In recent blogs we’ve gotten to know a couple of the “personalities” in Barnum’s letters, Fordyce Hitchcock and Emile Guillaudeu. And by now “Monsieur Pinte” is also a name familiar to readers of this series.

Advertisements for Barnum’s American Museum always trumpet the many thousands of “curiosities” that visitors could see once they had paid to enter, like a new world laid before them. 

Greetings, everyone! Here in Connecticut we are feeling a hint of Fall in the air, closing out an unusually hot summer. 

One of the many “beauties” of P. T. Barnum’s copybook letters from 1845-1846 is that they provide insights into Barnum’s attitudes toward money just at the point in his life when he had become incredibly rich.

In recognition of today, a somber remembrance of September 11, 2001.

In last week’s blog we got to know a little more about the American Museum’s naturalist and taxidermist, Monsieur Emile Guillaudeu, a man whom Barnum valued and trusted.

“What is it that you do exactly?”  That’s a question my parents still ask me…

Curiosity got the better of me after reading another of P. T. Barnum’s letters in which he mentioned the Frenchman who worked for him at the American Museum (and with a third spelling of his surname), plus a letter directly to him responding to concerns about his salary.

So, another week and another series of calamitous storms…and breathe.