Granddaughter and her husband. [applause] welcome everyone. To the barnum museum. Is this anyones first time here . Welcome to the barnum family. Were glad to have you on this Beautiful Day in the bridgeport, connecticut. It is pt barnums last museum. He started in 1842 and this is his last gift. Not just to the city of bridgeport but to the Global Community we serve. Many of you are familiar with the museum. In 2010, we were hit by a tornado. And of the year after that it was hurricane irene and then super storm sandy. I want to give a set out to our delegation. We are about to embark on a major of that beautiful barnum building. Thank you. [applause] and then to add to that, our congressmen has been really working hard with us to get the barnum building on the National Register but we are in the process of being reviewed to become a National Historic landmark. Theres only about 2500 in this country and that is a significant thing. Its reasons why we are here today because we are still talking about pt barnum. Robert wilson is here to talk about the fact you can contextualize him in a modern way. He is the father of the Entertainment Industry but he was a philanthropist. The doer of good deeds many times and those are the lesser stories that we know about are numb. But enough about me. Thank you for coming to the barnum museum. Please support us. We do programming all year. Even during the big historic construction project happening soon. Let me just introduce you to bob wilson. Bob has been the editor of the american scholar since 2004. Which won the National Award for best feature story in may 2006 and Digital National magazine story for commentary in 2012. Hes the editor of the million circulation of which i am a member. Hes also the editor of presentation magazine with the National Trust for historic preservation. Winning the National Magazine award and i want to thank you for that. Its the National Trust that got me into this field. But also founding literary editor and civilization. The library of congress and i did in 94 and 95, the magazine received the award of general accidents. And before civilization, he was the editor and columnist for usa today for 11 years. He was inducted into and from the of virginia. George Mason University as well as American University and is the author of a narrative on. Today we are here to celebrate his new book published by simon and schuster. We are honored to have him here to speak about barnum an american life. [applause] i have so many microphones going onhere. Now this one is on too. Thank you kathy for that lovely introduction. Thank you for everything you do for the barnum museum. Thank you for having me here at the barnum museum. Thank you for everything you and the purple who work with you people who work with you do. I also want to thank adrian st. Pierre was a curator here and really just throughout the years working on the book, offered me encouragement of lots of good information. It helped me a lot with the photographs in the book later on. Im also feeling pleased to be able to tell you that the great barnum scholar of this or any time, arthur saxon is here in the front row here. [applause] arthur could have been forgiven for not being wholly welcoming of someone who wrote a letter and said, id like to write a biography of barnum. He might have said, i did that and i did it pretty well. Not pretty well, very well. Another person who has written well about barnum wrote to me when i was setting out on this. And said well, barnum is someone who deserves a new book every generation. I think arthur must have believed it, because hes just been in his health, encouragement, good humor. Helping me to find things i didnt know i was looking for. And i probably could have written the book without arthur but it would not have been nearly as good a book. It might have taken me years longer. Arthur never blushes. Im in this funny position, i dont know how many people know more about barnum than i do at this point. Maybe a lot. But i do know for sure that three people know more are here in this audience. Its mildly intimidating to be standing before you. It was such a great pleasure to work on this book not only because of these three people and others who were helpful to me. Just because of barnum himself. Is just a wonderful character to write a book about. Character in the sense of, a character in a novel. A person of many parts. A person who lets say had his dark side as well as his bright side. Someone who just never failed to engage me intellectually. Emotionally. I was just drawn to his wit. To his verbal skills. He just had remarkable skills as a speaker and as a writer. Who knows where they came from. If you want evidence that certain gifts are innate, i dont think these were learned skills particularly. Or they may have been selftaught. But he had something in that mode that was unusual. This is hardly to say for now that barnum was a wonderful character. Was he a wonderful man . This is something people get to in a few minutes and that question is part of what made working on this book so interesting. From here and the village of bethel, and that he early on busied himself with a lot of sort of smaller and then larger entrepreneurial activities. I thought id just read a very one paragraph from the book where i kind of talk about a the arcis career, youre phone for the connection to circus but that came in the last quarter of his life. His principal occupation before that, occupations were running the American Museum, and being hip the whit and y and talented dwarf tom thumb, the angelic british sew pan projenny lynn, who was a centration, and dots of acts and traveling shows. Less wellknown today he was a best selling author, inspirational speaker, and then a real estate developer, a builder, a banker, a state legislator, the mayor of the city of bridgeport, near or in which he lived for most of his adult life. He was even a candidate for congress, losing a bareknuckled contest to a cousin also named barnum. In all of these endeavors he was a proposer and selfpromoter without peer, relentless tidier and concoctor of events for exhibits to draw the feverish interests of potential patrons. Im going to read one other just paragraph in a preliminary way just to sort of get youve situated with barnum for some things that come later. Central or barnums notify live in was his success with audiences he wrote in his 1,865th back the humbugs of the world, websters definition is, to deceive. To impose upon. Definitions today include the words hoax, fraud, imposter, mon sense, trick. Barnums bark is a survey of such practices, intended he said to save the rising generation from being bamboozled by the unscrupulous. But for barnum not all forms of humbug were hurtle. Sometimes embe joyus. The claimed for him the generally accepted definition of humbug focused on this benign variety. What he defined as putting on glittery experience, by which to suddenly arrest public attention and attract the public eye and ear. In other words what the did. The crux of the matter was that a person who attracted patrons in this way and then foolishly fails to give them a full equivalent for the money would not bet a Second Chance from not get a Second Chance from customers who called him a swindler, cheat, imposter. This whole idea of humbug and his idea of humbug is one of the things that distinguishes him from his reputation, as you begin to look at him in more depth. And im going to get to that in a second. I want to tell you that since the book has been published, a few surprising things this my third book and a few things that happened that have not happened to be before and probably wont again. In addition to having you all here and cspan here, i was astonished to see my publisher made an incredibly beautiful book. I can say this because i had nothing to do with the nature of the book but has a wonderful cover. It has wonderful a wonderful inside design, and it i know im seeming to be selling here and forgive me but the has a 16page color insert which adrian and elizabeth from down the road helped me populate. It also has something called deckled edges. Often a book is cut straight on the edge, and if its cut rough on the illinois its called deckled edges, and to me its something very elegant and wonderful and i told my editor early on, i really want a book with deckled edges and he said, oh, we can do that. I didnt really believe him. Thought, no, until i opened the box and saw they were there i didnt think it would happen. But i told this to my wife who is sitting here, martha, and i said, i told them ive always wanted deckled edges and she said, ive never even heard the word deckled in our 45 years of marriage. And so i responded to that is that every marriage that is successful must have its secrets and my secret was deckled edges. Another wonderful thing that happened that ill just mention briefly that cbs news in its wisdom decided to do a piece about barnum but the back barnum, barnum museum, cathy, me, and i had this wonderful experience that at a small editor of small magazine and somebody who spent a lot of time in his study at home. Dont spend a lot of time in front of national tv cameras so that was something else. And then the third thing is, the new yorker of all plates, in it wisdom, did a major piece on the book. They gave four pages by one of it most prominent writers, elizabeth culver, who won the pull litter prices for her pull litter price for her book and this was utterly unexpected. Most off all by my publisher. And one of my friends now refers to me four pages because i got four pages in the new yorker. So this was deeply exciting something made meber happy if couldnt help noticing as an editor and a writer and someone who has tried to be to Pay Attention to the nuances of language, that she same to be implying i had spent six years writing a book about barn glum the era of trump and the present day, and had not made the connection any connection between them. That i was living in this complete bubble. So this raised a further puzzle about the review, which is how did this rather dim witted person, meaning me, manage to write a book that was worth, did i mention, four pages in the the new yorker . And also four pages i say with very little attribution to my book. So, anyway, theres that. And then some of that can be forgiven but i felt there was a moment in the review where the sort of tried to twist the knife. She took her language and hoped it to a fine point. In fact theres a sentence right in the middle of the review that is only three words. And the word are, wilson admires barnum. This was meant as a great critique, i think. It didnt wound me as much as she might have thought it was because i do admire barnum. I think theres so much to admire about him. But as i said earlier, one of the thinged that made him interesting for me to write about was that he was not continuously admirable, so that as i went through his life, i found myself constantly looking at things in he context of his own time. Is this something he did, is this a display he was able to bring himself to make pause this was generally accepted at the time . But i also tried to look at him as a man, too, as a human being, and say, well, qualities that are beyond the pale in whatever century or millennium you live in. And that to me gave me a chance to be kind of continuously engaged intellectually. One thing i tried not to do was to work from the assumption that we have achieved perfection in a given moment, which i think is an idea, the idea of presentism, thats out there very much in the the culture that is very easy to smith people who dont represent everything that we in our great wisdom have achieved. One could easily poke holes into this notion of presentism, but that was something i didnt do. Some of the things i did admire about barnum, his eagerness to make other people happy, his commitment to large ideas, temperance, eventually to abolition, his commitment to make public entertainment safe for families and children, arthur has written a lot about this, in a definitive way. That the stage in the early years of barnums involvement with it, when he started the American Museum on lower broadway, it had essentially a theater. He called its lecture room because the reputation of the theater was so low, he didnt want to call it that. And as i learn from arthur and others, the theaters in those days were often places where prostitutes worked the balconies. Even in the expensive seats there was drunkenness and rowdiness. Other thing that barnum and others did in that time period was to really commit themselves to moral entertainment but also to lack of drunkenness, to creating an atmosphere where families could safely come. I also i mean, as is implied by him being the mayor of bridge fort and many other things, he was truly civic minded. He was actually a philanthropist, some claim to by philanthropist but dont give money. His philosophy was one of what he called profitable philanthropy, ask is nothing else shows you his mastery of language to have come up with the phrase, profitable philanthropy, and what he meant by that in part was if you go down the root road here and look at the park, that was a large part a large chunk of property that barnum and others but largely barnum, gave to the city, to create that park, but he kept out a chunk for himself so he built beautiful houses the middle of a park with a news vie. Thats profitable philanthropy. He helped develop east bridge port and they had a very generous scheme for developing housing across the river, but they held out every other lot for themselves and also the price of land over there increased as people built houses, their own holdings increased in value as well. But profitable philanthropy turn into real philanthropy later in his life, and he gave a great deal of money to his church, local hospital in bridgeport, to tufts university, other universities. I think the thing that sort of sold me on barnum ill get to the cons of his personality in a minute was this phenomenon of him becoming a better person throughout life of. As i got to know him better and better i was so impressed with the idea that here was a man who had a lot of success early in life, and i think how many people do you know who are very successful early in life are not convince end its because of their perfection as a human being; that somehow they did everything right and so good things happened to them. Barnum had success and yet throughout his life he evolved his beliefs on race evolved, beliefs on philanthropy evolved, and that quality of kind of refueling renewing himself and becoming a better person was another thing that really made me admire him. The cons are not small. I mean the racism early on is despicable, you can justify it to some going by the racism of the times, but also people who are abolitionists from the day the declaration of independence came out. There are many people who were not racists and its not something that you can dismiss. He did become an abolitionist himself. Ran for the Connecticut Legislature after the war, saying that one reason he ran was that so he could be could vote for the 13th amendment. He gave a speech favoring giving the vote to the thenfreed blacks in connecticut. If you read the speech you will not feel completely comfortable with the terms on which he said that blacks deserve the vote, but nonetheless he did that. Some of his humbugs wereon the pale, often early. Many of you probably know the story of joyce heath, a slave woman who was being promoted as being 161 years old, and the nurse maid of George Washington is a baby. Even barnum became embarrassed by that part of his life later on. His treatment of his wife certainly towards the middle and end of their marriage was not acceptable, i think. Part of it i think grew out of this he came from a culture very much into practical joes and very rough humor. Arthur pointed out when barnum took tom thumb to meet queen victoria, everything you read about it now is what a wonderful impression both men made on the royal family but arthur went and read victorias diary for that day, her journal, and she was very troubled by the way barnum spoke to tom thumb. Suspect it was partly that she didnt understand american humor, but there was a lot in barnums humor that was rough, and a lot of it was directed towards his wife in ways that i think were pretty hard to forgive. And must be said that Barnum Barnum was somebody who was unusually needy for wealth and admiration, thats not a quality i particularly admire. So the question in the book and the question thats come out of reviews is, was barnum admirable, was he not, how admirable was he, how justified, and my admiration for him and makes me think if barnum were in this situation, he would say, gee, theres a dispute here. The atlantic says one thing, the new yorker says another. You must come and decide for yourselves by reading the book. Thats what i would do if i were barnum. Im going to read you just a few short passagings of the book, from the book. Two of them have to do with things that happened nearby. So i thought that might be appropriate. Barnum was a sort of jeffersonian democrat, he was a member of the universalist church. He as a even as a youngish man he was uncomfortable with the sort of energy and ferocity, i guess the word you could say, of the role of religion in public life. Accomplish he believed very strongly in the separation of church and state. So strongly that at the ripe old aim of 21 he founded a newspaper called the herald of freedom, in which he propounded this idea that church and state should be separated, but he one contented to do that. He also wanted to attack the people who felt otherwise, including his uncle, among others, and barnum managed to get himself sued for libel several times in the short period of time he ran the newspaper. But but a year after he started it, resulted in a judge ruling that he could either pay 100 for having libeled somebody or spend two months in prison or in jail. The dan bury jail, in fact. And he decided, even though he had the money, to take the latter step and heres how he talk about that. I chose to go to prison barnum wrote to gideon wells, editor of the hartford time and later lincolns secretary of the navy, and other secretary of the navy. I chose to go to prison thinking that such a step would be the means of opening maybe eyes. In dean he continued, because of the trial, the excitement in this and the neighboring towns was very great and will have a grandeffect. His purpose in writing wells was tell him another newspaper editor would cover the matter at length as with the herald of freedom and ask wells to make such ranks as justice demands. His able to marshal not just his own paper but also the good will of others was the harbinger of things to come. It was the first clear example of his flair for drawing attention to his beliefs, his enterprises and himself. In his memoirs, barnum writes he was allow ode to hell his cell in the jail fitted out with wall paperer and carpet. Which was surely a rarity in the annal of imprisonment. Nile jail he would allowed to continue editing his newspaper to write letters and receive so many found he found their visits burdensome. This communication beyond the cell allowed him to temperature up local newspaper coverage but also to edge near what could only be called a local holiday to celebrate his release from jail. A glitch called in the committee on arrangements was formed. They met hem at the jail on the morning of the last day there december 5, 1832 and strolled with him across he victim green to very room from the courthouse where he had been tried and convicted. The crowd was so large, brannums paper wreck con it at 1500 soul and even at half that size would have been immense. Those who not fit in the building formed a parting sea. He was honored with an ode come polessed in a speech defend thing freedom of the press, written and declaimed by a prominent lecturer who was himself the editor of the new haven examiner. There followed the hymn strike the symbol, after which a crowd of several hundred gentlemen retreated to the nearby hotel of one jean nick koles and enjoyed a sump toes dinner, toasts and speeches. The toasts described barnup as a terror to bigots and tire tyrants. Who in the bore welt or walls can intimidate. The 22yearold had not exactly suffered at the hap of the law, barnum stepped from the hotel into a coach drawn by a six horse team. In him was a small ban of musicians playing patriotic tunes and a parade formed to take him the three miles home to bethel. The marshal carrying the stars and stripes led the parade followed by 40 people on horseback and there was carriage carrying reverend fiction, the fisk, the master of ceremony, followed by 60 more carriages, filled with local people. As this impressive retinue got underway, cannon boomed on the Village Green and several hundred more people gave barnum three chairs. When the carriage reached belt the ban played Home Sweet Home and three more cheers one up as barnum alighted. Thus the day begun in jail ended in well orb straighted and raucous triumph. Neither barnum nor anyone else said for short organized the many events of the day or who chose the members of the committee of arrange. S and its president. Barnum care any did not give or take credit when he later screen the celebration in detail in his memoirs and without doubt it was in barnums interest to imply the day unfolded almost spontaneously, propelled by the enthusiasm of his neighbor sponsors this exhaust and himself. He had groen up in the village and had many, many relatives there and nearby. He had gone to church there, hat clerked in it stores, still opened a store there, heavily advertised his lotteries, and now ran a newspaper from there. Democrats universalists and others who thought as he did would naturally have wanted to support him. But odes and informal speech does not occur on the spur of the moment, nor do bands and coaches arrive by chance and on if the luncheon involved only dozens rather than hundreds, provincial hotel would need fair warning to feed so many. Of the various tactics would master as a became successful showman, one was to know when to stan in the wings and when to ten the footlights to take bow. Seemed likely that in this case he wasnt both places at once. Others might have thought to sponsor an owed or an oration and engage a chorus or a band, play in a banquet or a parade, envision three cheers rare than three cheers twice, and might have forgotten the con nonsalute but not barnum. Beginning on december 5, 1832, more would always be more. Keeping sympathetic newspaper editors close would always be useful. Commissioning songs and poems and speeches would ever enhance an occasion, mixing serious intentions with entertainment, sure to drew a crowd, would continue to be a good strategy for engaging the puck. Public ad his own notoriety would be a calling card. Seemingly small but consequential details like returning to the courtroom, where he was convicted, or overlaying all with patriotic zeal would never elude him. The day had all the earmarks of a beenum barnum production. The day when his career as showman began. Im just going to read you one more because were returning a little long. Barnum became as i said, increasingly interested in abolition and became a very ardent unionist as the civil war started you may be shocked to hear that your part of connecticut was a hotbed of antiunionism, and barnum put himself out there very often on behalf of union cause. After the first battle of bull run in july 1861, northerners who sympathized with secession band to hold peace rallies am white flag be thrown above the stars and stripes. Barnums region of connecticut was speak especially active and the dvded to accompany 20 likemind friends to tape one meeting happening ten mile nor 0 bridgeport and hear for themselves whether the addresses were dishill or not. As they were leaving bridgeport they couple among buss who were carrying who had just been muster odd. They were head to stepny in a step kick cal frame of mind. Barnum residents crew beat the slower bus to the very large gathering and were present when the porcher was delivering his benedict. The omnibus appeared over a hill, filled with the soldiers, hollering, pro union cheers and displaying union banners. In a later account written by william. A louvered had been at bull run as a correspondent for the tribune and a local divinity student named john moses morris, according to them the soldiers win straight to the flag pole where the peace flag weigh with a black eagle and the word peace had just been raid as well as an ancient jackson war flag, at the soldiers shim whereyed up shimmied up the pole, the rallys speakers fled from the stage in a panic hid in a nearby cornfield. Crawford, who had been at bull run, referred to this the his condition as bull run on a small scale. The soldiers then raided old glory and carried barnum 0 on their soldiers to the statement where he he delivered a speech full of patriotism. He loyalits passed resolutions and sang the spar star spangled banner. Some drew weapons about the soldiers managed to disarm a few of but no before one pistol was fire. N his peach, hall, who despite his gravity wealth would wouldnt serve as a private in the war, told the crowd, if they fire a gun, boys, burn the whole town and ill pay for it. Before that was necessary, the bridgeporters decamped with what was left of the white peace flag dragging in the mud of an omnibus. But the soldiers remained in a riotous mood and when they return to bridgeport and a crowd of several thousand people had appeared in the streets by evening theyre sacked the offices of the bridgeport farmer, the democratic process session newspaper. Barnum wired several new york papers about the events of the day, ending hit first dispatch by saying the soldiers had been talked out of attacking the farm offices about. At 8 30 p. M. , the sent a second telegram saying the newspaper had just been gutted. The windows smashed, the type thrown the streets and the presses destroyed. He wrote in his autobiography i did not approve to the summary suppression of the paper and offered the proprietors a handsome subscription to assist enemy in enabling the publication. These were journalists on the opposite side of his viewpoint. One of the editors escaped over roop rooftops during the riot, fleeing to canada and end up in augusta, georgia. The other did restart the farmer. A week later after the arrest of the peacemeeting activist s on order that the secretary of state william h. Seward, barnum wrote to president lincoln from his house in bridgeport, reporting that the arrest had rendered secessionests so scarce i cannot find one for exhibition in my museum. And praising the effectiveness of the administrations strong arm. Lets good go ahead and turn to questions now. If anybody wants to come up here or does everybody want to sit and ask questions . So well do it that way if thats okay with cspan. So, any questions . How do you think barnum would have adapted to twitter . Its funny. That the question ive been asked several times. Barnum was somebody who really embraced new technology. I think one of his the reason for his success and one of his general genius was that the knew how to use newspapers, he was a master of as newspapers had become extremely previous rent, 150 newspapers or so in new york city alone, in barnums early days at the museum. He was an avid advertiser in newspapers. Of the telegraph, he kept in touch with people all over the world no fine acts for him the railroad, as he got involved in the can circus part of his lifed moving circuses around. So he was very interested in technology. So, i mean, i assume he would have used it. Smooth not have used it in the same way as certain people do, but i think he would have embraced it. Anymore questions . Im sure. You want to ask yours in. I wonder if barnum has any relationship personal with Abraham Lincoln and if lincoln had an opinion but barnum. The one thing that strikes me as suggesting something about lincolns opinion of barnum was that at one point after lincoln was president , he came to new york with his family and barnum went to his hotel and more or less begged him to come to the museum. Hotel was just across the street from the museum. And lincoln did not. At the time barnums what is it exhibit was on display there, and there were other thing that were racially his exhibit was the display of a black man as a possible missing link, and there was also i believe a play on at the time that was somewhat controversial. So lincoln as a good politician stayed away. Members of his family did good to the museum. Lincoln did, in 1863, i think it was, lincoln did mrs. Lincoln welcomed tom thumb and mrs. Thumb to the white house right after their gala wedding in new york city which barnum engineered. So, as i just read there was barnum felt comfortable sending lincoln a telegram and so i dont think the was a close relationship. Its interesting that people who were very close to barnum, such as horace greeley, very close, spent many nights in bashums house. Does not mention him at all in his memoirs. That norse mention of barnum in greelys memoirs, and there are other memoirs that i cant quite recall at the moment where the same thing is true, and of course greeley ran for office, too, and so it could be he was just very aware of the neglect tough sides of barnums public reputation, and so he thats what i he stayed clear in the memoir. Could you explain, please, what the relationship whereas between barnum and Tufts College. Guest why was there some relationship there . Well, Tufts College is often described as a universalist institution. I think more properly it wasnt institution found by universalists but not a universalist. But as a universalist himself some somebody who did a lot to support his religion, he became very involved in giving money to that institution. The president there was very good at extracting money from barnum, and one of the sort of enduring or almost enduring aspects of that relationship is that barnum had a building built on campus similar to this one, for a science building, and later in well, the timing wasnt late are but at some point after barnum brought jumbo the elephant to america, and jump jump be was killed after being hit by a freight train, barnum had him stuffed and also had his skeleton kind of rebuilt and he had two exhibits instead of one. But the one that was the stuffed jump be jumbo ended up in the Main Building and the athletic teams at tufts are to this day known as the jumbos. In 1955, that building burned down. When was it . 75. Okay, im i hope thats if its in my book ill have to fix that. Im sorry. You look very young. Didnt mean to imply its 75 the building burn down and the elephant carcass was destroyed. Founding trustee on tufts, who was next . I should say he gave money to other universalist institutions, too st. Lawrence college and one other. Barnum was quite the globe trekker for his time. Could you tell us an anecdote from one of his uncommon adventures. I guess one of the one sort of defining moment in barnums life was he took tom thumb to england with the his sole plan for selling tom thumb in england was to introduce him to queen victoria. He had no earthly reason to believe he would have access to queen victor youa and did not but worked on various people and is a mentioned earlier meet the queen. Later he also took tom thumb to france, and they traveled around the countryside. He brought charity, his wife, to england with him, and then to france. She found the english to be immoral so you can imagine what she made of the french. And so she went soon went back horrible and really never traveled with him much again. Barnum would had quite a retinue with tom thumb, including his carriage and little shetland opinions and often barnum would go in front of the retinue and set thing up in the next town, and he was kind on his own. And at some point he became very interested in the grape, both in its drinkable form and theres also a one of his letters to he a newspaper back home talks about his pleasure in squashing grapes with his feet and that sort of thing. Theres a pretty clear undercurrent in that he was a little bit too involved with the grape and all its forms, and indeed, fairly soon after he came home, he began to sort of strip away his interest in alcohol and eventually became as ive said, this tell temp plant speaker. Guess one officer this adventures a abroad was squashing grapes. I want to know the role of disability that he had in the world. The role of . [inaudible] i dont really think i have an answer for that question. I clearly he understood the interest that even though i dont have an answer im going to answer it. He understood the interest of people in seeing people who were what were called freaks, that had some sort of disability, people who were lacking in all pigmentation, people who were enormously fat, people who were enormously thin think siamese twins. He did have i mean, i dont know if you know the movie and ive tried to forget the movie, but i think there was a very 21st century hollywood take on he became great friends with all of the people in hi circus, and i think he had relationships with some of those people that were i think admirable but i think on the whole we would not be very comfortable with the way he thought about people with disabilities. The people that had disabilities had no place else to land in the 1840s and 1850s and the idea of freak show happens closer to the 20th century. Any people that were part of his performances, his exhibits were marvels of natural or natural wonders so there was a whole different new sensibility to that. Im not supposed to ask question. Anybody back here . Yes, sir. Thanks a lot. Grew up in bethel, i live here in bridgeport and i have the nefarious distinction of being a politician and. You brought to life about what barnum is, selfawareness. Wondered in all of your research, were there things you started to get on to and wonder about that you just are still today kind of hoping to find an answer to that you might find some trove somewhere down the road . Well, theres a wonderful collection of letters from barnum to a figure that i think of as sort of the boston barnum, a man named moses kimball, who was a close friend of barnums, also had a museum very much like the American Museum, also traded acts with barnum. They put on similar sort of moralistic dramas. Like barnum, kimball became a politician later in life. And the theres one very intense chunk of their correspondence that is in the boston anthony and its all from barnum to kimball and all concentrated in one year. I wrote to arthur, who ed debted the selected letters and its a great collector of barnum letters, and said since your book came out, any of kimballs letters turned up . And he informed me they had not but i would love to see them show up. Dont you think that would be a wonderful thing . That would be nice see a longer stretch of the correspondence. [inaudible] use the mic, arthur. A cache of letters that came to light after my edition came out, did turn up in bethel recently, and was donated to the bethel public library. In the manuscript some some letters very interesting. Sos has anybody we have time for one more question. I have two things to say. Thank you first of all, the merciless and merciful presentation of joyce hess, im fascinated by that and what is says about our birth as a nation and that kind of the monstrous aspect of barnum but also that exquisite poetry of bringing the other to his audiences and im quite fascinated by that. Do you know can you tell me more about his caring for her toward the end of her life and her passing . I know what happened with the exhibition and everything afterward. I also got quite fascinated by pt barnum years ago, and when the recent president ial election was happening, he kind of jumped into my brain and said, no, no, no, you cannot compare me to this man. We are totally different because i had principles. And i made a piece dedicated kind of him to called watch the boys down which is him coming back to earth to clear his name from that. So id love to hear what you have to say. Bravo for that. He did joyce hess became ill i think as i recall two or three months before she died, and barnum hired a woman to take care of her as she was its part of this time still being exhibited, and then she was taken to barnums half brothers house here in bridgeport where she died. Bethel. Oh, bethel. Thank you, arthur. And i mean, i guess you could say he didnt have to do that but you can also say he was protecting his investment. So i dont know if he showed any beyond the concept of exhibiting her. I dont know he showed any particular cruelty to her or but i dont thats pretty much what i know. Kathy and i are in conversation about the question of whether barnum charged people to attend the autopsy of joyce hess. Now, theres a a fake of the fake, and im yet to see any current document that says, yes, he was charging anything because in this autobiography and the article written by the newspaper editor at that time, doesnt talk about having 1500 people there and charging. That all comes later on and becomes secondary sources to the original story where there were surgeons, students and there was press invited to the autopsy. And clergy as well. And clergy. And i am going to keep i have to research this before the paperback comes out, but i believe that there were advertisement i think id be able to find advertisements. We have and theyre all secondary to the original. We have saying it was coming out inviting people. Thats the fascinating thing but barnum. Just nor look at and more to look at and always going back do toe graduate school, go to the source so thats one of the to tricky things and were so immersed in that because of the reenvisioning with the new burnam museum story the hard stories we have to lean into and not be afraid to an lied and discuss to really make barnum human. In the context of his time. So, thats of course appropriate for audiences today, but its fair to history. So, were going to be telling the authentic story about barnum that really humanized him, who he was, good and bad, and that is honest, and thats what museums are responsible thats our responsibility. I would like to just say, the trump question is something that always comes up, and i think its interesting that theres so many superficial ways in which they seem similar. They have slippery relationship with the truth. Their name was their brand. They were in real estate. They went bankrupt. They were called themselves philanthropists, but i think that as you point out so well, the differences are just so great that it is an insult to barnum. So with that, thank you. [applause] dont feel you have to rush out john and adrian and marion, thank you all so much. Theres tea, coffee, i take your time, eric is still selling books, bob and i will bell up here. You can get your book personalized and thank you all so very much for coming. [applause] heres a look at the most notable books of 2019 according to the washington post. In the matriarch, u. S. A. Today Washington Bureau chief sues pan beige recontinued life of former first lady barbara bush. Saeed jones offers thought odd generalter and identity in his memoir hour we fight for our lives. Pulitzer prize winning history continuan writes about; british are coming, Tony Horowitz retraces the travel of homestead in the leadup to civil war and in the chief, look at the life of legal career of Supreme Court overjustice john roberts. I started picking it up in mr. Interviews buff i chose chief Justice Roberts as my subject. I wrote but Justice Scalia and Justice Sonia sotomayor and i found elements elements of distd resentment with him. Frankly, sets himself above the others, just as you read in that letter. And i didnt know how much to make of it. So i mention it. At little points in the book but what i say is that it doesnt really affect the law in the end. Might affect how they navigate on cases, how they who picks the phone to work on a compromise, who might feel like backing off of a concurrence that the chief might not want to have stated, but in the end its more a human dynamic element than something that affects the law we all live under. All of those authored have appeared on booktv and you can find their programs in their entirety at booktv. Org. Type the authors name in the search bar at the top of the page. This sunday, booktv features three new books. At 5 30 p. M. Eastern, author and kole umist am my sh lass compares the economic debates of the 1960s to those happening today in her book Great Society a new history. Generally speaking a terrible morning after effect of the fall of the Great Society binge. The economy began to flail as it never had before. We know that unemployment went towards 10 . We know that Interest Rates went past 15 . The high costs of labor under policies backed by the government, did drive American Companies to leave towns. Grass did grow in pitsfield. At 8 00 p. M. Crime and progress. Inside the steele dossier the fusion gps investigation of donald trump. To my mind the picture of what happens is pretty clear. I get the fact that other people dont see that because theres been this deliberate effort to obscure that. At the highest level of he governments by donald j. Trump and his attorney general, william barr, and they have succeeded to some extent in confusing people about what the facts are. Then at 9 00 p. M. On after words, joe rickets, foundered otd ameritrade talk about hit worked the hard are you look the luckier you get. I always had to say to myself, be ready to fail. Be ready to lose all of your dreams and start over. And in fact ive got a website, entrepreneurs great jobs. Com and one of the entrepreneurs in that website that i interview says, entrepreneurs are different. We fail and when we do we get back on the horse. Watch booktv this weekend and every weekend opposite cspan2 2. Book tv covers book fairs and festivals around the doneheres what is coming. Theft 2020 festival season kicks knopf january with the Rancho Mirage writers festival . California. It is great to be here with you all to celebrate
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