

  How was it?

• 58:25Speaker 04

  Oh, it's okay, you know? I'm not the biggest circus guy, I've realized.

• 58:30Josh Clark?

  Are you afraid of clowns?

• 58:31Speaker 04

  No, not these.

• 58:33Josh Clark?

  Are you afraid of acrobats?

• 58:34Speaker 04

  I could take these clowns. No, and actually, the acrobats at the Big Apple Circus are the, what's it called? It's the famous ones, the family.

• 58:44Josh Clark?

  Oh, the flying Zambonis?

• 58:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, or was it Zambonis? Not Zambonis.

• 58:50Josh Clark?

  I don't remember, it's something like that.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  But it's them, and still that family.

• 58:54Josh Clark?

  Wow, that's really, that's something.

• 58:55Speaker 04

  And they, you know, they did a great job, but at the end of the day, I'm just kinda, about a third of the way through, I'm looking at my watch, you know?

• 59:04Josh Clark?

  Oh, I gotcha. I've seen a couple Cirque du Soleil's. Those are the last circuses I saw.

• 59:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, those are okay, but-

• 59:10Josh Clark?

  We saw the Michael Jackson one in Las Vegas and, man, alive.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  Was it good?

• 59:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 59:14Speaker 04

  There's a Michael Jackson Cirque?

• 59:16Josh Clark?

  Yes, dude, and I have to tell you, like, I'm not some diehard Michael Jackson fan, but you don't have to be to appreciate this. It is amazing. Like, like, it's worth going to Vegas to go see.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  Who's not a Michael Jackson fan?

• 59:30Josh Clark?

  And turning around and going home. I don't know. There's probably a few. I'll bet we hear from some Michael Jackson, anti-Michael Jackson fans.

• 59:38Speaker 04

  Uh, finally, 1890, P.T. Barnum has a stroke during a performance. He has one weird, strange wish at the end of his life is to have his obituary published before he dies.

• 59:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 59:53Speaker 04

  I don't know why he did that. Maybe to-

• 59:55Josh Clark?

  I don't know either. I think, I don't know, but that's a heck of a way to end this podcast.

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  Maybe he wanted to feel the public outpouring or something.

• 1:00:04Josh Clark?

  Uh, it could be that, or he wanted to proofread it or something. I don't know. But if he wanted, if that was what he was after, why didn't they just, um, send it to him ahead of time? They actually published it.

• 1:00:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's weird.

• 1:00:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Well, we'll find out one day when we die and go to heaven and meet P.T. Barnum.

• 1:00:25Speaker 04

  Agreed.

• 1:00:27Josh Clark?

  So, uh, you got anything else?

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 1:00:30Josh Clark?

  There's probably tons more that we missed, and if you know something about P.T. Barnum that we didn't know, let us know. We'll just add to this guy's story over time, okay? Uh, in the meantime, if you wanna read this great article by Jay McGrath, type in P.T. Barnum in the search bar at HowStuffWorks, and since I said "search bar," it's time for listener mail.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  All right, I'm gonna call this, uh, Unabomber follow-up.

• 1:00:55Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 1:00:56Speaker 04

  I was into that one.

• 1:00:58Josh Clark?

  The Unabomber?

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was a good episode.

• 1:01:01Speaker 04

  I thought it was kinda cool.

• 1:01:01Josh Clark?

  That was a good 10th anniversary episode.

• 1:01:03Speaker 04

  Milk. Uh, hey, guys. Congratulations on 10 years. Milk, milk. I look forward to many more. I listened to Unabomber and thought I would share something that covers a related, if somewhat different, aspect of the story. About 10 years ago, when I was still a wee law student taking a legal ethics course, one of the situations we discussed was Ted Kaczynski and the ethical dilemma his lawyers faced. Criminal defendants have the absolute right to dictate certain aspects of their representation, like whether or not to plead guilty, but there are other aspects of the representation that the lawyer controls, the most notable being trial strategy. While lawyers should always listen to the client's overall goals, sometimes it's necessary

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  to override a client's wishes on how to achieve their goals because the client's desired strategy is either legally incorrect, unethical, or simply ill-advised. Kaczynski's case presented an interesting ethical problem for the attorneys because he refused to allow them to pursue what they perceived to be his best defense and his only hope of avoiding the death penalty, namely claiming he was not guilty by reason of mental disease known as the insanity defense. The conflict was that, on one hand, his attorneys had a duty to zealously represent him, but Kaczynski objected so vehemently to the chosen defense that at one point he attempted to go pro se, aka represent himself, which would have been an utter disaster.

• 1:02:28Speaker 04

  As you noted, he pled guilty, so we'll never know what they would have decided to do had he gone to trial, but his case is one which most lawyers have thought about or discussed at some point in their careers. That is good. Fordham Law, go Rams. And that is from Deb.

• 1:02:44Josh Clark?

  Thanks, Deb. Appreciate that. Yeah, I remember we were kinda saying, like, this whole thing was he didn't, he pled guilty because he didn't want to plead insane because his ramblings would have been the ramblings of a convicted insane madman.

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, very interesting.

• 1:03:00Josh Clark?

  Uh, again, thanks, Deb. We always love hearing from lawyers out there. That whole joke about lawyers at the bottom of the sea being a good start, we have always found it tasteless.

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:03:10Josh Clark?

  So get in touch with us. You can send us and Jerry an email to [email protected].

• 1:03:20Speaker 11

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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