The Truth Behind P.T. Barnum and His Sideshow Acts

Above all else, Barnum was an expert con-artist. He twisted people’s unique physical features or disabilities into further hoaxes or false storylines for profit. Barnum opened up his museum of “oddities” and started a traveling circus to showcase those intriguing people he recruited. Below are some of the very people and acts he used in his show to draw giant crowds.

A great example of that is how he took advantage of the pop culture interest of the times called “Circassian Beauties.” The hot topic was sweeping conversations in New York. He found the first girl, who may or may not have been named Zalumma Agra to fit the mold he created. The women were beautiful and catered to the ideals of what society wanted a woman to be while doing lady-like activities, such as reading aloud and acting shy. Eventually, interest faded and these ladies had to learn circus tricks.

Conjoined twins are also referred to as Siamese twins. That term started with twins who had this problem and just so happened to be Siamese-Americans. They traveled extensively throughout the US and Europe to show off and make money off their physical predicament. The crowds were so taken by their situation that it wasn’t long before the brothers became wealthy and settled down. The men were almost 50 before they signed on with Barnum and earned another small fortune.

That’s exactly what Josephine Corbin of Tennessee did as a teenager starting in 1880. Her double pelvis led to two sets of legs. Luckily, not all four were the same length, but it must have been cumbersome nonetheless. Originally called the Four-Legged Girl from Texas, Josephine was hired by Barnum for as high as $450 a week, the equivalent of over $13,000 today.

Chang Yu Sing knew his people and used their curiosity to his advantage. He was a celebrity in his time because of the extraordinary height he achieved in his teens- eight feet. Like others listed, he traversed through Europe and had an audience with the British royal family. He would delight crowds with his poetry and musical talents. He was so immensely popular that it took Barnum to pay him the modern-day equivalent of over $16,000 a week to have him join the crew in the US.

Initially this seemed to be proof that mermaids existed in Fiji and was thought to be caught by fishermen in the shallow waters of the island. In reality, it was actually a small monkey glued to the tail of a large fish.

Luckily, fate was on the side of a man who would be referred to as Prince Randian. P.T. Barnum heard of a man who had been born with tetra-amelia syndrome and wanted to add this limbless wonder to his act. Just before the turn of the 20th century, Barnum brought “The Human Torso” from his home in the Caribbean to join the traveling circus. Randian continued putting on an act for the following 45 years, literally until the day he died.

He claimed that he was a descendant of a noble Greek man who had been subsequently kidnapped by Chinese Tartars and tattooed against his will. In truth, this was probably for the show.

Issac Sprague was the first in a long line of uncomfortably skinny people to be paid as “skeletons”. He was scouted as a teenager to begin performing. A short while later, Barnum found Sprague and offered him the equivalent of $1,400 a week to go on the road with him. In the end, they worked together for over a decade.

But when she was born the appendage was quite small. It appeared to be a small twin attached to her. As she grew up, the appendage grew with her. By the time she was 21 years old, the appendage included two legs, an arm with three fingers, and a tiny underdeveloped arm.

P.T. had to come up with a whopper to get some foot traffic, so he came up with a story that she was a nursemaid to America’s very first president. For months, they toured the US while she told stories about the childhood of George Washington. Despite the lies Barnum forced her to tell, she made over $1,500 a week, $48,000 today, to do it. When she passed, an autopsy determined she was closer to 80 than 161.

Barnum of course made a backstory for Stephan which had his affliction blamed on a strange occurrence of events. Stephan’s affliction was blamed on the fact that his father had been mauled by a lion while his mother was pregnant with him.

Barnum created a creative if not cruel backstory about him, which detailed a hunter who tracked and captured the boy. Barnum claimed that the teen was uncivilized and a savage. Fedor would bark and growl like a dog to add to the illusion. 

It was around that time she signed on to be part of the act at Barnum’s American Museum. Unfortunately, she did not stay for too long. After a fire in the museum almost took her out, she decided to do something different and went back to Canada for a circus there. Eventually, she met and married another giant and moved to London to start a family.

Barnum took the young child under his wings and he was taking the stage by the time a normal child is entering kindergarten. When Stratton was seven, he was touring Europe and performing in front of the British royal family. Critics against these types of shows started to soften after they saw how well he was treated. He eventually married and enjoyed a life of wealth until he passed away at 45.

This kind of conjoined twin would likely not be able to be separated even with today’s medicines and surgeries because they share all of their major organs.

Josephine Boisdechene was born in 1929 and quickly grew an abundance of hair. Her Swiss parents of higher class were uneasy about her health and future with this condition. Once she graduated from boarding school, Josephine’s dad took her around Europe to show off her unique appearance. After much success, she moved with her husband, son, and father to America in the early 1850s. That’s where she met P.T. Barnum and the rest, as they say, is history. She was soon dubbed “The Bearded Lady of Geneva” and appeared in Barnum’s museum for a few years before disappearing.

In the article she was referred to as “The Little Queen of Beauty” and was on “exhibition” every day from 10 AM until 10 PM. Admission to see her was 25 cents.

Sadly, when he was a small boy, he was sold off to the circus for a small sum of money. Barnum then displayed him in a cage and advertised him as the “missing link” between modern humans and apes. 

Hannah was also very tall, standing at over 6 feet. Barnum put her with a much smaller man, John Battersby, as part of an act. The two actually fell in love and got married.

This created quite the buzz, however the buzz grew when the two fell in love and married each other. This caused quite the spectacle, especially when Hannah would cradle John in her arms.

Many tales of the couple’s devotion came out after the fact of their love story, although it can be difficult to parse through what is fact and what is fiction.

Hannah contracted an infection from the injuries she suffered from the fall. John and his daughter Rachel moved to a new city, where John died eight years later. Rachel married a police officer.

Rudolph was one of Barnum’s most famous albino acts, and he also had a family, making him that much more memorable. According to reports, Rudolph was born in Madagascar and was discovered by Burnham at another circus.

In all, Nora had 370 tattoos covering most of her body. Initially, she lied and said she had been tied to a tree and tattooed by Native Americans, but soon she tired of this backstory and told the truth. Not many people cared, they just wanted to look at her. 

Burnham displayed women who were from a culture in the Congo where lips were stretched for aesthetic reasons. He branded them a “Tribe of Genuine Ubangi Savages” well into the 1930s.

Jumbo frequently was made to perform for crowds in Madison Square Garden. His most notable performance was when he led a string of 21 elephants across the Brooklyn Bridge to test its stability. His name is where the term “jumbo” to describe large things comes from.

Barnum had Jumbo’s hide stuffed and donated to Tufts University, a school where he was a trustee. It eventually burned in a fire in 1975, but remains the school’s mascot.

He imported elephants from Sri Lanka where they were cramped in the ship’s hold with no room to move and no fresh air. By the time they arrived, one had died. The ones who did survive endured torture, as Barnum used a “burning method” to train them, by sticking a hot poker up their trunks, along with many more methods. This created a tradition of animal cruelty in the circus that still persists today.

A second pair he trapped died nearly as quickly, despite Barnum pumping salt water from the New York Bay.

He also served two terms in the Connecticut legislature in 1865. It was not until he was 60 years old that he embarked on the business of oddities and the circus lifestyle.

Barnum leased the woman for a year for $1,000, and worked the elderly woman for 10 to 12 hours a day. Joice died at age 80. Barnum hosted a live autopsy of her body in New York and charged 50 cents to see her cut up.

Barnum is supposed to have said that his patrons were willing participants in his pranks and hoaxes and that they “like to be humbugged.”

The movie depicts a man who was orphaned as a child and spent his life pursuing the “American Dream,” ending in him fulfilling his dream of living a wondrous and extraordinary life.

However, according to the director of the film, Michael Gracey, he “started cynically” by pursuing money, however he “later realized that he’d made a family . He took these people who were invisible to society and made them stars.” It is hard to look past a lot of cruel treatment that Barnum contributed to, but we’ll let you be the judge.

In reality, Jenny Lind was the so-called “Swedish Nightingale,” essentially the Adele of her age. The film completely misses that she was an established and well regarded professional in her own right! Furthermore, they had no romantic relationship.

Barnum helped make Jenny a well-known act and due to this she became an overnight sensation. Barnum made an incredibly large amount of profit from this and Lind became a mainstay in American theaters.

Apparently, Jenny Lind broke not only the famed author’s heart, but also the famous composer Felix Mendelssohn. She was not a huge fan of PT Barnum either.

That all changed when Barnum read a persuasive lecture about “moderate” drinkers. It affected him so much that he went down into his cellar and destroyed 60 to 70 bottles of champagne.

He was fond of saying he and his circus animals drank “nothing stronger than water,” although part of Jumbo’s show was to down an entire keg at once.

During the Civil War he was on the side of the Union and eventually became very outspoken about it.

The book sold more than 1 million copies during his lifetime, which is quite a lot for the era that he lived in.

After PT Barnum died in 1891, the Barnum and Bailey show was bought by the rival Ringling brothers in 1907. In May 2017, the circus he founded gave its final performance.

He was content to be invisible and was truly only interested in the overall success of the show. It was also he who was instrumental in getting Jumbo the elephant.

Coney Island’s show featured “Anita the Elephant Face Girl” who is depicted above. Anita was born with a nose deformity that resulted in an elongated appearance that looked similar to an elephant’s trunk, hence her show name.

Ethel’s measurements came in at 36-13-39. She was well-known for her dramatic body modifications. Her unique appearance came complete with elaborate piercings such as the nose and ear piercings shown here.

The Barnum and Bailey circus was perhaps the most well-known circus and the performers put on one of the wildest shows that anyone had ever seen. It was an event when the circus came into town and we can still see the lingering effects of these unbelievable performances in some entertainment today.