Speaker 1: All eyes were turned towards the sky. It was coming soon,
Speaker 1: you see, and the people were excited. Holley's comment was
Speaker 1: due to pass by the Earth with a tale twenty
Speaker 1: four million miles long and careening over three million miles overhead.
Speaker 1: The residents of New York City marveled at the heavens
Speaker 1: and wondered what it could all mean. Richard Locke certainly
Speaker 1: had an idea. For him, it meant dollars if he
Speaker 1: played his cards right. He was in the business of newspapers,
Speaker 1: a ruthless, cutthroat game in Old New York, one that
Speaker 1: pitted titans and penny press publishers against each other. He
Speaker 1: knew you had to give the people what they wanted,
Speaker 1: and in this moment, people wanted the stars. But he
Speaker 1: would do them one better. He would also give them
Speaker 1: the moon. On August thirty five, Lock published the first
Speaker 1: installment of a new otherworldly story. It would run in
Speaker 1: six parts, with each ending luring its readers to come
Speaker 1: back for more. He titled it Celestial Discoveries and hid
Speaker 1: behind the identity of a very real and very famous astronomer,
Speaker 1: John Herschel. But beyond that, the story was what he
Speaker 1: would call today fake news. Over the course of six issues,
Speaker 1: lock I mean, Herschel told readers about what he was
Speaker 1: seeing through his superpowered telescope aimed at the moon, plant life, rocks, animals.
Speaker 1: He told of lunar forests, herds of brown bison like creatures,
Speaker 1: even bluish unicorns, in a voice that echoed the same
Speaker 1: travelog sensibilities of America's Age of New imperialism. His dispatches
Speaker 1: read like field notes, and then came the big reveal.
Speaker 1: He had discovered intelligent life on the Moon. They had
Speaker 1: darkish yellow skin, beards and protruding lower jaws. They had
Speaker 1: wings and a striking resemblance to beavers, but lived in
Speaker 1: homes with smokestacks. There was a crystalline temple and another taller,
Speaker 1: lighter skinned population. The social hierarchy here, unfortunately, is pretty implicit,
Speaker 1: and just as external pressure to provide any and all
Speaker 1: evidence mounted, the paper reports that Herschel's lab very conveniently
Speaker 1: burned down. That was the end of that, or was
Speaker 1: it The real Herschel was sought out by many readers.
Speaker 1: One group of missionaries even asked how they could go
Speaker 1: about sending Bibles to the Moon. Herschel's wife Margaret didn't
Speaker 1: even blame readers for believing the hooks. The ruse had
Speaker 1: gone on for weeks, but the public talked about it
Speaker 1: for much longer. It turns out that Locke's readership didn't
Speaker 1: care if the story was completely true or not. They
Speaker 1: wanted to know how true it potentially could be. It
Speaker 1: was a good tale, whether it was real or not.
Speaker 1: The story had done its job, though it certainly sold papers.
Speaker 1: This blurry line between fact and fiction, the world of
Speaker 1: hoaxes and humbugs would go on to be a defining
Speaker 1: cornerstone of the rest of the century. At that very
Speaker 1: same moment, an intrepid young man arrived in the city.
Speaker 1: We can imagine that for those few weeks in the
Speaker 1: fall of eighteen thirty five, he cracked open his issues
Speaker 1: of The Sun and followed along with rapt attention. We
Speaker 1: can picture him making notes and seeing opportunity ahead. The
Speaker 1: world was changing and he was going to be a
Speaker 1: part of it. I'm Aaron Manky and welcome to the
Speaker 1: side show. Taylor had always believed that he was destined
Speaker 1: for greatness. As a young boy in the tiny village
Speaker 1: of Bethel, Connecticut, he felt like a king, a shrewd
Speaker 1: pint sized sales clerk at his father's general store. He
Speaker 1: drove a mean bargain with a mix of Yankee wit
Speaker 1: and thrift. He had big shoes to fill, after all.
Speaker 1: He was named after his grandfather, Phineas Taylor, who was
Speaker 1: an old sage and loved by all. Phineas so pleased
Speaker 1: to have a small protege of his own, purchased Taylor
Speaker 1: and I quote the greatest farmland in all of Connecticut,
Speaker 1: which made him the richest kid in town, and everyone
Speaker 1: else knew it. Not a week went by without Uncle
Speaker 1: Finn waxing poetic to Taylor of this grand inheritance, a
Speaker 1: place by the name of Ivy Island. In Taylor's mind,
Speaker 1: it must have looked something like El Dorado. Minds of gold,
Speaker 1: outcroppings of emerald diamonds, all aglow, a place where you
Speaker 1: could pluck rubies from trees and silver from streams. His
Speaker 1: autobiography talks about visions of milk and honey, and on
Speaker 1: a practical level, we can think this picture included some
Speaker 1: cows and chickens. Being New England in eighteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: after all, so when the time came to finally visit
Speaker 1: the land, his land. Taylor was ready. He was twelve
Speaker 1: and all grown up. He left town early that morning
Speaker 1: with the family friend. They trekked for hours. And we're
Speaker 1: not talking about rolling hills of grassland. No, they mucked
Speaker 1: through swamp. This couldn't be right, though. We can imagine Taylor,
Speaker 1: like any other kid, asking are we there yet? But
Speaker 1: then they stopped. And where they stopped did it turn
Speaker 1: out to be the island of his wildest dreams? Not
Speaker 1: at all. In front of him was a slice of squishy,
Speaker 1: boggy ground. It was muddy, ugly, dotted with scraggly trees
Speaker 1: and mosquitoes, and filled with stink and snakes. And then
Speaker 1: it hit him. This was one of his grandfather's infamous
Speaker 1: practical jokes. And worse, the whole town had been in
Speaker 1: on it for years. Taylor had left his home that morning,
Speaker 1: ready for retirement, and returned a laughing stock. We can
Speaker 1: imagine that he went back to his job at the
Speaker 1: Register of feeling a bit miffed and also scheming, because
Speaker 1: Taylor never forgot that lesson the years went on. He
Speaker 1: worked hard and loved the barter and banter of country life.
Speaker 1: He was a quick talker, jovial, a teller of tall tales,
Speaker 1: A charmer, he traded in commodities and gossip, but he
Speaker 1: eventually took a job in Brooklyn and developed a taste
Speaker 1: for the spectacle of city life. Still home had a
Speaker 1: hold on him. His granddad implored him to come back,
Speaker 1: so he did. It was back in Connecticut that he
Speaker 1: met Charity Hallett. Soon the two were married, and then
Speaker 1: Taylor set up a new shop with a co conspirator,
Speaker 1: or at least company along for the ride. It was
Speaker 1: here that he kept dreaming of riches and how to
Speaker 1: get them. Taylor's magic was people. His emotional radar was
Speaker 1: finally tuned to the desires, wants, and secrets of his customers,
Speaker 1: catering to their whims and imaginations. At his newly minted store,
Speaker 1: he sold everything from bibles to brandy to lottery tickets,
Speaker 1: a little something for everyone. He had a natural sense
Speaker 1: for psychology, and he was going to capitalize on it.
Speaker 1: America in the mid eighteen hundreds, you see, was quickly changing.
Speaker 1: Religious revivals were in full swing, the nation was quickly industrializing,
Speaker 1: Immigration was on the rise, and the young country was
Speaker 1: beginning to look west to far flung places, the word
Speaker 1: scientist entered the vocabulary for the first time, and a
Speaker 1: war that would fracture the country loomed ahead, and Taylor
Speaker 1: wanted to ride these new waves, so he bought a
Speaker 1: printing press. He believed that words had power and that
Speaker 1: they would take him further than his horse could run.
Speaker 1: He wanted to reach people in the world beyond Bethel.
Speaker 1: On October nineteenth of eighteen thirty one, he began printing
Speaker 1: his weekly Herald of Freedom. It fit right in with
Speaker 1: the trend of independent newspapers being sold on street corners
Speaker 1: in major cities across the nation, and Taylor wanted a
Speaker 1: slice of that pie. He wanted the freedom to share
Speaker 1: his ideas, to advertise, to call people to action. He
Speaker 1: saw an opportunity to wrestle control of the narrative, to
Speaker 1: spin yarns in his own fashion, much like his grandfather
Speaker 1: Phineas had done all those years before. It was his
Speaker 1: turn to become a bona fide, widely respected storyteller. Well
Speaker 1: most of the time, you see, Taylor did like to
Speaker 1: get mouths wagging. He loved to stir up controversy with
Speaker 1: his paper, and it wasn't long before his affinity landed
Speaker 1: him in a Connecticut jail for libel. While in this jail,
Speaker 1: Cell one, he decorated with carpets and other cozy furnishings.
Speaker 1: From home, he had an idea. He gathered his friends
Speaker 1: and created what he called the Committee of Arrangements. They
Speaker 1: spread the word of his imprisonment and impending release far
Speaker 1: and wide, both through word of mouth and through his
Speaker 1: printing press. We can imagine that on the day of
Speaker 1: his release, he put on his best suit, threw his
Speaker 1: shoulders back, and marched out of his cell and into
Speaker 1: a throng of thousands his audience and their applause. Picture
Speaker 1: this will you horse drawn carriages astride dusty town roads,
Speaker 1: a marching band, blaring brass cannon, fire on the green,
Speaker 1: sticky champagne, toasts and revelry airing on deep into the night,
Speaker 1: all for him. At twenty two and back in the world,
Speaker 1: he had made a statement. The show business career of
Speaker 1: Phineas Taylor Barnum had arrived. The Mermaid was a game changer.
Speaker 1: It was a decrepit specimen sewn together with the bottom
Speaker 1: half of a fish and the top half of a monkey,
Speaker 1: and holy dead p t. Barnum held it in his hands.
Speaker 1: He was on the hunt for artifacts with star factor.
Speaker 1: He went about these things with an open mind. You see,
Speaker 1: they didn't have to be perfect, No, they didn't even
Speaker 1: have to be real. What they did need was a
Speaker 1: thread of a yarn that he could spin up into
Speaker 1: a fantastic tale. And he immediately saw potential in this
Speaker 1: scaly specimen, and had did a few years before. Like
Speaker 1: many people at the time, he had transplanted his growing
Speaker 1: family to New York City. It was a bustling, bursting
Speaker 1: metropolis dressed up like a promise. The city was teeming
Speaker 1: with life, a riot of foreign tongues, unrelenting construction, and
Speaker 1: air thick with the smells of smoke, cooking and the
Speaker 1: perfume of bodies. There was death and there was life,
Speaker 1: and a lot of each. For some time he worked
Speaker 1: in the throes of this at another dry goods shop,
Speaker 1: and then one day, in eighteen thirty five, a customer
Speaker 1: came in with the story to tell and an offer
Speaker 1: to make Barnum was all ears. This customer was in
Speaker 1: show business, but he was tired. He happened to manage
Speaker 1: a very particular, very interesting charge. The purportedly one hundred
Speaker 1: sixty one year old black nanny of George Washington, a
Speaker 1: woman by the name of Joyce Heth. What he wanted
Speaker 1: to know was this, would Barnum be interested in taking
Speaker 1: his show on the road. Now, I can't overstate what
Speaker 1: transpired that day. By saying yes, Barnum effectively purchased Joyce
Speaker 1: and then paraded her in front of a pain audience.
Speaker 1: We'll get to Joyce's whole story in her own episode
Speaker 1: later this season, but for now, what you need to
Speaker 1: know is this. Her life and her death made Barnum
Speaker 1: a huge success, so successful, in fact, that he decided
Speaker 1: to give up his mercantile life and get into full
Speaker 1: time show business. He wanted to become a proper showman.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty one, he purchased New York City's American Museum,
Speaker 1: two blocks from where the Twin Towers would later stand.
Speaker 1: It was a grand brick building smack at the corner
Speaker 1: of Broadway and Ann Streets. Visitors could see wax figures,
Speaker 1: taxidermy art, and even hear lectures. But Barnum's version would
Speaker 1: be a little different. They would be grand, they would
Speaker 1: expand it would be his very own brick and mortar
Speaker 1: world to fill with a menagerie of magical and living curiosities.
Speaker 1: It would be open seven days a week, sunrise till
Speaker 1: way past sunset. Doors flung open for any one who
Speaker 1: could pay, and people paid. Interest in science and exploration
Speaker 1: in medicine was booming. Yes, he wanted to have legitimate specimens,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't above exploiting the ignorance of the masses
Speaker 1: in order to serve their fantasies. He acquired objects from
Speaker 1: around the world, animals from the ocean, and notably, individuals
Speaker 1: with bodies that the Victorian era public saw as abnormal dwarves, giantesses,
Speaker 1: people with dark skin, and he attached stories to each
Speaker 1: of them, just as he had done with Joyce. Heth
Speaker 1: capitalizing on this young country's expanding leisure time and burgeoning imagination.
Speaker 1: He mixed fact and fiction and it was a smash hit.
Speaker 1: But to understand how all of this came to be,
Speaker 1: we first have to understand what was going on with
Speaker 1: the mermaid that Barnum was holding, because it was this
Speaker 1: very mermaid that helped put this museum, his museum, on
Speaker 1: the map. Moses Kimball appeared on Barnum's doorstep in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty two saw the specimen into as the young proprietor
Speaker 1: of the Boston Museum. He had something that might be
Speaker 1: of interest and offering, one might say, He presented Barnum
Speaker 1: with an ugly, withered body roughly three ft long, with
Speaker 1: its mouth a gape in a scream. Barnum took a
Speaker 1: closer look. It was weird, but it was believable too.
Speaker 1: Even at a time when only presidents and war heroes
Speaker 1: count themselves in the ranks of American celebrities. Barnum knew
Speaker 1: he could make this mermaid famous. Then Kimball unspoiled the
Speaker 1: Mummy's story. It involved the tale of a ship captain
Speaker 1: out of Calcutta, bill, gotten gains and lost fortune. Now,
Speaker 1: while you might bring back snow globes or refrigerator magnets
Speaker 1: from trips these days, this guy brought home a mermaid.
Speaker 1: If he was duped into believing its authenticity, we don't know.
Speaker 1: But what we do know is that these fabricated Franken
Speaker 1: creatures were fairly common in East Asia at the time.
Speaker 1: Barnum knew that too, but he didn't think the general
Speaker 1: public would. He christened it the Fiji Mermaid, implying an
Speaker 1: exotic origin story far from the reaches of Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Folklore across the world has long told stories of mermaids.
Speaker 1: Who was to say that this wasn't a bona fide corpse.
Speaker 1: So he decided to do something clever. Let the public
Speaker 1: decide for themselves. Barnum got to work. He blitzed small
Speaker 1: town newspapers with fake news. He took pseudonyms and sang
Speaker 1: the mermaids praises. He had them postmarked from Alabama and
Speaker 1: South Carolina and Washington, d C. And the papers ran them.
Speaker 1: His trusted friend Levi Lyman posed as the esteemed Dr Griffin.
Speaker 1: His backstory was as fake as the mermaids, but it
Speaker 1: landed him an exclusive interview in Philadelphia. The Eastern seaboard
Speaker 1: was entranced, credulous, curious. Within a few weeks, Barnum produced woodcuts, engravings,
Speaker 1: and banners of busty, fair life size women with fish tails,
Speaker 1: advertising a fleeting one week opportunity to see this merm
Speaker 1: made in the flesh. The city was electrified, it clamored.
Speaker 1: Barnum promised three different city papers exclusive access to his exhibit,
Speaker 1: which was a surprise to each editor. When Barnum's exhibit opened,
Speaker 1: each of them ran the story anyway. Opening nights arrived,
Speaker 1: the Mermaid packed the hall. Thousands came, paying a quarter
Speaker 1: and sweltering in the summer heat, surely shocked at what
Speaker 1: stood on stage before them. The discrepancy was very, very obvious,
Speaker 1: but some wondered, could there be some truth here? Maybe
Speaker 1: it wasn't the Mermaid in the picture, but it certainly
Speaker 1: didn't disqualify it from mirror status. And that is exactly
Speaker 1: what Barnum had hoped for. And the numbers spoke. The
Speaker 1: show was a resounding success, so successful, in fact, that
Speaker 1: the Mermaid hit the road on a Southern tour, passing
Speaker 1: through the Bible Belt. It was only when the Mermaid's
Speaker 1: veracity was attacked in the Charleston papers that Barnum grew concerned.
Speaker 1: You see, at Charleston Minister had a bone to pick.
Speaker 1: This man's daughters had married sons of the famed naturalist
Speaker 1: John Ottobon, and he smelled a fraud. Barnum, to his credit,
Speaker 1: countered his accusations. If it was so easy to craft
Speaker 1: a fake, he would give any person who could show
Speaker 1: him another example of a fish sewn to a monkey
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. No one came forward, but a group
Speaker 1: of local scientists and naturalists piled on. They thought this
Speaker 1: lie was a dangerous one, exploiting the public's trust as
Speaker 1: they so desperately tried to move the legitimacy of their
Speaker 1: work forward. The mermaid was evacuated and put on a
Speaker 1: slow ship back to New York. Back in the city,
Speaker 1: it sat dusty and dejected in a box on the
Speaker 1: top shelf of Barnum's office, and there it rested a spell.
Speaker 1: Barnum thought about what to do next, and of course
Speaker 1: he came to the natural conclusion he had eventually put
Speaker 1: the mermaid back out for a display. He had learned
Speaker 1: something important through his experiment. Though by and large the
Speaker 1: public wasn't upset about his dis option. On the contrary,
Speaker 1: they seem to have actually enjoyed it, reveled in it,
Speaker 1: even wanted more. The show he decided must go on.
Speaker 1: The show went on for a good long while. To
Speaker 1: be in Barnum's orbit was to have front row seats
Speaker 1: to the spectacle of his life. He was known to
Speaker 1: be more attentive to his exhibits than his family, often
Speaker 1: gallivanting on tour meeting presidents, having audiences with the Queen.
Speaker 1: But he had an idea that would bring him back
Speaker 1: closer to home, an idea that proved, when all was
Speaker 1: said and done, to be disastrous. He thought he knew
Speaker 1: what he was getting into, But when Barnum invested in
Speaker 1: the Jerome Clock Company with designs on moving it to
Speaker 1: his beloved east Bridgeport, Connecticut, he didn't realize he was
Speaker 1: buying into a sour deal, one that bankrupted him and
Speaker 1: forced his family out of their palatial estate. They to
Speaker 1: a house by the sea on Long Island, where charities,
Speaker 1: health declined. We can imagine that depression loomed large, but
Speaker 1: the gears kept turning. His time there offered him space
Speaker 1: that the big city did not. It was a pastoral place,
Speaker 1: and we can imagine that it reminded him of Bethel.
Speaker 1: It was in this quiet that Barnum incubated, hoping for
Speaker 1: a rebirth, ideally spurred on by divine intervention. The newspapers
Speaker 1: celebrated his downfall with headlines such as the deceiver has
Speaker 1: been duped. People cheered, But Barnum never meant to hurt
Speaker 1: anyone in his line of work. There was no mal intent,
Speaker 1: no malice. He merely meant to charm, to entertain, to
Speaker 1: open the world to people beyond the confines of their geography.
Speaker 1: This stroke of bad luck, this clock swindle, was something
Speaker 1: entirely different. Never one to be alone much, he made
Speaker 1: a friend, a local farmer. While walking the shore. One day,
Speaker 1: they came across a commotion. Just ahead were some men
Speaker 1: and a twelve ft black whale, dead but hard and fresh.
Speaker 1: He said, never want to turn down a carcass. Barnum
Speaker 1: fished around in his pocket. While it's true that he
Speaker 1: could have spent the last few dollars on milk and bread,
Speaker 1: he instead spent it on this big, hulking corpse, And
Speaker 1: because its shelf life was short, he had to make
Speaker 1: quick work of it. He shipped it to his museum
Speaker 1: and exhibited it in a refrigerator. It was a success, too,
Speaker 1: He was able to pay his rent. He took this
Speaker 1: as a sign. It all felt pretty providential After all.
Speaker 1: The papers, though, continued to predict his end, but Barnum
Speaker 1: wasn't one to stay down or stay put. In the
Speaker 1: winter of eighteen fifty six he went out on more tours,
Speaker 1: again with a few trusted sidekicks, including General Tom Thumb,
Speaker 1: a fellow who would become a lifelong friend. It's seeing
Speaker 1: that Barnum was making a comeback without missing a beat
Speaker 1: and with no sense of irony. He began a lecture
Speaker 1: series called The Art of Money Getting or Success in Life,
Speaker 1: and the allowing string of sold out shows sent a
Speaker 1: loud and clear message. He was back, and he was
Speaker 1: going to do those newspapers and naysayers won better. He
Speaker 1: was going to run for public office and was going
Speaker 1: to do it well. In eighteen sixty five, he was
Speaker 1: elected to the Connecticut State Legislature. It was not lost
Speaker 1: on him that Americans needed a reprieve from the Civil War.
Speaker 1: To his museum, he added pro unionist exhibits, lectures, and plays,
Speaker 1: and he also enlisted Pauline Kushman, an actress who had
Speaker 1: been a spy for the Union, who regaled audiences with
Speaker 1: her tales behind enemy lines. Barnum had become a staunch abolitionist,
Speaker 1: running squarely on the antislavery platform. In later years, he
Speaker 1: would amend his story about his time with Joyce. Heth
Speaker 1: again and again and again his guilt was clear, even
Speaker 1: if his conscience was not. On July thirteenth, eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: Barnum was at the podium speaking to the legislature when
Speaker 1: he was slipped a note, casting his eyes downward and
Speaker 1: barely missing a beat. He continued on about the state's
Speaker 1: train system. But that piece of paper, well, it held
Speaker 1: some devastating news. At that very moment, it seems Barnum's
Speaker 1: Great American Museum was burning to the ground. Was it
Speaker 1: a furnace failure, Was it set by Confederate sympathizers. Will
Speaker 1: never truly know. But what we do know is this
Speaker 1: around noon and employee came running from the basement yelling fire.
Speaker 1: There were no sprinkler systems or fire extinguishers. There wasn't
Speaker 1: even a fire code at the time. This place was
Speaker 1: a labyrinth of Barnum's own design and a veritable tinder box.
Speaker 1: Window panes exploded, flames licked up the walls, and smoke
Speaker 1: poured out as thick as oil. The most famous building
Speaker 1: in New York City was choking. The air was gone,
Speaker 1: gobbled up by the fire birds flew from the building's belly.
Speaker 1: Snakes evacuated down Broadway. There are even reports of firefighters
Speaker 1: saving a seal named Ned and rumors of a lion
Speaker 1: that escaped to roam the streets. Any movable artifacts were
Speaker 1: launched from the windows, including a wax likeness of Jefferson
Speaker 1: Davis wearing a dress. The roof was collapsing, the walls
Speaker 1: were caving in. Two whales recently kidnapped from the coast
Speaker 1: of Labrador boiled in their own salt water tanks before
Speaker 1: firefighters broke their glass. They collapsed through the building and
Speaker 1: landed on Broadway, where they spent weeks rotting there in
Speaker 1: the summer heat because no one could figure out how
Speaker 1: to move them. Upon reading the note, Barnum, true to
Speaker 1: his unruffled form, finished his speech, folded it back into
Speaker 1: his pocket, and went home to Bridgeport. He left for
Speaker 1: New York City the following day. Once there, he assessed
Speaker 1: the carnage, and wouldn't you know it, he decided to
Speaker 1: begin again. Mere months after the tragic fire, he opened
Speaker 1: a new version of his museum about a mile uptown.
Speaker 1: He found more artifact x and more guests. This was
Speaker 1: all fine until it wasn't. Because this new museum eventually
Speaker 1: burned down as well. We can only imagine the tenacity
Speaker 1: and blind faith it would require to believe that this
Speaker 1: would all eventually work out. After all, he had sold
Speaker 1: thirty eight million admission tickets at the time when the
Speaker 1: population of his country was only thirty five million. He
Speaker 1: knew he was onto something. At sixty, this master of
Speaker 1: reinvention was now free to embark on his next act,
Speaker 1: the creation of the American side show. P. T. Barnum
Speaker 1: was the ultimate showman and he could sell just about anything,
Speaker 1: So it should come as no surprise that there are
Speaker 1: countless stories about his business dealings, more than we could
Speaker 1: ever fit into a single epiodode. But if you stick
Speaker 1: around through this brief sponsor break, my friend and co
Speaker 1: producer Robin Miniter, will share one more golden tail. Jenny
Speaker 1: Lynde wasn't going to be played for a fool. She
Speaker 1: was a woman self possessed, the lady Gaga of the
Speaker 1: Victorian age. Jenny counted the Queen and her cronies among
Speaker 1: her most rabid fans. In fact, Jenny believed her voice
Speaker 1: to be divinely gifted, and for this reason she never
Speaker 1: took it for granted. She dressed plainly, lived modestly, and
Speaker 1: curated a private life according to her deep seated faith,
Speaker 1: and she did this stunningly well. By the way, for
Speaker 1: a very long while. But by the time she neared
Speaker 1: her seven performance, she found herself about to turn thirty
Speaker 1: and totally exhausted. Marriage betrothals had been broken, and a
Speaker 1: dear friend of hers had passed away. So she retreated
Speaker 1: into herself and into retirement, stumbling into a personal and
Speaker 1: professional crossroads. Until that is, she was offered a lot
Speaker 1: of money. You see, word of her success had traveled
Speaker 1: far and wide. Jenny was the most famous opera singer
Speaker 1: in the world, after all, and when P. T. Barnum
Speaker 1: heard whispers of this, he saw dollar signs, so he
Speaker 1: decided to shoot his shot. When Barnum's man came knocking,
Speaker 1: Jenny was ready to shake him down. He wanted to
Speaker 1: cut a deal with her for two years of her time. Now,
Speaker 1: if Barnum was ruthless about money, Jenny was in a
Speaker 1: position to best him. She negotiated to bring along two servants,
Speaker 1: a music director and a companion, as well as having
Speaker 1: every single expense taken care of along the way. On
Speaker 1: top of that, she required Barnum to deposit the modern
Speaker 1: equivalent of six and a half million dollars into her
Speaker 1: bank account, all before she had even left her house
Speaker 1: To head off towards America before she had even met him,
Speaker 1: and Barnum agreed to all of her terms. Jenny set
Speaker 1: off on a steamership and Barnum got to work. For
Speaker 1: six months, he peppered the papers with news of her
Speaker 1: impending arrival in her great success in Europe, cranking his
Speaker 1: ink splash star making printing presses like never before. In fact,
Speaker 1: on September two of eighteen fifty, the New York Herald
Speaker 1: dedicated five of its six front page columns to the
Speaker 1: Swedish Nightingale, who would soon be arriving on the American
Speaker 1: mail steamer the Atlantic. By the time the ship docked,
Speaker 1: Barnum had drummed up enough interest that thousands of people
Speaker 1: had gathered to meet her. The throngs arrived in their
Speaker 1: Sunday best, hanging from the docks and waving madly. And yes,
Speaker 1: it was also true that he had hired some of
Speaker 1: these people to just stand around, but few would know
Speaker 1: this at the time. This was an arrival fit for
Speaker 1: a queen, but it was all for Jenny. It was here,
Speaker 1: at long last, that the two finally made their acquaintance way.
Speaker 1: Jenny wondered had Barnum first heard her sing, Actually, he
Speaker 1: said as he handed her a bouquet of red roses,
Speaker 1: he never had. When it came down to it, he
Speaker 1: wasn't even that interested in her voice. What excited him
Speaker 1: most about her was what she represented to him, the
Speaker 1: access to the upper echelons of society and something that
Speaker 1: wasn't immediately afforded to him while trying to push a
Speaker 1: frank and fish monkey on a pedestrian Lower Manhattan audience. Basically,
Speaker 1: he was just interested in her reputation, and as any
Speaker 1: woman knows, a reputation can be a very powerful thing.
Speaker 1: In the case of Jenny Lynn, she won the game.
Speaker 1: Her tour of America was hugely successful. The narratives that
Speaker 1: Barnum spun around her were of the most agreeable kind
Speaker 1: and actually set her up for even more success in
Speaker 1: the future. But as you'll see, she was an anomaly
Speaker 1: in our collection of stories to come. As we will
Speaker 1: soon learn, most of the folks who entered Barnum's orbit
Speaker 1: rarely on themselves in a position to ever escape. Sideshow
Speaker 1: was written by Robin Miniter, with executive production, narration and
Speaker 1: audio editing by me Aaron Mankey. Research for the series
Speaker 1: was done by Taylor Haggerdorn and Sam Alberty. Graham and
Speaker 1: Mild Presents was created in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about this show and everything else
Speaker 1: from Grim and mild Over at Grimm and mild dot com, and,
Speaker 1: as always, thanks for listening.