Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. BarnumBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891; Circus owners -- United States -- Biography
more to see the proprietor of the Museum than to view the entire
collection of curiosities. As for my ruse in advertising the “Woolly
Horse” as having been captured by Fremont’s exploring party, of course
the announcement neither added to nor took from the interest of the
exhibition; but it arrested public attention, and it was the only
feature of the show that I now care to forget.
It will be seen that very much of the success which attended my many
years proprietorship of the American Museum was due to advertising, and
especially to my odd methods of advertising. Always claiming that I had
curiosities worth showing and worth seeing, and exhibited “dog cheap” at
“twenty-five cents admission, children half price”--I studied ways to
arrest public attention; to startle, to make people talk and wonder; in
short, to let the world know that I had a Museum.
About this time, I engaged a band of Indians from Iowa. They had never
seen a railroad or steamboat until they saw them on the route from Iowa
to New York. Of course they were wild and had but faint ideas of
civilization. The party comprised large and noble specimens of the
untutored savage, as well as several very beautiful squaws, with two or
three interesting “papooses.” They lived and lodged in a large room on
the top floor of the Museum, and cooked their own victuals in their own
way. They gave their war-dances on the stage in the Lecture Room with
great vigor and enthusiasm, much to the satisfaction of the audiences.
But these wild Indians seemed to consider their dances as realities.
Hence when they gave a real War Dance, it was dangerous for any
parties, except their manager and interpreter, to be on the stage, for
the moment they had finished their war dance, they began to leap and
peer about behind the scenes in search of victims for their tomahawks
and scalping knives! Indeed, lest in these frenzied moments they might
make a dash at the orchestra or the audience, we had a high rope barrier
placed between them and the savages on the front of the stage.
After they had been a week in the Museum, I proposed a change of
performance for the week following, by introducing new dances. Among
these was the Indian Wedding Dance. At that time I printed but one set
of posters (large bills) per week, so that whatever was announced for
Monday, was repeated every day and evening during that week. Before the
Wedding Dance came off on Monday afternoon, I was informed that I was to
provide a large new red woollen blanket, at a cost of ten dollars, for
the bridegroom to present to the father of the bride. I ordered the
purchase to be made; but was considerably taken aback, when I was
informed that I must have another new blanket for the evening, inasmuch
as the savage old Indian Chief, father-in-law to the bridegroom, would
not consent to his daughter’s being approached with the Wedding Dance
unless he had his blanket present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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