The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 3, Spring 2020 | Page 23

and Scroll
can American slave named Joice Heth,
whom Barnum claimed was the former
nurse of President George Washington.
Barnum exhibited the woman as 161
years old and “the greatest curiosity in
the world of kind.” 32 After this big break
with Heth, Barnum founded his American
Museum of curiosities and entertainers
that promised family-friendly
amusements and educational elements.
One of his most famous entertainers
was the dwarf “General Tom Thumb,”
whom Barnum even introduced to
President Lincoln in 1862 during the
“dark days of the rebellion.” 33 Barnum
said in his autobiography that with his
American Museum he also intended
to make it “the nucleus of a great free
national institution” of “useful information
and wholesome amusement.” 34
Five fires devastated Barnum’s
American Museum throughout his
lifetime, destroying many of his most
valuable collections, but in 1870 and
1872, Barnum got his second big break.
When Barnum retired briefly in 1868,
his American Museum had just burned
down for the second time. Two years
later, Dan Castello and William Coup
convinced him to join them to form the
museum, menagerie, and circus. 35 Barnum
said his “great show enterprise”
required “five hundred men and horses
to transport it through the country.”
He described in his autobiography large
tents covering three acres in Brooklyn
“filled with ten thousand delighted
spectators” in “the inauguration of this,
my greatest show.” 36 In 1872, Barnum
put his circus on the rails, adhering
to the strict schedules and times perpetuated
by the railroad to make the