Fall is apple season and the title phrase of this week’s Becoming Barnum podcast — plucked from a P. T. Barnum letter — seemed ripe for picking.
Writing from France to his American Museum manager Fordyce Hitchcock on September 12th, 1845, Barnum commented, “No, my dear H, the Museum, like Tom Thumb (2 years ago), is a tree found, tried & shook. There is nothing now to do but pick up the fruit.”
This may sound like a man well-satisfied with his achievements, but as we’ll see in letters written only about six weeks later, Barnum was not ready to sit back and just let the fruit fall.
You can listen to the podcast here.
Becoming Barnum: The Journey to Fame and Fortune is a podcast series presented by the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Barnum Museum’s collections include a 750-page copybook of letters written by Phineas Taylor Barnum, then in his thirties, when he was traveling in Europe in the 1840s, introducing his young protege General Tom Thumb to high society and royalty – as well as millions of ordinary people.
Barnum’s letters reveal him struggling at times to make the three-year tour a success, while also directing the management of his American Museum from afar decades before his name was attracting crowds to the Greatest Show on Earth. The letters also reveal how Barnum went about acquiring, hiring, and commissioning attractions, and promoting his museum and the General Tom Thumb tour in Europe.
Support for this project was provided to the Barnum Museum from the City of Bridgeport American Rescue Plan Act funds, People’s United, a division of M&T Bank, and the Connecticut Humanities and National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Listen to more Becoming Barnum podcasts online here.
For a full list of this week’s New York Almanack podcasts announcements click HERE.
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