Barnum Phineas




Greatest Showman P. T. Barnum Supports Natural History Education and His Shows

P. T. BARNUM, Illustrated and Descriptive History of the Animals Contained in Barnum & Van Amburgh's Museum and Menagerie Combination. New York: S. Booth, 1866. 70 pp., 5.625" x 8.625". Some edge loss to paper cover; otherwise, very good.

This lavishly illustrated pamphlet provides a description of the animals in “Barnum & Van Amburgh's Museum and Menagerie Combination.” It includes a preface advocating more national attention to education in natural history and a brief biography of Isaac A. Van Amburgh (1808-1865), a wild animal trainer who began performing with lions, leopards, and panthers in 1833, astonishing audiences. He developed a traveling menagerie in the 1830s and was the largest traveling show in England in the 1840s. The biography does not mention Van Amburgh's recent death on November 29, 1865, of a heart attack.

The pamphlet provides details about and images of a variety of animals from around the world, from alpacas to zebras. It concludes with a biographical sketch of Barnum, together with an advertisement on the inside back cover for “Barnum's American Museum” on Broadway in New York City.

Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891) was born in Connecticut and became a merchant, land speculator, and book seller before starting a weekly newspaper in 1829. He sold his store in 1834 and began his career as a showman in 1835 by exhibiting an old enslaved woman as a former nurse of George Washington. After she died in 1836, he sold tickets to her autopsy. In 1841, he purchased Scudder's American Museum in New York City and upgraded the building and exhibits. By 1846, he was drawing 400,000 visitors per year. He began a variety of other shows and contests and in 1853 started the pictorial weekly newspaper Illustrated News. In the 1850s, he lost most of his fortune investing in the development of East Bridgeport, Connecticut, which started four years of litigation and public humiliation. He re-emerged from debt by 1860 and resumed ownership of his museum. In 1870, he established a traveling circus troupe, which he merged with James Bailey's in 1881, separated in 1885, and recombined in 1888 to create the “Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth,” later the “Barnum & Bailey Circus,” which toured the world.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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