The billboard (Dec 1910)

December ti,--«ML ■. ■ The Bilib o a r d 5 Lives of Famous Showmen •'•^\v'** \A ■•■•'<: ■ w To attempt to enumerate all the incidents of interest in the lives of famous showmen, of whom this article treats, would be a stupendous task. Besides, our limited space compels us to give only those facts which are most important and which are of the most interest to the reader. ' It is only fitting that the article shall be commenced with a brief out- line of the career of - that peer of showmen, P. T. Barnum. Phineas Taylor Barnum was born and left his home. He obtained work on a farm, receiving the munificent wages of $3.50 a month. Later on he became a bell boy in a hotel at Pontiac, Mich. This was really the crucial step in.his life, because fate Mm in Bethel, Connecticut, July 5,1810. His father, a country storekeeper, died poor, accordingly, Barnum, at a very early age, earned his living, engaging in several lines of busi- ness in different towns. In 1828, he returned to Bethel, where he open- ed a store. Soon after he was mar- ried. His business was unsuccess- ful, and he established a weekly newspaper with no better fortune. In 1834 he removed to New York and entered the show business with one attraction, Joyce Heth, a col- ored woman, announced as the nurse of George Washington, and 161 years old. With this attraction, Barnum registered his first success. A year later, Joyce Heth died, and then after a lapse of another year, Barnum purchased Scudder's Amer- ican Museum, changed it to Bar - mim's, and his fortune began to ac- cumulate. In 1842, the dwarf, Gen- eral Tom Thumb (Chas. S. Strat- ton), was engaged and exhibited by him successfully in the United- States and Canada. In 1849, he made a contract with Jenny Lind for a concert tour of one hundred nights in America, at $1,000 a night. He gave only ninety-five concerts, but made ah enormous profit from this speculation and many others, and retired temporarily in 1855, to live in his oriental villa, Iranestan, in Bridgeport, Conn. He expended large sums in improving and beau- tifying that town. Having endorsed notes to the amount of about one million dollars for a manufacturing company which failed, he was finan- cially ruined. In 1856, he returned to England with Tom Thumb, and partially retrieved his fortune. Re- turning to New York, he opened and conducted a museum, but it was burned July 13, 1865, as did another which he opened afterward. In 1871 he organized his great traveling circus and menagerie, with which he was remarkably successful. The circus is still continued under his name and that of. his partner, James A. Bailey. Barnum possessed remarkable instinctive for advertising possibilities, and his original methods created for himself and his attraction world- wide publicity. One of his sayings, "that the public like to be humbugged * resulted in his obtaining much gratuitous publicity. Even to-day it is used with much frequency. As a showman, he was first despised, then ridiculed, then tolerated, and lastly, for many years, abundantly wel- comed. His charities were many, and he was one of the most public- spirited citizens in Bridgeport. On several occasions he was elected to the Connecticut Legislature, besides being Mayor of Bridgeport. He died April 7, 1891. mi 4p In his most successful enterprise, P. T. Barnum was associated with James A. Bailey. To Bailey was given the title of "King of Showmen." He wa S born in Detroit Mich., in 1847, being of Scotch-Irish descent. Like his distinguished partner, Bailey was born of poor parents. At the age of ten; he conceived the idea of tempting fortune of his own accord, ordained that he should meet there the man who gave the future circus king his first chance. The man who had that honor was Fred Bailey, the general agent for the Lake and Robinson Circus. He rapidly rose from billposter to general agent, becoming finally a proprietor in 1872. In that year he entered into part- with J. E. Cooper, forming the celebrated Cooper and Bailey firm, proprietors of The Great Lon- don Show. That same year the partners took the show to Australia, New Zealand, South America, and India, returning to the United States in 1878. By 1880, P. T. Bar- num had realized that the younger and rapidly-forging-ahead snowman would be a better friend than a rival, with the result that he offered Mr. Bailey the co-partnership with the present world-famous amuse- ment enterprise, known as the Bar- num and Bailey "Greatest Show on Earth." The actual management and policy of this show from that time on formed the life-work of Mr. Bailey. He planned and di- rected the European tour of the show, which during its five years abroad exhibited in England, Scot- land, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Austria - Hungary. From the start it was a great and triumphant campaign. In 1905 he took the show to the Pacific Coast for the first time in its history. Not only did Bailey build up, control and direct the greatest show on earth, but, at the same time, he was supervising the movements and policy of the Buffalo Bill Wild West, of which he was an equal owner with Col. W. F. Cody. He also owned the Forepaugh-Sells Show in conjunction with Ringling Bros. In 1868, Bailey married Miss Ruth Louisa McCaddon, of Zanes- ville, Ohio. She was his constant companion, and in his will the great showman paid a touching tribute to her devotion and love through the many vicissitudes they had experi- enced together. Bailey died at his home in Mt Vernon, New York, on April 11, 1906, erysipelas being the cause of death. His remains were interred in Woodjawn Cemetery, on Saturday, April 14. Admittedly one of the rivals of Barnum and Bailey, when these show- men had reached the pinnacle of their success, was Adam Forepaugh, the proprietor of Forepaugh's aggregation. Forepaugh entered the show business in a rather peculiar manner. He had been a butcher boy in Cincinnati; later was in the employ of a butcher and horse dealer, then he operated the stage line in Philadelphia, and afterwards dealt in horses and cattle. It was through his connection with the latter named business that Forepaugh entered his career as a showman. In 1861, he sold to John O'Brien, who was running a small wagon show, sixty-two head of horses at $9,000, and took as part payment an interest in the show. At that time Forepaugh had no idea of permanently embarking in the show business, but visiting the O'Brien Show in Pittsburg, he purchased it, and buying Jerry Mabie's Menagerie, combined the two, which formed the nucleus of the leviathian proportioned, Great Fore- paugh Show. The Mabie purchase consisted of two elephants and eight animals, for which Forepaugh paid $42,000. The property was delivered to him at Twelfth and State Streets, Chicago, on the very day of the on pat* 21.) .... ... _ ^MkSsid^y^-