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PTB Letters (#6) “An Awful Great Fire in NY” (in 1845)

"An Awful Great Fire in NY" (in 1845)

Print of Barnum’s American Museum in the early 1850s, at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in Lower Manhattan. Barnum Museum Collection.

Last week we left Mr. Barnum with plans to take General Tom Thumb and his entourage to Spain, where he eagerly anticipated an audience with the Queen, as well as introductions to the Dukes and Duchesses who would be with Her Majesty in Pamplona.  Continue reading “PTB Letters (#6) “An Awful Great Fire in NY” (in 1845)”

PTB Letters (#4) Negotiating tactics: “The General’s expenses are very great”

Negotiating tactics: “The General’s expenses are very great”

Daguerreotype portrait of a very young Charles Stratton (aka, General Tom Thumb) with his father, Sherwood Stratton, ca. 1844.  Charles’s parents accompanied their son on the three-year tour of Europe organized by P. T. Barnum. Collection of the Barnum Museum.

P. T. Barnum’s extraordinary, enduring legacy overshadows the early years of uphill work before his fame—and that of his protégé “General Tom Thumb”—was widespread.  Continue reading “PTB Letters (#4) Negotiating tactics: “The General’s expenses are very great””

PTB Letters (#3) The General’s Clothes and Carriage Stir Up Excitement

The General’s Clothes and Carriage Stir Up Excitement

Frederick the Great Tom Thumb
The Illustrated London News, December 27, 1845 Courtesy of the Bridgeport History Center, Bridgeport Public Library

Every “batch” of letters I read from P. T. Barnum’s 1845 – 1846 copy book offers a rich assortment of intriguing details, and with that, I am faced with the difficult task of choosing which to highlight in my brief scribblings. Continue reading “PTB Letters (#3) The General’s Clothes and Carriage Stir Up Excitement”