Prince of Humbug: A Life of P.T. Barnum

P.T. Barnum, the great showman, was also a great observer of the human condition, and he made many savvy observations thereof. "A fool is born every minute," he said. He was also known to say, "A fool and his money are soon separated." As an agile showman, Barnum became expert at separating fools from their funds, just as one current presidential candidate seems to developed expertise at separating folks from their senses. Barnum wasn't in politics, of course, but he'd undoubtedly see great entertainment in modern politics, if he were still with us, and he'd undoubtedly profit substantially from the foolery. But in his own time, Barnum essentially invented entertainment for the common man, with museums of bizarre and unusual items, like the "Feejee Mermaid" presented at Scudder's American Museum in New York, which he opened in January 1842. The "mermaid" was ultimately exposed as a rather expensive Japanese fake purchased by a Boston seaman in 1817 in Calcutta. But Barnum had also caged all kinds of wild animals from which to pull revenue--including Beluga whales captured in 1851 Canada, after Herman Melville published Moby Dick. The Connecticut native also made a great career for a little man, Tom Stratton, whom he met when Tom was but five, but looked much younger. Of course, Tom very soon became General Tom Thumb, who married Miss Lavinia Warren Bump, and with his wife and Barnum's help had quite a successful showman's life until he died at the age of 45 in 1883. Barnum also presented the world with the Chang and Eng, the sons of a wealthy Chinese family that lived in Thailand, who were joined at the chest by a 5.5 inch armlike ligament---and gave the world the term "Siamese twins." Barnum brought them to England, where he hired surgeons to consult about separating the twins. Although it was impossible---as the twins shared a liver and bloodstream---both men married, lived fruitful lives in Barnum's shows, and fathered and raised 21 children between them. P.T., in short, mastered the art of presenting the impossible, occasionally fraudulent, as possible. Latter-day politicians and presidential candidates, unfortunately, have made an art of presenting the impossible as possible far more often than Barnum---with as much showmanship, and much more fakery. Like Barnum said, a fool is born every minute. And in this book, kids can find out how the greatest showman of all time profited thereby.