It was because of the severity of a winter's day in November 1842, that the thirty-two-year-old Barnum discovered the exhibit that would catapult him to international fame.
Barnum had owned the American Museum almost a year and he was in Albany, New York, on Museum business. The weather was freezing. When it came time for Barnum to return home by river boat, he learned that travel had been suspended because the Hudson was iced over. Forced to change his plans, Barnum boarded the old Housatonic Railroad for the first leg of his journey to New York. Since the rail terminus was in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Barnum's half-brother Philo managed the Franklin Hotel, the showman decided to stop overnight.
Bridgeport, a sleepy community of four thousand persons, would seem to have had little to offer Barnum beyond a brief rest. But Barnum's mind was a file cabinet when it came to curiosities. Visitors were always telling him, or correspondents writing him, about new oddities. Most of these he could not investigate because he was too busy. Yet he never forgot a suggestion or lead. Now, in a Bridgeport hotel room, relaxing with his brother, he remembered that someone had once told him "of a remarkably small child in Bridgeport." Did Philo know of such a one? Philo did indeed. Everyone in town knew of Sherwood Stratton's five-year-old son, who was the size of a small doll and weighed no more than his pet dog.
More interested than ever, Barnum asked his brother if he could convince the Strattons to show him their boy. Philo Barnum thought that a meeting might be arranged, and the very next day returned to the hotel with the miniature boy in hand.
Barnum eyed the boy with incredulity. The child was twenty-five inches in height. He weighed fifteen pounds. His foot was three inches long. "The smallest child I ever saw that could walk alone," Barnum remembered. And the best part of it was that "he was a perfectly formed, bright-eyed little fellow, with light hair and ruddy cheeks, and he enjoyed the best of health. He was exceedingly bashful, but after some coaxing he was induced to talk with me, and he told me that he was the son of Sherwood E. Stratton, and that his own name was Charles S. Stratton. After seeing him and talking to him, I at once determined to secure his services from his parents and to exhibit him in public."
The Strattons were poor, and Barnum had little difficulty in negotiating with them. Barnum wanted only a short-term arrangement. He had no desire to risk much on a child who might suddenly start growing. He offered to hire Charles for four weeks. He would pay the family three dollars a week, travel expenses to New York, and room and board for the boy and his mother. The Strattons considered this a generous offer.
Thus, with a handshake, began the saga of General Tom Thumb. With this midget, Phineas T. Barnum became a giant.
In the next few months Barnum learned all that there was to know about the short life of Charles S. Stratton. When Cynthia Stratton gave birth to him on January 4, 1838, nothing indicated that he would be anything but normal. The Strattons were descended from solid Revolutionary War stock. There had always been a Stratton male in the militia. Moreover, the Strattons' two daughters, Frances, age four, and Mary, age two, were perfectly normal.
Charles was a strapping infant weighing nine pounds and two ounces at birth. In six months, he had grown to fifteen pounds and two ounces, and there was no apprehension. But at one year, he was still fifteen pounds and two ounces, and he had not grown higher than two feet and one inch. At two years and three he remained the same weight and height, and at four years and five, too. By then, the Strattons knew that they had a midget.
Medical science could do nothing for the Strattons. The reasons for arrested growth were then unknown. Not until three years after Charles Stratton's death, in 1886 to be exact, was the pituitary gland, located at the base of the skull, discovered to be responsible for deficiency in stature: defective pituitary, withholding growth hormones, was found to result in a stunted individual.
Incidentally, Barnum, who knew nothing of physiological refinements, always referred to Charles Stratton as "my dwarf." This was incorrect. His protégé was not a dwarf, but a true midget. In both cases, the problem is diminution, but the distinction exists. The dwarf has a normal upper body, but his lower limbs are misshapen because of a malfunctioning thyroid, and his general aspect is grotesque. The true midget, on the other hand, is perfectly proportioned, the copy of an ordinary human being, done to smaller scale.
There are contradictory versions of Charles Stratton's earliest years. According to some accounts, the midget's childhood was miserable. It was said that his stern, puritanical father regarded him as evidence of God's disfavor. It was said, also, that he was kept a prisoner in the house because public appearances caused too much of a stir. According to other accounts, Charles was a pampered and petted family favorite, always treated as normally as possible. He was given the freedom of the streets and fields, and, according to Barnum, the natives became so used to his size that he was considered neither abnormal nor curious. Whatever the truth, his departure from Bridgeport was a step upward.
When Cynthia Stratton brought her tiny, five-year-old boy to New York on December 8, 1842, she was appalled to learn from handbills and posters about the American Museum that she was the mother of "General Tom Thumb, a dwarf of eleven years of age, just arrived from England."
To pacify Mrs. Stratton, Barnum tried to explain the motives behind the metamorphosis. The name Charles Stratton was too ordinary. Searching for something more striking, Barnum had reached back into history and found the legend of the original Sir Tom Thumb, one of King Arthur's knights, who dwelt in a tiny golden palace with a door one inch wide and rode in a coach drawn by six white mice and was killed in a duel with a spider. Barnum decided that Tom Thumb was infinitely more provocative that Charles Stratton, and so "Tom Thumb" the midget was and would forever remain. As to the pompous military rank of General, the absurdity of it was irresistible.
The updating of the midget's age—a source of constant confusion to his biographers—was felt by Barnum to be a necessity. To exhibit him as a five-year-old would be to make him less a curiosity. Inevitably, people would wonder if he was really a midget and if he might not grow to normal height. But people would realize that as a maturing eleven-year-old, he was retarded and truly different.
As to the fiction of his importation from England, this was a snobbery that the public would like. Connecticut was too near at hand, familiar, and workaday. Marvels did not belong to industrious villages. Marvels came from afar. When Barnum later wrote about the fiction, he did not apologize. "I had observed (and sometimes, as in the case of Vivalla, had taken advantage of) the American fancy for European exotics; and if the deception, practiced for a season in my dwarf experiment, had done anything towards checking our disgraceful preference for foreigners, I may readily be pardoned for the offence I here acknowledge."
Barnum's family, prepared to co-operate in caring for Mrs. Stratton and Tom Thumb, had been enlarged since he had prospered. Installed in the converted billiard parlor next to the Museum were three daughters: Caroline, age nine; Helen, age two; Frances, an infant born eight months earlier (who would die before her second birthday). There was to be yet a fourth girl, Pauline, but she would not appear until 1846. A place for the visitors from Bridgeport was made in the overcrowded quarters, which had the shrill atmosphere of a girl's school. While Mrs. Stratton was made comfortable by the harried, frail Charity, Barnum undertook the education of his midget.
Trying to find a model after whom he might fashion Tom Thumb, Barnum studied the best-known little people of ages past. At last, he fastened on one, an incredible historic midget later much admired by Tom Thumb himself. This idol was Sir Jeffery Hudson.
Sir Jeffery was born in England in 1619. Until he was thirty years of age, he never exceeded the height of eighteen inches. When he was seven, his father, keeper of the baiting-bulls for the Duke of Buckingham, turned him over to his Lord. The Duke, in turn, served Sir Jeffery up to Queen Henrietta Maria in a cold baked pie. The Queen was enchanted with the tiny man, and prevailed upon the King to make him the first and only midget knight in history. Sir Jeffery was a Captain of the horse and the delight of Charles I's court.
In 1630, the Queen sent him to France to fetch her a midwife. Returning, Sir Jeffery was captured by Dutch privateers, but finally was released. His adventures continued. He fought a turkey, and was saved from the bird's talons. He almost drowned in a wash basin, but was rescued by William Evans, the court's eight-foot porter.
In 1644, he followed his Queen into French exile. Teased and insulted by the brother of Lord Crofts, Sir Jeffery challenged the full-grown man to a duel. Crofts appeared with water pistols. Affronted, Sir Jeffery repeated his challenge in stronger terms. They fought with pistols from horseback, and the midget shot his antagonist dead. Sir Jeffery was imprisoned for murder, released at the behest of the Queen, and became her most valiant defender. Once he was captured by the Barbary Turks and sold into slavery. After many privations, he was ransomed. He returned to England, spurted to three feet nine inches in height, and lived on a pension. His best friend was another midget, Richard Gibson, three feet ten, whose paintings of royalty today hang in Hampton Court beside Rembrandts and Leonardo da Vincis. Incidentally, Gibson married a midget named Jane Shephard. Charles I gave the bride away—and had nine normal children by her. Sir Jeffery fared less happily. He was implicated in the Popish Plot, jailed for three years, and died shortly after, at sixty-three.
The study of this singular life proved invaluable to Barnum. He saw to what heights a midget could rise. Further, he saw what he must do with Tom Thumb. Like Sir Jeffery, Barnum's midget must be made autocratic, impudent, regal. There was only a week to prepare. Barnum drilled Tom Thumb day and night, teaching him manners, patter, and a variety of roles. "He was an apt pupil with a great deal of native talent, and a keen sense of the ludicrous," said Barnum. "He made rapid progress in preparing himself for such performances as I wished him to undertake and he became very much attached to his teacher."
On the eve of his debut, Barnum took Tom Thumb on the rounds of the newspaper editors. The General hopped among the papers and inkpots on their desks, and at the home of James Gordon Bennett danced among the plates on the dinner table. The editors were amused and gave "the comical little gentleman" the benefit of their columns.
When Tom Thumb appeared on the stage of the Lecture Room, the auditorium was filled. He opened with a monologue punctuated with Barnum's puns. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he began. "I am only a Thumb, but a good hand in a general way at amusing you, for though a mite, I am mighty. . . . In short, don't make much of me, for making more would be making me less. Though I grow in your favor, no taller I'd be."
This was followed by some banter with Barnum or a master of ceremonies. Barnum, addressing the audience, started it off. "It is only by placing the General in contrast with a very small child that the audience can form a right conception of his real height. Will some little boy step on the stage for a moment?" And then Tom Thumb added, with a squeaky, disgruntled tone: "I would rather have a little miss."
After this began Tom Thumb's main performance, in which he essayed a variety of roles. In flesh-colored tights, holding a bow and carrying a quiver of arrows, he cavorted as Cupid. Then, in the guise of a Revolutionary War soldier, waving a ten-inch sword and chortling "Yankee Doodle Dandy," he went through the paces of a military drill. Later, as the Biblical David, in suitable attire, he staged a mock fight against those Goliaths, Colonel Goshen and Monsieur Bihin, the Museum giants. Other humorous studies followed: he was a semi-nude gladiator, an American tar in bell-bottomed trousers, Napoleon Bonaparte in full regalia.
Tom Thumb's debut was greeted with gales of laughter and applause. Overnight he became the talk of New York. Twice daily, at three in the afternoon and at seven at night, he appeared on the Lecture Room stage. Between shows he displayed himself alongside the giants, the fat boy, and the fortune teller.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted to see him, including the tireless Philip Hone, ex-Mayor. For July 12, 1843, Hone noted in his diary: "I went last evening with my daughter Margaret to the American Museum to see the greatest little mortal who has ever been exhibited; a handsome well-formed boy, eleven years of age, who is twenty-five inches in height and weighs fifteen pounds. I have a repugnance to see human monsters, abortions and distortions . . . but in this instance I experienced none of this feeling. General Tom Thumb (as they call him) is a handsome, well-formed, and well-proportioned little gentleman, lively, agreeable, sprightly, and talkative, with no deficiency of intellect. . . . His hand is about the size of a half dollar and his foot three inches in length, and in walking alongside of him, the top of his head did not reach above my knee. When I entered the room he came up to me, offered his hand, and said, 'How d'ye do, Mr. Hone?'—his keeper having apprised him who I was."
The four weeks sped by. Barnum was now satisfied that in Tom Thumb he had a tremendous drawing card. He was satisfied, too, that his midget was worth an investment despite the possibility that he might grow in stature. As a consequence, Barnum made a new agreement with Cynthia and Sherwood Stratton. He signed Tom Thumb on for one year at double his old salary—in short, seven dollars a week, with a fifty-dollar bonus at the end of the year.
Under the new contract, Barnum used Tom Thumb in different ways. Sometimes, he would display him at the Museum for several weeks running, then send him out of town with his family and a Museum representative to test him in other cities. In New York and everywhere else, Tom Thumb continued to attract and amuse. After six months, Barnum raised his salary to twenty-five dollars a week and began to consider the future.
Barnum's private dream was Europe. He had never been abroad. He was virtually unknown outside the United States. He wanted to conquer new worlds. In the person of a droll little boy who could walk upright beneath an average table without scraping his head he thought he had, at last, the means by which he might attain international fame.
The European venture, constantly dwelt upon, began to assume reality in Barnum's mind. Suddenly, one day, he decided to chance it. "Much as I hoped for success," he wrote long after, "in my most sanguine moods, I could not anticipate the half of what was in store for me; I did not foresee nor dream that I was shortly to be brought in close contact with kings, queens, lords, and illustrious commoners, and that such association by means of my exhibition, would afterwards introduce me to the great public and the public's money, which was to fill my coffers. Or, if I saw some such future, it was dreamily, dimly, and with half-opened eyes. . . ."
Once determined, Barnum swiftly put the machinery for his Continental invasion into motion. He negotiated a new contract with the Strattons. He would have Tom Thumb for another year, at fifty dollars a week. He would take abroad not only Tom Thumb, but also his parents and a tutor, and pay all their expenses. Sherwood Stratton agreed to give up his trade of carpenter in Bridgeport to serve as his son's ticket-seller. To this company, Barnum added one more—Professor Guillaudeu, a French naturalist employed full time at the Museum. It was Barnum's hope that once his midget was launched, he and the Professor might explore Europe for new curiosities. To make certain that his name might not be forgotten while he was abroad, Barnum arranged to serve as foreign correspondent for the New York Atlas. He promised regular newsletters from Europe, and before the trip ended, he delivered and had published one hundred of them.
On January 18, 1844, Barnum and his entourage went aboard the Yorkshire, a trim new sailing vessel bound for Liverpool. When the anchor was lifted and a band played "Home, Sweet Home," Barnum's eyes were wet. What moved him was not separation from Charity, or his daughters, or his friends, but a sudden sense of isolation and loneliness. For the first time this public man was without a crowd, forced into himself, with only a strange and alien destination ahead. And so tears came. Barnum, more than most, needed people in great number. They were as necessary to his spirit as oxygen to his body.
The crossing was uneventful. At times, the sailing ship ran against heavy seas, and at times it was becalmed, but Barnum was a good sailor, and he found the voyage pleasant. He had recovered from the brief melancholia felt at departure, and now he looked forward to England. After nineteen days the Yorkshire docked in Liverpool.
A sizable crowd was on the wharf to greet the Americans—Barnum had been careful to send advance notice of the coming of General Tom Thumb—but Cynthia Stratton, pretending he was an infant in her arms, smuggled the General past the curiosity seekers and into the city.
Barnum had no sooner lodged his company in the Waterloo Hotel than he had a caller. The owner of a cheap waxworks offered Barnum ten dollars a week for the use of Tom Thumb. Barnum sent him packing, and retired to his room to brood. Fear gripped him. He had arranged no itinerary or engagements for Tom Thumb. What if he could obtain none? Or even if he succeeded in obtaining an engagement, what if the public were not interested? The old sense of loneliness returned to oppress him. "I was a stranger in the land," Barnum wrote. "My letters of introduction had not been delivered; beyond my own little circle, I had not seen a friendly face, nor heard a familiar voice. I was 'blue,' homesick, almost in despair." Unashamedly, Barnum wept.
But then came the dawn. Barnum used his letters of introduction. There was friendliness everywhere. He hired a hall and began to show Torn Thumb while trying to formulate his attack on London. Meanwhile, the manager of the Princess' Theater in London appeared to scout Tom Thumb. Apparently he was satisfied. He offered Barnum a long-term contract at a generous figure, but Barnum declined. His old confidence had been restored by his new activity. He countered with the suggestion that Torn Thumb appear at the Princess' Theater in London for three evenings—he had decided that this was a good "means of advertisement"—and the manager agreed.
The troupe proceeded to London. Tom Thumb did his turn on the boards of the Princess' Theater before overflow crowds. The reaction was precisely what Barnum had calculated. Tom Thumb was a hit, and the populace eagerly discussed the talented urchin.
Barnum knew that he could successfully present Tom Thumb on his own, at any time, but still he held back. He remembered Maelzel's example with the automaton chess-player: obtain the sanction of the noble, the royal, the wealthy. To this purpose, Barnum rented the mansion formerly occupied by Lord Talbot in the fashionable West End, employed a livened butler, and sent out a limited number of invitations to aristocrats and editors, inviting them to have tea with Tom Thumb. Soon, the crested carriages appeared, and Barnum's parlor was filled with members of the nobility and journalists. Tom Thumb made a favorable impression on one and all.
Barnum still was not ready. Only when Edward Everett, American Minister to England, came calling did the showman make his final move. He told the Minister frankly that he wanted Tom Thumb to be introduced to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. He was persuasive. The twenty-five-year-old Queen, six years on the throne and four married, had been mourning the death of her father-in-law. Now she and her family might appreciate any relaxation. Everett promised to see what he could do. What he did was to arrange to have Charles Murray, Master of the Queen's Household, invite Barnum and Tom Thumb to breakfast. Murray was impressed. He inquired as to Barnum's plans. Barnum said that he expected to leave for France shortly, but that he would delay the departure if Tom Thumb could have his audience with the Queen. Murray promised to do his best.
Meanwhile, Baroness Rothschild, wife of the world's richest banker, invited Barnum and Tom Thumb to her Piccadilly town house. Received by half a dozen servants, the towering Barnum and his miniature boy were led up marble stairs to the presence of the Baroness and a party of twenty ladies and gentlemen. Tom Thumb entertained the group for two hours. As they prepared to depart, Barnum remembered, "a well-filled purse was quietly slipped into my hand. The golden shower had begun to fall. . . ."
Barnum knew that the time was ripe. Promptly he leased the Egyptian Hall in the center of London, poured out his flood of prepared publicity, and placed Tom Thumb on display. The response was overwhelming. Commoners and aristocrats alike filled the auditorium to watch the twenty-five-inch child impersonate Napoleon, Goliath, and Cupid. And then there arrived the man Barnum most wanted to see. He was a member of Her Majesty's Life Guards, in full uniform, bearing a note. The note was from Queen Victoria, and invited General Tom Thumb, and his guardian, Mr. Barnum to appear at Buckingham Palace.
Some hours later, Murray called to confirm the invitation and to convey the Queen's desire that "the General appear before her, as he would appear anywhere else, without any training in the use of the titles of royalty, as the Queen desired to see him act naturally and without restraint."
On the night of the command performance, Barnum proudly hung a placard on the door of the darkened Egyptian Hall. It told all of London: "Closed this evening, General Tom Thumb being at Buckingham Palace by command of Her Majesty."
Upon arrival at Buckingham Palace, Barnum in knee breeches and Tom Thumb in brown silk-velvet cutaway coat and short breeches were briefed on how they must conduct themselves before the Queen. Above all, they were told, they must remember to answer all of Her Majesty's questions through the Lord-in-Waiting, never speak directly to the Queen, and retire backwards when the audience was ended.
They were guided through a long corridor, and then up a spacious flight of stairs, and finally into the royal picture gallery. Across the room, attired completely in black, wearing no ornaments, stood the young Queen Victoria. Beside her stood Prince Albert. And, ranged behind them, the Duchess of Kent and two dozen members of the nobility, dressed in the highest fashion.
Tom Thumb—he looked "like a wax doll gifted with the power of locomotion," Barnum said—advanced boldly toward the Queen, bowed, and then chirped to one and all: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!"
The salutation was greeted with hilarity. Smiling, Queen Victoria took the midget by the hand and showed him through the picture gallery. Tom Thumb gravely studied the oils and told the Queen they were "first-rate." When the Queen inquired about Tom Thumb's career, he amused her with his witty replies. He glanced about and asked for her son, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. She told him that the boy was asleep and that a meeting would be arranged in the near future. Then Prince Albert and the other guests surrounded Tom Thumb, and Barnum was briefly alone with the Queen. She began to question him about the midget's family and upbringing. At first Barnum carefully replied through the Lord-in-Waiting, but the method was awkward and tiresome, and at last Barnum conversed with the Queen directly. The Lord-in-Waiting quivered, but the Queen was not offended.
The visit lasted an hour, most of the time being given over to Tom Thumb's "songs, dances, and imitations." When the act was done, Barnum remembered the etiquette of exit. Rather hastily, he began to back away across the long gallery, retreating yet always facing the Queen. Tom Thumb tried to emulate him, but with less success, his legs being so much shorter. Barnum never forgot what ensued:
"Whenever the General found he was losing ground, he turned around and ran a few steps, then resumed the position of 'backing out,' then turned around and ran, and so continued to alternate his methods of getting to the door, until the gallery fairly rang with the merriment of the royal spectators. It was really one of the richest scenes I ever saw; running, under the circumstances, was an offense sufficiently heinous to excite the indignation of the Queen's favorite poodle-dog, and he vented his displeasure by barking so sharply as to startle the General from his propriety. He, however, recovered immediately, and with his little cane commenced an attack on the poodle, and a funny fight ensued, which renewed and increased the merriment of the royal party."
When Barnum and Tom Thumb reached the safety of the anteroom, the Queen sent her apologies for the poor manners of her canine. Refreshments were then served in an adjacent apartment, and at once Barnum was all business again. Learning that the audience would receive a line or two in the official Court Journal, and that this would be seen by all the press, Barnum asked to speak to the editor. The editor was brought forward. Barnum wondered if it would be possible to receive a favorable review rather than a mere mention. The editor suggested that Barnum write out what he wished printed. Barnum obliged, and accordingly, the next day, not only was the audience noted but Tom Thumb's act was reviewed as well: "His personation of the Emperor Napoleon elicited great mirth and this was followed by a representation of the Grecian Statues after which the General danced a nautical hornpipe and sang several of his favorite songs."
The Queen had taken a fancy to Tom Thumb, and soon invited him to a second audience. This was to satisfy the curiosity of the three-year-old Prince of Wales. The meeting was held in a gold-paneled drawing room. Tom Thumb complimented the Queen on the room's fine "chandelier." The Queen took his hand and said that she hoped he was well.
"Yes, ma'am, I am first-rate," said Tom Thumb.
Queen Victoria then led him to her eldest son. "General, this is the Prince of Wales."
"How are you, Prince?" Tom Thumb said, shaking the boy's hand. He measured himself against the Prince, and then added: "The Prince is taller than I am, but I feel as big as anybody."
There was a third audience in Buckingham Palace, again presided over by Queen Victoria, but also attended by King Leopold of the Belgians. When the Queen requested Tom Thumb to sing a song of his choice, he promptly chose "Yankee Doodle Dandy." There was shocked delight, memories of the revolution in the colonies still being fresh. But Tom Thumb's choice was less patriotic than personal. He had seen a Shetland pony in the courtyard, and he desired it. When he sang, "Yankee Doodle came to town, a-riding on a pony," he sang it with special emphasis, pointing at the Queen. But she missed the point, and Tom Thumb had to be satisfied with a gold pencil.
Royal sponsorship had its effect on the public. Tom Thumb was no longer a curiosity; he was a monument. At once, he became the rage of London. Punch called him "Pet of the Palace." Youngsters danced "The General Tom Thumb Polka," and the music halls rang with songs dedicated to him. Everywhere, children played with Tom Thumb dolls and cutouts.
During the spring and summer of 1844, tickets to the Egyptian Hall were at a premium. Celebrities elbowed commoners, and the Duke of Wellington attended several times. On one occasion, when he arrived, Tom Thumb was doing his impersonation of Napoleon. Brought before the Duke, the midget, still in the uniform of the recent French Emperor, appeared very thoughtful. The Duke asked him what was on his mind. And Tom Thumb replied: "I was thinking of the loss of the battle of Waterloo." The witticism was spread from one end of the sceptered isle to the other, and it gave Tom Thumb renewed publicity.
In another section of the Egyptian Hall, Benjamin Robert Haydon, the historical painter and friend of Keats, was showing his "Banishment of Aristedes" for a modest fee. Haydon, at sixty, had suffered much from poverty and had twice been jailed for debt. He set great store by this exhibit, but in a week when Barnum's receipts were three thousand dollars, Haydon's receipts were only thirty-five dollars. In despair and bitterness, he scrawled in his journal: "They rush by thousands to see Tom Thumb. They push, they fight, they scream, they faint, they cry help and murder! and oh! and ah! They see my bills, my boards, my caravans and don't read them. Their eyes are open, but their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a rabies, a madness, a furor, a dream. I would not have believed it of the English people." This recorded, Haydon slashed his throat with a knife and then blew his brains out with a pistol.
So scandal was joined to fame, and the money poured in. Barnum estimated that his receipts at the Egyptian Hall were five hundred dollars a day. To this, of course, were added three generous cash gifts from Queen Victoria. And at nights and during weekends Tom Thumb entertained at private parties for a fee of fifty dollars an appearance. Among those he entertained in this manner were the Queen Dowager Adelaide, Sir Robert Peel, and Lady Blessington.
During all of this furor, Barnum had not forgotten the American Museum. He made two hasty visits to Paris early in 1845, the first to obtain curiosities for the Museum, the second to pave the way for the arrival of Tom Thumb. It was during the first visit that Barnum became friendly with the forty-year-old Robert Houdin, the founder of modern magic.
Houdin had left his father's watchmaking establishment in Blois to become a juggler and conjurer. Eventually his interests turned to the invention of automata. His first profitable gadget was an early alarm clock. "You placed it by your side when you went to bed," he wrote in his memoirs, "and at the hour desired, a peal aroused the sleeper, while at the same time, a ready lighted candle came out from a small box." He devoted a year to creating a robot that answered spectator's questions by drawing or writing. As he told Barnum, he concentrated so hard on the construction of this "complicated machine that he lost all mental powers for a considerable period." Now the robot was the hit of the Paris Exhibition. Louis-Philippe, the middle-class liberal King who erased the royal crest from his carriage and was never without his green umbrella, came calling and asked the robot the population of Paris. The mechanical man wrote: "Paris contains 998,964 inhabitants"—and the King conceded that the answer was correct to the last digit. Houdin showed Barnum his robot. Barnum was enthralled, purchased it "at a good round price," sent it to London to be exhibited, and then shipped it on to the American Museum. Barnum visited Houdin's theater in the Palais Royal, watched his brilliant sleight-of-hand, listened to his exposé of illusions and fakes, and afterwards, accepted his advice in buying other mechanical curios as well as a $3,000 diorama depicting the removal of Napoleon's body from St. Helena to Paris. Barnum had great affection for Houdin, and followed his subsequent career closely. The crowning event in Houdin's life occurred in 1857, when he undertook a strange political mission for his government. The Algerian rebels were much excited and influenced by their holy prophets or Marabouts, who employed tricks of conjuring to prove their supernatural powers. The French wanted to pit their wizard Houdin against the fanatical Algerian fakirs, to have him "play off his tricks against theirs, and, by greater marvels than they could show, destroy the prestige which they had acquired."
In the Algiers Theater, before an audience of hostile Arab chiefs, Houdin produced cannonballs from an empty top hat and willed a five-franc piece into a vacant box suspended from the ceiling. His pièce de résistance was a small box that "becomes heavy or light at my order; a child might raise it with ease, and yet the most powerful man could not move it from its place." Houdin invited the most muscular of the Arabs to lift the small box. After terrible exertions, the Arab failed to budge it an inch—yet Houdin was able to lift it with a finger. The magic, of course, was in a hidden electromagnet, but the Arabs did not know this, and Houdin successfully wooed the revolutionists from their Marabouts.
On his second visit to Paris, Barnum made preparations for Tom Thumb. With the assistance of Dion Boucicault, the playwright who penned the Joseph Jefferson version of Rip Vin Winkle, Barnum leased the Salle Musard for his midget, acquired accommodations at the Hotel Bedford for his troupe, and hired a Professor of English named Pinte to tutor Tom Thumb and interpret his patter for French audiences. This done, Barnum called upon William Rufus King, United States Minister to France, and inquired if Tom Thumb might be introduced to Louis-Philippe. The precedent had been set at Buckingham Palace, and the Minister was sure that the Tuileries would be equally receptive.
The exploitation of Tom Thumb in Paris was even greater than it had been in London. The day after Barnum and his troupe arrived, there was a royal summons from Louis-Philippe. Once more the showman and midget pulled on their knee-length breeches. Arriving at the Tuileries, they were escorted into the grand salon. The King and Queen, a variety of Dukes and Duchesses, and a dozen well-known citizens, were waiting.
There was less formality here than in London, and everyone conversed freely with Tom Thumb. Louis-Philippe asked countless questions about the United States, and remembered when he himself had lived as an exile in Philadelphia. "He playfully alluded to the time when he had earned his living as a tutor," reported Barnum, "and said he had roughed it generally and had even slept in Indian wigwams." Finally, Tom Thumb did his act, to the delight of all, and the King presented him with an emerald brooch set with diamonds.
The editor of the official Journal des Débats, who was witness to the hour-long audience with the King, gave an account of it to his fellow Parisians on May 23, 1845:
"General Tom Thumb accompanied by his guide, Mr. Barnum, has had the high honor of being received at the palace of the Tuileries, by their Majesties the King and Queen of the French, who condescendingly personally addressed the General several questions respecting his birth, parentage and career. . . . The King presented this courteous and fantastic little man with a splendid pin, set in brilliants, but it had the inconvenience of being out of proportion to his height and size. It might answer for his sword. . . .
"Tom Thumb is, in fact, of extraordinary lightness and nimbleness, even as a dwarf. In the King's presence he executed an original dance, which was neither the polka, nor the mazurka, nor indeed anything known. This dance was evidently invented for the General, and no one will ever venture to try it after him. The same may be said of another exercise which, with marked pleasure, he performs. We mean his personations of the Grecian Statues. . . . We prefer seeing Tom Thumb when he appears in the character of a gentleman; he takes out his watch and tells you the hour, or offers you a pinch of snuff, or some pastilles or a cigar, each of which are of uniformity with his size. He is still better when he sits in a golden chair, crossing his legs and looking at you with a knowing and almost mocking air. It is thus that he is amusing; he is never more inimitable than when he imitates nothing—when he is himself. . . .
"We will not mention a celebrated uniform which he wore in London, and which was amazingly successful with our oversea neighbors. The General Tom Thumb had too much good taste to take this costume to the Tuileries. We hope, then, as he possesses such fine feelings, that while he sojourns in Paris, he will leave it at the bottom of his portmanteau."
There were three more audiences with Louis-Philippe, and at one of them, the King asked to see the "celebrated uniform . . . at the bottom of his portmanteau." This was, of course, the uniform of Napoleon Bonaparte. In great secrecy, Tom Thumb donned the attire of Napoleon and impersonated him for the King.
In return for this entertainment, Barnum asked one favor of the King. A holiday was approaching, Longchamps day, and Barnum wanted Tom Thumb's carriage in the group reserved for royalty. The King consented.
Tom Thumb's carriage, specially built by Fillingham of London, had been a surprise gift from Barnum. The coach, eleven inches wide and twenty inches high, was painted blue and white. The plate-glass windows were covered by Venetian blinds, and the interior was decorated in brocade. The crest on the doors included the British and American flags and the motto: "Go ahead!" With the coach came four improbable Shetland ponies, almost perfectly matched and thirty-four-inches high. The vehicle and ponies had cost Barnum $2,000, but when Tom Thumb rode it through the crowded streets of Paris on Longchamps day, and thousands cheered and roared with delight, Barnum knew that his investment had been worthwhile.
Barnum's success in Paris was even greater than his success in London. Figaro and the rest of the French press publicized Tom Thumb's every move. A café was named after him. Snuffboxes bore his picture on their lids. His plaster statue graced hundreds of shop windows. He inspired poems and lithographs. He was elected an honorary member of the French Dramatic Society. His two shows a day at the Salle Musard were sold out two months in advance. "I was compelled," Barnum said, "to take a cab to carry my bag of silver home at night."
After a long stay in Paris, Barnum took Tom Thumb on a tour of France. This was followed by a journey into Spain, where the midget attended bullfights with Queen Isabella. Crossing into Belgium, Professor Pinte asked Barnum what were the qualifications of a successful showman. Barnum replied: "He must have a decided taste for catering for the public; prominent perceptive faculties; tact; a thorough knowledge of human nature; great suavity; and plenty of 'soft soap.'" In Brussels, the party was entertained by King Leopold. Finally, after visiting the battlefield of Waterloo and buying some relics for his Museum (he later found them to be manufactured yearly in Birmingham), Barnum took his troupe back across the channel to England. Profitable showings were held in London, in other large cities of England, and in Ireland.
Three years had passed, and it was time to return home. "The General," wrote Barnum, "left America three years before, a diffident, uncultivated little boy; he came back an educated, accomplished little man. He had seen much, and had profited much. He went abroad poor, and he came home rich." Barnum forgot that he might have written almost the same words about himself.
Although Barnum continued his close association with Tom Thumb on an equal partnership basis for more than three decades, he never ceased in his quest for another Tom Thumb.
In 1861, when the General had added a mustache and ten inches to his stature, and had swelled to fifty-two pounds, a more diminutive midget called upon Barnum at the Museum. His name was George Washington Morrison McNutt, and he was the son of a New Hampshire farmer. He was eighteen years old, twenty-nine inches in height, and weighed twenty-four pounds. Several showmen were interested in him, but Barnum signed him to a three-year contract for $30,000. The new find was christened Commodore Nutt and attired in a naval uniform.
He was an immediate favorite, and Abraham Lincoln invited Barnum to bring him to the White House. A cabinet meeting was interrupted so that the pair might be introduced. The interview was brief but affable. When it was time for the midget to leave, Lincoln took his hand. "Commodore," the President said, "permit me to give you a parting word of advice. When you are in command of your fleet, if you find yourself in danger of being taken prisoner, I advise you to wade ashore." Everyone laughed except the Commodore, who lifted his gaze slowly up Lincoln's long legs, and then replied: "I guess, Mr. President, you could do better than I could."
The year after he had acquired Commodore Nutt, Barnum heard of a remarkable female midget named Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump, who preferred the name Lavinia Warren. Although both of her parents were six feet tall, and seven of her brothers and sisters were of normal growth, she had a younger sister named Minnie who was also a midget. Lavinia, at the age of twenty, was exactly thirty-two inches tall and weighed twenty-nine pounds. Despite her size, she had been a schoolteacher of third-grade pupils in Middleboro, Massachusetts. More recently she had traveled on a Mississippi showboat. Barnum found her to be "a most intelligent and refined young lady, well educated, and an accomplished, beautiful, and perfectly developed woman in miniature." He signed her to a long-term contract at once.
Immediately, Barnum's small world got out of hand. For the advent of the dark-haired, attractive Lavinia created a Lilliputian triangle. Commodore Nutt, who worked beside her, became enamored of Lavinia. Then Tom Thumb, temporarily retired at the age of twenty-three and enjoying the pleasures of his miniature billiard table in Bridgeport and his sailing yacht on Long Island Sound, appeared in New York, set eyes upon Lavinia, and fell madly in love with her. Competition for her hand became so hectic that the Commodore in a moment of jealousy floored the flabby General with a punch. The Commodore had vigor and strength in his favor. But Tom Thumb had wealth and fame. Tom Thumb begged Barnum to speak to Lavinia on his behalf. Barnum refused. "You must do your own courting," he told the General.
Tom Thumb went ahead. On an evening in the autumn of 1862, he arranged to see Lavinia alone in the sitting room of Barnum's Bridgeport mansion. Without Barnum's knowledge, several house guests secreted themselves and overheard what happened —and Tom Thumb's proposal was saved for history.
The General discussed his property, his trips to Europe, and Lavinia's scheduled journey abroad. He said that he would like to travel with Lavinia.
"I thought you remarked the other day that you had money enough, and was [sic] tired of traveling," Lavinia said teasingly.
"That depends upon my company while traveling."
"You might not find my company very agreeable," said Lavinia.
"I would be glad to risk it. . . . Would you really like to have me go?"
"Of course I would."
Tom Thumb slipped an arm around her waist. "Don't you think it would be pleasanter if we went as man and wife?" Lavinia told him not to joke. Tom Thumb replied that he had never been more serious. Lavinia said that it was all so sudden. Tom Thumb replied that marriage had been on his mind for months. "You ought to get married," he told her. "I love you dearly, and I want you for a wife." Flustered, Lavinia answered: "I think I love you well enough to consent, but I have always said I would never marry without my mother's consent."
So it came down to Lavinia's mother. Mrs. Bump disliked Tom Thumb for his mustache and his pomposity. She also feared that the marriage had been engineered by Barnum as a publicity stunt. But letters from Tom Thumb and Lavinia, as well as reassurances from Barnum and George A. Wells, a Bridgeport hotel proprietor who was a friend of the Strattons, softened her, and, at last, she gave consent.
The moment the wedding was announced, New York was agog. Tom Thumb joined Lavinia in the Museum, and thousands poured in to observe them. Receipts were often three thousand dollars a day. Barnum offered the pair fifteen thousand dollars to postpone their wedding one month and continue showing. "Not for fifty thousand dollars," the General cried.
One voice was raised against the wedding. James Gordon Bennett implied that Barnum had arranged it to stimulate business and that people flocked to see the couple because of the freakish sex problem posed. "What class of ideas did Barnum appeal to when he advertised her engagement so extensively?" Bennett asked. "One had only to listen to the conversation of silly countrymen and countrywomen as they stood gaping at the little Queen of Beauty or to open his ears to the numerous jokes in circulation upon the subject in order to receive a sufficient answer to these questions."
Barnum did nothing to encourage the curiosity of the public in the sex life of the midget couple, but the curiosity persisted both before and after the marriage. According to Walter Bodin and Burnet Hershey in It's a Small World, most true midgets have normal sexual development consistent with their size. "Though endowed with the sexual desires of mature women of normal size, midget women are virtually always equipped with sexual organs no larger than those of a girl of five or six. . . . The sexual problems of midget men are simpler. They are, in the main, three. These are late potency, early impotency, and the certainty of derision whenever their passions center on women of normal size, which is frequently the case." Lavinia and Tom Thumb were said to be sexually normal.
Two thousand persons were invited to the wedding, and many who were not invited offered as high as sixty dollars for a pew. Gifts came by the hundreds, including Chinese fire screens from the President and Mrs. Lincoln, and a music box (a lever released a warbling bird) from Barnum. On February r10 1863, in New York's Grace Church, before an assembly that included several governors, army generals, congressmen, and millionaires, Lavinia Bump and Tom Thumb were united in matrimony by the Reverend Junius Willey of Bridgeport.
After the wedding and reception, the tiny couple was received at the White House. "My boy," Lincoln said, addressing himself to the General, and indicating their respective heights, "God likes to do funny things; here you have the long and the short of it." Respectful of the General's high military rank, the President asked him if he had any advice to offer on the conduct of the Civil War. Tom Thumb nodded. "My friend Barnum," he said to Lincoln, "would settle the whole affair in a month."
Having concluded their meeting in Washington, Lavinia and Tom Thumb retreated to the groom's apartment in the $30,000 Bridgeport house his father had built. The apartment was cluttered with scaled-down furniture constructed by Sherwood Stratton, though the miniature rosewood bed with carved flowers in its headboard was a gift from Barnum. (Once, reciprocating, Tom Thumb gave the showman a gold watch that sounded an alarm every fifteen minutes.) Later, under Barnum's auspices, the newlyweds made a successful three-year, 56,000-mile world tour during which they met Pope Pius IX, Napoleon III, and Victor Emmanuel.
It was generally believed that Lavinia gave Tom Thumb an heir, and that this offspring died of brain inflammation at the age of two. Although the story is still believed, there was no truth in it. The child of the midget couple was Barnum's brainchild, invented for publicity. However, Lavinia's midget sister, Minnie, having married an English fancy skater who was slightly taller than a midget, died in childbirth after bearing a five-and-a-half-pound girl who also died.
Lavinia and Tom Thumb were happily married for twenty years. The General grew portly and attained the height of three feet four inches. He also grew extravagant. He owned a sailing sloop, pedigreed horses, and a carriage and a driver, and he smoked expensive cigars. He was a Thirty-Second Degree Mason and a Knight Templar. On the morning of July 15, 1883, he died of apoplexy at the age of forty-five. More than ten thousand persons attended his funeral service, and he was laid to rest in Bridgeport's Mountain Grove Cemetery, which Barnum had helped to create. Over his grave, atop a forty-foot marble shaft, was placed a life-sized granite statue of himself, a statue he had once commissioned.
Despite the fact that he had made several million dollars in his lifetime, the General left Lavina with little but his name. All that remained of the great fortune that he had dissipated was a few pieces of property and $16,000. To still her grief, Lavinia took a troupe on the road. Sharing top billing with her was Count Primo Magri, who had received his title from the Pope and had once worked for her husband. The Count, a piccolo-player and pugilist, was three feet nine inches tall, and eight years Lavinia's junior. After two years of widowhood, Lavinia married him.
Interest in midgets had waned, and Lavinia's life dissolved into a nightmare of one-night stands. She and the Count appeared in a vaudeville act, four motion-picture comedies, and finally a Coney Island side show. At last they retired to a miniature home in Marion, Ohio, and conducted it as a tourist attraction. With old age, Lavinia became fat and garrulous, and much devoted to Christian Science and the D.A.R. She died in 1919, at the age of seventy-eight, and her second husband died shortly after.
To the very end, Lavinia always wore a gold locket containing her first husband's picture. She had loved Tom Thumb more than Magri, and when she died she requested burial beside him. Over her child-sized coffin, in the shadow of Tom Thumb's monument, a small headstone was placed. On it were but two words: "His Wife."
These were the little people who helped make Barnum big. The showman would never forget that of the eighty-two million tickets sold by his variety of attractions, twenty million had been sold by General Tom Thumb alone.