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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Ferry Dowdy and I'm Delane a Chruk Reboarding. And

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Speaker 1: when we talked about the Prince of Humbug P. T.

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Speaker 1: Barnum recently, we really focused on what a diverse career

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Speaker 1: he had. He wasn't all about the circus that, of

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Speaker 1: course didn't even come along until he was in his sixties,

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Speaker 1: and was long after he had already established his name.

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Speaker 1: And he also ran menagerie's. He managed a museum filled

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Speaker 1: with wax works and taxidermy animals, and he had hoaxes

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Speaker 1: like the Fiji Mermaid. Early in his career he staged

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Speaker 1: minstrel shows and other quote low forms of entertainment, and

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Speaker 1: later he of course mounted freak shows like ten in

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Speaker 1: One and even took a swing at some kind of

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Speaker 1: highbrow entertainment acting as an impressario for a famous European

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Speaker 1: opera singer. He did a lot of stuff he did.

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Speaker 1: So today we're going to visit a few stages of

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Speaker 1: Barnum's career, taking a closer look at the acts that

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Speaker 1: made him famous and seeing how some of his performers

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Speaker 1: could become incredibly famous and successful themselves. But since we'll

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Speaker 1: be starting with some of Barnum's most famous quote freaks

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Speaker 1: before moving on to more conventional and animal stars, it

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Speaker 1: might be good to discuss that strange combination of exploitation

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Speaker 1: and success that existed in the sideshow world of the

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. I mean, the fact that some freak show

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Speaker 1: stars did achieve success might be surprising to modern audiences,

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Speaker 1: because today it can actually be really disturbing to read

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Speaker 1: the details of many of Barnum's prized acts, especially the

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Speaker 1: ones involving people with physical disabilities. It really can be.

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Speaker 1: I mean, everything seems wrong about exhibiting a six year

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Speaker 1: old Burmese girl and allowing audience members to touch her

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Speaker 1: just because she had hair covering her body, as Barnum

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Speaker 1: did in fact do with kral Ferini, who was built

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Speaker 1: as the missing link. And some stories from Barnum's contemporaries

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Speaker 1: are really just plain tragic. Theodore Lent, for instance, who

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Speaker 1: toured Europe with another hair covered woman, this time Mexican

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Speaker 1: born Julia Pastrna, eventually married her, but when she died

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Speaker 1: after having their stillborn baby, Lent had both of them

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Speaker 1: mummified and continued to exhibit them. But for some of

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Speaker 1: these stars, a disability or an unusual skill actually really

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Speaker 1: did bring fame and fortune, with many of the biggest

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Speaker 1: names finding a way to separate their stage identity is

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Speaker 1: so called freaks, from their off stage identities as normal

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Speaker 1: business people and performers. One of Barnum's hit acts, Isaac W. Sprague,

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Speaker 1: the American human skeleton who weighed only forty three pounds,

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Speaker 1: was as much of a marketing man as Barnum himself.

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Speaker 1: He wrote an autobiography and he sold trading cards and

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Speaker 1: all the profits went to him. And the trading card

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Speaker 1: business was a big deal for a lot of these

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Speaker 1: performers because whereas the showmen would get a cut of

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Speaker 1: their performances, they could paw get all that money from

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Speaker 1: the trading cards. And according to Laura Grand in History Magazine,

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Speaker 1: Barnum quote built a strong rapport with the majority of

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Speaker 1: his freaks in the US, And to me, that made sense.

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Speaker 1: It seems like it would be a bad idea to

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Speaker 1: do otherwise, because with so much competition from other showmen,

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Speaker 1: it would be bad business to alienate your performers. And

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Speaker 1: we're going to feed some of that what kind of

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Speaker 1: alienation can happen there? With our first entry on this list,

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Speaker 1: But the first act that we're going to discuss kicked

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Speaker 1: off the heyday of small American freak shows and really

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Speaker 1: set a standard to for sideshow performers making serious money

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Speaker 1: and living lives that were also completely apart from their

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Speaker 1: work on stage. So, Ladies and gentlemen, Chang and Ang Bunker,

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Speaker 1: these first entries on our list were associated with Barnum,

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Speaker 1: but probably less so than some of the later acts

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Speaker 1: that we're going to discuss, but still they could be

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Speaker 1: the names that you're most likely to recognize today because

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Speaker 1: Changang Bunker. Sarah mentioned they were the original Siamese twins,

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Speaker 1: which meant basically that was the first time that the

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Speaker 1: word Siamese twin or the term Siamese twin was used

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Speaker 1: to describe this particularly joined condition. Exactly. They were born

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Speaker 1: May eleven, eighteen eleven, on a houseboat in Siam, which

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Speaker 1: is now Thailand, and they were connected from birth by

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Speaker 1: a band of tissue between their chests and stomachs. Their

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Speaker 1: umbilical cord fed into this band, and when they were

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Speaker 1: born they were twisted so that they faced different directions,

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Speaker 1: so their mother sort of untwisted that band almost so

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Speaker 1: that each baby faced the same direction. You see pictures

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Speaker 1: of them, they just looked like two guys standing next

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Speaker 1: to each other. And as they grew she really encouraged

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Speaker 1: them to be as active as possible. They could run,

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Speaker 1: they could swim, something that's very amazing. They could fight

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Speaker 1: each other, which they did a lot too, and they

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Speaker 1: could maneuver the houseboat that they lived on too. And

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Speaker 1: they would also work on stretching that band a little bit,

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Speaker 1: stretching it enough so that eventually they could each stand

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Speaker 1: relatively upright, and they would usually pose with their arms

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Speaker 1: around each other's shoulders. They were healthy too, and they

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Speaker 1: survived smallpox and the same outbreak that killed three of

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Speaker 1: their other siblings, and when their father died when they

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Speaker 1: were eight, they helped support their family by raising ducks

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Speaker 1: while their unique medical condition earned them an audience before

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Speaker 1: the King of Siam, and interestingly, the king's predecessor had

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Speaker 1: briefly considered having them executed. When he learned their existence,

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Speaker 1: he changed his mind. He decided there was nothing threatening

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Speaker 1: about them, but still a close call for little Chang

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Speaker 1: and Ang. There, each boy of course, also had a

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Speaker 1: completely separate identity. Chang was considered to be very outgoing,

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Speaker 1: kind of had a quick temper. Ang was considered to

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Speaker 1: be very thoughtful, introspective and right away. This was something

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Speaker 1: that distinguished them from earlier conjoined twin acts like the

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Speaker 1: Colorado Brothers from early seventeenth century Genoa, which was an

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Speaker 1: act that featured Lazarus and his smaller, incomplete twin who

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Speaker 1: couldn't beak, He couldn't really control his own movements. It

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Speaker 1: was basically Lazarus that was in charge. The draw with

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Speaker 1: Chang and Ang was that they were each so independent

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Speaker 1: in a way, so distinct, and their distinct personalities, combined

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Speaker 1: with their cooperative coordination, eventually caught the eye of Scottish

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Speaker 1: merchant Robert Hunter, who partnered up with a captain Able

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Speaker 1: Coffin to exhibit the Boys in nine They bought the

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Speaker 1: nearly grown teens from their mother, and according to Holly

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Speaker 1: Martin in The Journal of American Culture, they were billed

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Speaker 1: as quote the Monster and then quote the Siamese Double Boys,

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Speaker 1: and they were pretty much a hit from the start.

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Speaker 1: At first. They also felt comfortable with their working arrangement

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Speaker 1: because they'd get what they saw is a fair cut

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Speaker 1: of what was made the profits, and they'd invest in

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Speaker 1: their own act by adding tricks like flips and somersaults,

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Speaker 1: making the show a little more exciting for folks. But

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Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty one, Coffin took sole management and the brothers,

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Speaker 1: who were displeased by their take. He reduced what they

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Speaker 1: were making significantly, they decided to ditch their management. They

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Speaker 1: left Coffin and managed themselves, and this started a very

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Speaker 1: profitable stage in their career. They met Barnum, they briefly

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Speaker 1: worked at his museum. The three men apparently didn't get

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Speaker 1: along that well, so they left Barnum and just continued

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Speaker 1: to break it in touring the US, Cuba, Canada, Europe,

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Speaker 1: and even eventually earned enough to retire from show business

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Speaker 1: to North Carolina and buy a farm. And they also

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Speaker 1: at that point became naturalized citizens and took the last

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Speaker 1: name bunker. Chang soon began courting Adelaide Yates, the daughter

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Speaker 1: of a neighboring Quaker family, while and courted her sister, Sarah.

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Speaker 1: Neighbors were not in favor of this. They protested it

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Speaker 1: because it was doubly scandalous to them. Conjoined twins who

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Speaker 1: were also ethnically Chinese and from Siam. It just wasn't

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Speaker 1: something that the neighborhood approved of, not at all. They

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Speaker 1: even smashed out windows in the Yates family home. But

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Speaker 1: of two couples were married anyway in eighteen forty three,

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Speaker 1: and while at first they all shared one home, after

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Speaker 1: a few years Chang and Hang set up their own

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Speaker 1: houses and mount Airy, which is interestingly the real Mayberry

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Speaker 1: and Griff of this hometown. Their houses were about a

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Speaker 1: mile and a half away from each other, and so

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Speaker 1: to do this they obviously had to set up a

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Speaker 1: different kind of arrangement, and Chang and Hang, since they

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Speaker 1: couldn't separate from each other, would spend three days with

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Speaker 1: one wife and one family in one house, and then

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Speaker 1: they would go to the other brother's house and spend

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Speaker 1: three days there, and each twin would be the master

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Speaker 1: of his own household, though the twin who wasn't living

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Speaker 1: there would sort of, you know, keep his own opinions

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Speaker 1: to himself for three days and then expect that of

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Speaker 1: his brother. But the whole master of the household thing

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Speaker 1: really has extra significance considering that Chang and Ang also

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Speaker 1: owned thirty three slaves between them. I mean, they owned

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Speaker 1: quite a bit of land and they had quite a

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Speaker 1: few slaves working on it, something that I think often

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Speaker 1: surprises people about them, but in a way fit into

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Speaker 1: this normality. They were trying to achieve as large landowners,

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Speaker 1: which at the time in North Carolina might have met slaveholders,

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Speaker 1: so they were trying to fit in with it. Seems

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Speaker 1: like Chang and Adelaide ultimately had ten kids, while Ang

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Speaker 1: and Sarah had nine, and the whole family was primarily

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Speaker 1: engaged in farm work, but the brothers would still pick

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Speaker 1: up extra cash by touring now and again, sometimes with

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Speaker 1: the wife and the kids in tow. And their early

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Speaker 1: performances had emphasized their conjoined state, but also their Chinese heritage,

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Speaker 1: and in these later shows they always appeared in western clothes,

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Speaker 1: and they wanted to emphasize that normalcy that you mentioned, Sarah.

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Speaker 1: There were farmers with wives and big families, and that's

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Speaker 1: how they wanted to be seen, just like you. But

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Speaker 1: obviously not quite so. After the Civil War and after emancipation,

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Speaker 1: Chang and Ang didn't have any money anymore. They were broke,

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Speaker 1: they couldn't farm the farm, and they returned to show business.

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Speaker 1: More fully, even going back to Barnum, who employed them

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Speaker 1: in till they were over sixty years old. In eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy four, Chang, who had become a heavy drinker and

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Speaker 1: who had suffered from a stroke, died of bronchitis, and

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Speaker 1: before a doctor could arrive to separate the two brothers,

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Speaker 1: Ang died. At the time, I think the diagnosis was

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Speaker 1: that he had died of shock, which it would be

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Speaker 1: rather shocking, I'm sure, but later analysis suggests that he

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Speaker 1: probably died of blood loss because they did share an artery,

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Speaker 1: and Ang may have just been pumping blood and not

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Speaker 1: having it pumped back into his body. Since Chang was

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Speaker 1: dead at that point, and they didn't know that until

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Speaker 1: later write that they shared. It was in the or

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Speaker 1: that they realized they shared an artery after the autopsy,

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Speaker 1: but they didn't come up with this idea until the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. It's interesting, too, that the brothers had long

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Speaker 1: sought out separation and had nearly attempted surgery in Philadelphia

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Speaker 1: after they got engaged. They were each willing to die

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Speaker 1: if it meant a chance to live independently, but their

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Speaker 1: wives stepped in. The wives begged them not to risk

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Speaker 1: the surgery. They didn't want them to die. So, like

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Speaker 1: we said, Chang and Eng aren't super associated with Barnum.

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Speaker 1: But the next entry on our list certainly is. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty two, p. T. Barnum met the boy who

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Speaker 1: would become his most famous star, Charles Stratton, who was

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Speaker 1: the four year old son of a Bridgeport carpenter. And

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Speaker 1: when Stratton was born, he was a pretty large baby.

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Speaker 1: He was about nine pounds, but before he was even

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Speaker 1: one year old he basically stopped growing, and by the

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Speaker 1: time he met Barnum he was four years old, fifteen

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Speaker 1: pounds and twenty inches tall. After his teens he did

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Speaker 1: grow a little bit more. He reached forty inches, ultimately

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Speaker 1: in seventy pounds, but he had a fairly small stature

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Speaker 1: for much of his life. Though Stratton was Barnum's distant cousin,

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Speaker 1: he drafted him for a show, calling him General Tom

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Speaker 1: Thumb and teaching him how to sing and dance and

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Speaker 1: do imitations of people like Hercules, and having him pretend

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Speaker 1: to be eleven years old rather than five, so that

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Speaker 1: his small stature would be even more impressive. Barnum started

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Speaker 1: Stratton out on three dollars a week. But as the

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Speaker 1: little Boy proved to be kind of a natural performer

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Speaker 1: with as Barnum said, quote, a keen sense of the ludicrous,

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Speaker 1: he raised Charles rate to fifty dollars a week. So

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty four Barnum and Stratton left for Europe,

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Speaker 1: where they would do these sell out shows in London's

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Speaker 1: Egyptian Hall, and Barnum, as we discussed in the earlier episode,

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Speaker 1: was always hankering for more prestige, not just more money.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't just about money. He was interested in prestige

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Speaker 1: and a wider audience, and that was something he really

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Speaker 1: did get through Tom Thumb when Baroness Rothschild heard about

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Speaker 1: the act and invited the two over for dinner. And

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Speaker 1: the dinner alone was an achievement for Barnum, but he

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Speaker 1: used it as an opportunity for stirring up some humbug

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Speaker 1: like like he always did. He dropped hints that the

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Speaker 1: General General Tom Thumb might like to meet Queen Victoria,

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Speaker 1: and soon enough an invitation to meet the Queen did arrive.

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Speaker 1: According to Peter Carlson in American History. Before Stratton could

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Speaker 1: enter with Barnum, they got some very specific instructions, so

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Speaker 1: this was upon their visit to the Queen, they were

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Speaker 1: told not to speak directly to the Queen and not

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Speaker 1: to turn their backs. They were escorted into the Queen's

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Speaker 1: picture gallery and presented before a twenty five year old Victoria,

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Speaker 1: her husband, Prince Albert, and the court. And Barnum later

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Speaker 1: described the entry as such. He said, quote the General

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Speaker 1: walked in looking like a wax doll gifted with the

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Speaker 1: power of locomotion. The General advanced with a firm step,

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Speaker 1: and as he came within haaling distance, made a very

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Speaker 1: graceful bow and exclaimed good evening, ladies and gentlemen. So

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Speaker 1: before a performance where he exhibited his impressions. Apparently the

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Speaker 1: British really loved his Napoleon impression, Victoria spent some personal

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Speaker 1: time with the little boy. They walked hand in hand

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Speaker 1: around the gallery. She told him about the pictures, asked

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Speaker 1: him about things he liked, and he even asked her

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Speaker 1: this is very cute. He asked her if he could

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Speaker 1: meet her three year olds on the Prince of Wale.

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Speaker 1: She tells them, no, he's asleep right now. They do

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Speaker 1: ultimately meet, though when it came time for them to leave,

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Speaker 1: Tom kind of dramatically fended off one of Victoria's poodles

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Speaker 1: with his cane. It was sort of like the sword

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Speaker 1: fight pantomime. And I think there's an engraving of it, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I might have to put that one up on Pinterest

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Speaker 1: at some point. Victoria's impressions of the night, though, are

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Speaker 1: particularly interesting, since she was clearly bothered a bit by

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Speaker 1: what she found to be troubling about this act. What

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Speaker 1: we might consider to be troubling today exactly a very

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Speaker 1: young boy away from his parents and performing around the

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Speaker 1: world for money. And she saw this as we as

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Speaker 1: he said, as we would see it. She wrote, quote

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Speaker 1: after dinner, we saw the greatest curiosity I, or indeed

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Speaker 1: anybody ever saw a little dwarf. He made the funniest

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Speaker 1: little bow, putting out his hand and saying much obliged, ma'am.

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Speaker 1: One cannot help feeling sorry for the poor little thing,

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Speaker 1: and wishing he could be properly cared for. For the

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Speaker 1: people who show him off tease him a good deal.

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Speaker 1: I should think he was made to imitate Napoleon and

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Speaker 1: do all sorts of tricks. So that's sort of the

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Speaker 1: perception that folks had a guess of Stratton when he

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Speaker 1: was so young five years old, six years old working

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Speaker 1: under Barnum, But as he got older, the relationship between

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Speaker 1: him and Barnum did clearly become more one of business partners,

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Speaker 1: with Stratton making a good living and creating a life

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Speaker 1: for himself off the stage. Laura Grand wrote that Stratton

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Speaker 1: quote made his stage persona a caricature completely separate from

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Speaker 1: his identity as Charles Stratton. He was able to shed

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Speaker 1: his guys of Tom Thumb at the end of each day,

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Speaker 1: not that his personal life and stage career didn't intersect

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Speaker 1: at times. Probably the most famous event Stratton's life was

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Speaker 1: his eighteen sixty three marriage to Lavina Warren, a little

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Speaker 1: person from Middleborough, Massachusetts with Mayflower ancestors, and Lavigna called

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Speaker 1: the quote Queen of Beauty in the New York Times

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Speaker 1: write up of their marriage and Stratton were married at

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Speaker 1: Grace Episcopal Church in New York City with people like

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Speaker 1: the Asters and the Vanderbilts and attendants, and during their

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Speaker 1: honeymoon they even got to visit the White House. It

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Speaker 1: was considered to be one of the biggest celebrity marriages

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Speaker 1: of the century. So our next act moves away from

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Speaker 1: the kind of side show entertainments that Barnum was best

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Speaker 1: known for. While he was visiting London to such great

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Speaker 1: acclaim with Little Tom Thumb, he happened to hear about

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Speaker 1: a singer who was selling out shows in England and Ireland,

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Speaker 1: Jenny Lynde, who was better known as the Swedish Nightingale,

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Speaker 1: and Barnum, who didn't even bother to attend one of

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Speaker 1: her shows or request some sort of sample performance, pitched

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Speaker 1: lynd on this one d fifty date US tour with

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Speaker 1: a guarantee of one thousand dollars per show. Was apparently

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Speaker 1: a pretty unheard of some at the time, so Lynn

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Speaker 1: did negotiate for a little bit more. Though she was

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Speaker 1: very charitably minded, and she negotiated with Barnum to make

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Speaker 1: some further donations on top of that, two charities of

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Speaker 1: her choosing. She did, eventually, though, agree, and left Liverpool

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Speaker 1: in August of eighteen fifty for her big American tour.

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Speaker 1: Just set a little background on Lynch. She was born

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Speaker 1: in Stockholm in eighteen twenty and was already a European star.

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Speaker 1: Charlotte Bronte, in fact, was a huge fan. According to

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Speaker 1: Cassandra fell In Bronte Studies, and she had debuted in

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Speaker 1: Sweden in eighteen thirty eight and had studied opera in Paris,

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Speaker 1: where she perfected her coloratura and became known for her range,

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Speaker 1: stretching from the B below middle C to higg and

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Speaker 1: when she teamed up with Barnum, she actually had been

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Speaker 1: considering leaving the stage. He really made her an offer

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Speaker 1: she couldn't refuse, though, so for six months leading up

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Speaker 1: to that big Us debut, Barnum stirred up his humbug again,

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Speaker 1: even though in this case Lynn's talents really did prove

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Speaker 1: to be much more than hype. He would write articles

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Speaker 1: about how beautiful she was, felt sweet and good she was.

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Speaker 1: He would run these poetry contests like pitch us your

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Speaker 1: best poem about Jenny Lynde, and he ultimately stirred up

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Speaker 1: what was called Lindamania. People were just so excited to

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Speaker 1: hear this young woman saying even though they were just

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Speaker 1: going on his word for it, and I mean it worked.

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Speaker 1: His tactics really worked. There were more than thirty thousand

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Speaker 1: people waiting for her steamer when it arrived in New York.

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Speaker 1: Twenty thousand more lined the route to her hotel, and

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Speaker 1: Barnum wasn't stingy with this either with with her after

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Speaker 1: seeing how successful that she was, if you're finally hearing

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Speaker 1: her and realizing how good she was, he renegotiated her

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Speaker 1: contract after just a few shows. But he made out

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Speaker 1: pretty well too. He probably made close to a half

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Speaker 1: million dollars that year, and it did give him some

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Speaker 1: of that legitimacy that he was hoping for. He was

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Speaker 1: working with a famous opera singer here. It was different

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Speaker 1: from his American Museum kind of performance as he normally

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Speaker 1: promoted it. Other people made a lot of money off

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Speaker 1: of Jenny Lynn too, though. When we mentioned her in

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Speaker 1: the last episode, we talked about how she was just

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Speaker 1: this huge merchandizing sensation, one of the earliest sensations of

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Speaker 1: that magnitude, and people marketed porcelain around her. You could

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Speaker 1: get Jenny Lynn hats and face cream, sheet music. That's

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Speaker 1: maybe the thing that makes the most sense here. Pianos, chairs,

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Speaker 1: and even a crib which I did a little Google

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Speaker 1: searching earlier. Today, the Jenny Lynd crobe is still a

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Speaker 1: very well known type of crib. It looks exactly how

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Speaker 1: you would imagine a baby's crib to look nothing old

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Speaker 1: fashioned about it, so you can still pick one up.

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Speaker 1: I guess you can. After her grand u s tour,

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Speaker 1: Lynde married her accompanist Otto Goldschmidt and lived in Dresden

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Speaker 1: in England, where she eventually taught at the Royal College

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Speaker 1: of Music before she died in seven So our final

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Speaker 1: entry is a very different one from this classic opera singer.

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Speaker 1: It rivals oly Tom Thumb is Barnum's most famous act

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Speaker 1: and even today you probably associate Ringling Brothers and Barnum

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Speaker 1: Bailey Circus with elephants. But Jumbo was the original and

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Speaker 1: the most famous elephant of them all. So Jumbo had

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Speaker 1: been captured in East Africa when he was four years

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Speaker 1: old and was purchased by a very animal collector. He

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Speaker 1: started out his public life though in Paris at the

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Speaker 1: Gardond Plance, and ironically, considering his eventual size, I mean

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Speaker 1: you can get a good idea of it by his name.

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Speaker 1: His Paris owners were really disappointed with how tiny he was,

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Speaker 1: and according to Bill Kelly in American History, they didn't

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Speaker 1: realize that African elephants grow more slowly than Indian elephants do,

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Speaker 1: and so they thought they just had a dud of

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Speaker 1: an elephant. He was not as big as they were hoping,

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Speaker 1: so after they traded him for a rhino, the African

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Speaker 1: elephant wound up in London, where he was named Jumbo,

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Speaker 1: which they believed meant elephant, and he started to grow.

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Speaker 1: Eventually got up to eleven and a half feet tall,

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Speaker 1: and Jumbo spent most of his life there. He entertained

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Speaker 1: kids who visited the zoo and even gave rides. Barnum,

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Speaker 1: on one of his England visits, coveted him. He said quote,

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Speaker 1: I've often looked wistfully on Jumbo, but with no hope

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Speaker 1: of ever getting possession of him. As I know him

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Speaker 1: to be a great favorite of Queen Victoria, whose children

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Speaker 1: and grandchildren are among the tens of thousands of British

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Speaker 1: juveniles whom Jumbo has carried on his back, I did

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Speaker 1: not suppose he would ever be sold. Finally, though, knowing

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Speaker 1: that Jumbo's temper had worsened lately, his British owners unloaded

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Speaker 1: him on. Barnum didn't tell him about the temper. Probably

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Speaker 1: I'm an angry elephant on on her hand right, But

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Speaker 1: he sold him for a ten thousand dollars to Barnum.

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Speaker 1: So the British public, though, was very upset about this.

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Speaker 1: They were mad. I mean, think of the children who

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Speaker 1: loved Jumbo so much, and Jumbo's keeper, Matthew Scott remembered

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Speaker 1: people actually picketing the zoo and thousands of kids lining

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Speaker 1: up to see Jumbo, just crying their hearts out, and

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Speaker 1: it was too bad for them because Barnum was going

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Speaker 1: to be taking his ten thousand dollar elephant back to

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Speaker 1: the States, and in eighteen eighty two he had Jumbo

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Speaker 1: and his elephant friend from the zoo named Alice put

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Speaker 1: on board a ship. Poor Jumbo here, he did not

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Speaker 1: enjoy his transatlantic trip at all. He was apparently very

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Speaker 1: sea thick and apparently had daily beer rations. Can't imagine

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Speaker 1: that's in a normal elephants rations today? Yeah, well probably not.

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Speaker 1: But it's sad that he just didn't get unlimited beer.

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00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:37,080
Speaker 1: He needed a poor thing. One state side. Jumbo helped

401
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: make Barnum's new circus a hit, also helping transform the

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Speaker 1: Three Ring Circus to something more akin to what it

403
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,119
Speaker 1: is today, which is of course kind of a spectacle.

404
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 1: He even grew some more and his temperate issues disappeared,

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Speaker 1: so Barnum didn't have to worry about that after all.

406
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Speaker 1: Well and Barnum also pulled another Jenny Lynde and marketed

407
00:22:56,800 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 1: his new elephant like crazy. You could buy Jumbo everything

408
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:03,359
Speaker 1: I know about Jumbo face cream or Jumbo cribs. He

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00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:06,359
Speaker 1: applied the elephant's name to all sorts of products, and

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00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:11,160
Speaker 1: eventually Jumbo became ubiquitous enough to mean very large. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's how we think of it today. Something is Jumbo size.

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Speaker 1: So then, after four seasons with the circus, where Jumbo

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00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:21,200
Speaker 1: had certainly earned back his ten thousand dollars and really

414
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:25,199
Speaker 1: helped make barnum Circus a hit, he was killed in

415
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Speaker 1: an eight railway accident, and he and Barnum's tiniest elephant,

416
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Speaker 1: strangely also named Tom Thumb. We're crossing some rail road

417
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Speaker 1: tracks with their keeper, and an unexpected engine came speeding through.

418
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,640
Speaker 1: It knocked Tom Thumb out of the way. He rolled

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00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: down an embankment, and Jumbo just panicked and he tried

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Speaker 1: to run, but he was hit by the train in

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00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: a crash that also killed the engineer. Barnum, who had

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00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: kind of hedged his bets for a while and seeing

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Speaker 1: about whether Jumbo's hide and skeleton could be preserved. I

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Speaker 1: think he wrote about it like God forbid anything ever

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Speaker 1: happens to Jumbo, but just in case, So he did

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00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 1: have a plan in place, and he had the elephant

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00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: skeleton and hide saved and set up this big funeral procession,

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00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: even spinning a whole story that Jumbo had died trying

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Speaker 1: to push the baby tom Thumb out of the way

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Speaker 1: of the train. So while the hide was eventually destroyed

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Speaker 1: in a fire, jumbo skeleton can sometimes be seen in

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Speaker 1: the American Museum of Natural History, so can still check

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00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: that out now and again pay respects to Jumbo. So

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Speaker 1: it's been fun talking about these different acts, and it's

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00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,359
Speaker 1: been interesting to coming across all the names that you

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00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 1: can find just a little tidbit of information on. These

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00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:44,400
Speaker 1: are obviously all pretty well documented, pretty well researched figures

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00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: because they were so famous, but there are so many

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00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: names you just get the most tantalizing little peek at

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00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 1: what their life must have been like. Yeah, but still

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00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: very interesting to find out about. And we actually have

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00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,479
Speaker 1: some articles to this effect on our website, don't we,

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00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 1: And they would we have one on Female Side Show.

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00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 1: We do Kristen wrote an article on famous female side

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Speaker 1: show freaks, which features Joyce Half who was in our

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Speaker 1: last episode on P. T. Barnum and Tom Thumb's wife too.

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00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: So a few a few folks in there. Yeah, and

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00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:17,120
Speaker 1: there are photos in there too, So if you're really

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00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: curious about how these people looked, um, we tried to

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00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: describe them as best we could, but you can check

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Speaker 1: them out by checking out that article. But if you

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Speaker 1: know of some other side show acts that we left out,

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Speaker 1: maybe you have some favorites that you'd like us to

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00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 1: cover in the future, you can definitely write us and

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00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: recommend those were at History Podcast at Discovery dot com

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00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: and you can write us there and tell us all

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00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: about what you want us to cover, or just comment

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00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: on any of the issues surrounding these acts that we discussed,

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00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,360
Speaker 1: or you know, just comment on any of the details

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00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: we shared. You can also look us up on Facebook

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00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: and we're on Twitter at Misston History, And like I

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00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: just mentioned, we do have a stuff you missed in

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Speaker 1: History class Pinterest account to which I've pinned a few

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00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: photos on there and I can do some more, so

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00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: you can check out with some of these folks look

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Speaker 1: like you can see I think Tom Thumb's house. He

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Speaker 1: had this great mansion, all sorts of interesting visual details

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00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: about their lives. And again, if you want to learn

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00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,199
Speaker 1: more about some other female sideshow acts, we do have

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00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: that article. It's called ten famous female side show Freaks

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00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: and you can search for that on our home page

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00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: at www dot how stuff works dot com for more

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00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:30,919
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics because it how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com