P.T. Barnum Isn’t the Hero the “Greatest Showman†Wants You to Think
His path to fame and notoriety began by exploiting an enslaved woman, in life and in death, as entertainment for the masses
By Jackie Mansky
smithsonian.com
December 22, 2017
Some five decades into his life, Phineas Taylor Barnum from Bethel, Connecticut, had remade himself from his humble beginnings as an impoverished country boy into a showman—indeed the “greatest showman,†as the new musical about his life would say—of his generation.
Thanks to a combination of brilliant marketing tactics and less-than-upstanding business practices, Barnum had truly arrived, and with his book Humbugs of the World, in 1865, Barnum wanted to inform you, his audience, that he hadn’t achieved his rags-to-riches success story by scamming the public.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-pt-barnum-greatest-humbug-them-all-180967634/#2cokEvZ184zma5O1.99
