Smithsonian, the Washington Post magazine, and the wilson quarterly. And opinions and book review pages of the boston globe. The New York Times, u. S. Today in the Washington Post. He lives in virginia. Please give a warm welcome to robert wilson. [applause]. [background sounds]. Thank you ce that introduction. I am hoping your app works a lot better than the app for the iowa caucuses. [laughter]. I trust it will. You can probably actually test it. Thanks to all of you for coming this morning on this cold morning. It is very pleasant to see so many of you here. Very pleasant to see cspan here. I dont think cspan for all of the done to support book culture in america. I am attempt to say that normally what remains of the culture in america but on a day like today, its very easy to be optimistic about the state of books. I love being in savannah. My wife martha and i come here as often as we can and we live outside washington dc. And we have a in the panhandle of florida. We used to dread the 15 hour drive until we decided that we can stop off in savannah along the way and go for dinner and we look forward to the trip very much. As chris said, this is the third biography ive written. It is not really a trilogy. None at all. All three books are related to 19th century figures is careers were at the height of the middle of the 19th century. The first one was a book about an explorer named Clarence King and it was nice and are doing out west and explored california in his early days. Fans of major peaks and sierras and name some of them including mount whitney. Later did a survey of the great basin. One of the Great Western surveys of the 19th century. One of the people who accompany him on that survey, was a very fine photographer named timothy sullivan. And he had worked with matthew brady, the civil war photographer who is also a portrait photographer new york. I started reading about brady and was thinking it wasnt really good book about brady and perhaps for good reason. I thought well, brady turned out to be kind of hard subject because he did not leave a lot of written material. He may have been illiterate actually. Brady had a studio on Lower Broadway in manhattan. Clinic at a quarter of the street from Barnum American Museum. And Barnum American Museum was one of the biggest tourist draw in the city of new york. At the time. And barnum took over what was a very kind of dusty old museum that had sort of mineral specimens and things like that. Completely transformed it. He had flags flying from the roof and lights going up and down broadway. He had a band that was out of the balcony overlooking the street. The musicians were handpicked to be so bad that they would draw people into the museum. [laughter]. It was quite a lively place. Brady the photographer was very successful but i couldnt help thinking of him as looking kind of longingly across the street at barnums museum were so much was going on. And after a while began longingly looking across the street two. Partly because barnum was in a way of a subject, sort of everything that brady was not. In that he wrote a wonderful autograph biography and he was just a lovely writer. He was an exuberant fellow. Brady was thought to be or have a certain charm. His charm was kind of bringing people in. And seating them for the portraits and making them comfortable. But it was nothing like the boy it larger than life character that barnum was. So Clarence King which led me to brady and brady led me to barnum. One other reason to think of this possible trilogy is because is probably my last biography for the very reason i just dont think there is a better subject than barnum. Ive had so much fun spending years with him. Ive been thinking about him or talking about him for six or seven years. This may be the last time i do that because i want to move on. One thing that led me to brady, or led me to barnum was working and brady was that he went around to talk to maybe 25 different opinions about brady and always had a picture or slideshow showing his photographs. And one of them was a photograph of barnum. I introduced the photograph. He has a phineas is slightly an amusing name. There was also i think something about the way barnum looked in his photographs. Its sort of middleaged, he was rather handsome man early in his life and his wife that he was very handsome older men. But in midlife, maybe not so much. Im just going to read a very brief story about barnum telling about himself in his autobiography which is he lived in bridgeport, connecticut and he was very much became very much a republican prout lincoln man. But douglas came through bridgeport to speak during the president ial campaign. In his against lincoln. One of his friends said, what you know about douglas. To which barnum replied, is a red nosed, clear eyed, dumpy chap. Looking like a regular barroom local. To which is delighted friend responded, that mornings paper has said the douglas was a very image and personal appearance of pt barnum. [laughter]. Signing the other reason that i would show the photograph of barnum would to various audiences would be this kind of chuckle, i think people feel like even to this day, that they know barnum on some level. And obviously the name barnum and bailey and the circus, it is a name that weve all known throughout her lifetime. It ended as you know, in 2017 but so there is that name has carried on of our knowledge of barnum descendent extent. I think we also know him because of one thing from his early part of his career as a museum order. The famous sign of this way to the egress. Bejeweled and the story in school. He grasping the exit. People thought the egress was some fantastic beasts. And so they would fight follow the sign and find themselves on the street. [laughter]. And then they would have to pay another quarter to get back into the museum. That story is probably true. In the other story on the other think the real thing we know about barnum is that he said the phrase, there is a Born Every Minute. That story is almost certainly false. It is hard to prove that something didnt happen. The barnum road i would take hundreds of thousands of words himself. At least that many and probably many more words were written about him. Theres no sign anywhere that he ever said it. Raven thought it. Because to me the most persuasive argument against is having said that, is the relationship he began to develop with his mouth is museum goers, and inside is museum was a theater. So there were people who would go to melodramas and he would put on there. In the later in his circus career was really just the last quarter of his life. His always very careful about his relationship with his audience. He did not ever sort of overtly exploit them in the way that a sucker Born Every Minute would suggest. After he bought the museum, he spent enormous amounts of money to bring things in from all over the world. Wild animals, objects, people venturers. He began to charge only a quarter or maybe twice if you follow the egress sign. And half of that, 12 and a half since, for children. In his whole philosophy of this, centers on the word that he used a lot called humbug. He called himself the prince of humbugs. In todays world, the word humbug tends to mean somebody who exploits or attracts other people but in barnums usage, he used the word find the word to be what he did which is a thought of humbug as creating some kind of monster, finding something to get polyp publicity. Get people in the building. That was a crucial part of the idea of humbug was when she got them in the building or in the tent, they had to get much more than they had bargained for. Sue ruddiman under a pretext, say to see the remains of a mermaid. Which was one of his famous exhibits, once they came in and feel that when they are in the museum that maybe this isnt really the remains of a mermaid but there are all these other things here that we can see and so people would go away happy. That to me is one of the really crucial things about how we should be thinking about barnum. Barnum was not perfect however. I have to say that the imbalan imbalance, he was Wonderful Company always for me. Reading him, he was so witty and he could turn of phrase so well. I always enjoyed being in this company and i often went over by him. One of the things that make him a great character write about, was that he was not perfect. Like the rest of us, he was very imperfect. One of the things that really made the job interesting day by day for me, was to think about the things he did in the various contexts. And one is, he may have done this but then everybody did it in that day. This was sort of a historical characteristic. You might think of his treatment of animals. He was very dedicated to bringing exotic animals to exhibit. It was often a grisly process to capture these animals and ship them. The understanding of how to care for them when they got to the museum was limited. They were learning all of the time. Parliament did often bring handlers for the animals or people that were familiar with how they lived but it was a process that involved the death and loss of animals affect the Smithsonian Institution benefited from this thing that happened so often that in the barnum would also on sin them bones to the smithsonian. They have an amazing collection of things as a result. This is unsavory at best today, its a direct reason why were one of the primary reasons why the circus went out of business when they stopped. When they stopped exhibiting elephants, people basically stopped going to the circus. This is an example of that we have certain values and other values at the time how do you weigh that. Into whether you think or what you think of him. I am not a person who feels what i guess is called presentism. We have now reached a sort of state of perfection that we can look on condon sending late on everyone who came before us. There are obviously ways in which our opinions about things like grace have evolved and even if they are far from the state of perfection, there obviously better than the work i tried as hard as i could to give you a break on the things that i felt were kind related to the way people thought and that time and i also try to think of him though is a man and think about was the ever cruel to people. As a rule, i think he loved people. And he treated people very well. And many of the people who work for him, socalled freaks, often were very devoted to him and very grateful to him. It was not very nice to his life. I dont think that is something that we can forgive out of any sort of historical perspective. He came from a culture in new england was very much all about practical jokes kind of playing tough jokes on people and making people look silly. He often play jokes like that on his way. Once after he had been in england for several years, he came home unexpectedly and you had a wife and two or three kids at the time. In fact one of his daughters had died in the interim. And he not come back. He came back without announcing that he was coming and he sent somebody to tell his wife that she must come to the museum to find out some information about barnum. It was clear that she would think that he had died. The someone had got a notice of this. She came in there was morning to greet her. And this was a practical joke on her. I think the cruelty of that is self evident. It was really a matter of when sort of going through like to think through these things. Maybe because i am a journalist, and soon to be focusing on the negative here he was a person who brought incredible amount of joy to millions of people. He was dedicated dedicated to that as well. As i say he was just such great company. I think one of the things i would being a journalist and wanting to focus on the nape negative, would like to sort of talk a little bit about his attitude towards grace. One of the things that was interesting to me about barnums career or his life as a whole, he lived the way from 1810 until 1891. He spent the century almost. One of the things i was going to say that i really admired him came to admire about barnum was that he changed his life. I felt that he became a better person. Thats especially remarkable because had a lot of success in early on in his life. He became into it notorious. The sort of character in the newspapers. Everything he did, people were interesting and pretty made a lot of money. A loss a lot of money at one point. Pretty medevac. He became quite famous. I think about how few people who had success early in life, dont feel that is sort of reward for their own perfection as human beings. How many people like that actually change and become better through their lives. Barnum the problem with the great is a sacred he began to notice that people around him that he respected were similarly inflicted. Any eventually gave up drink. This was at the age of i was a is late 30s. And he became and like all reformed people, he became a great advocate for temperance. One thing that is really not very widely known about barnum as he became one of the really most in demand temperance speakers of his day. Kind of on our and gave hundreds of temperance speeches. In fact later in his life, when he would go out with the circus when the circus was on the road, it would often schedule temperance speeches because he was in town he had never been in before, and finally as partners asked him to please stop doing that because so many people were going to assist speech rather than going to the circus that inserting the intake there. That was one way in which he changed his religious faith. He was a universalist. He was very opposed to hardcore religion. And very opposed to, this was the day of sort of the great revivals. And very opposed to any Movement Towards confusing the roles of church and state. At the age of 21 he started a newspaper for the very purpose of fighting the idea of kind of a religious party developing in his part of connecticut at the time. Im getting pretty far away from race. I will get back to it. As a result of his temperate speaking speed got to know a lot of the famous preachers of the day and they became great friends of his. Many of those were also abolitionist. So they had an effect on him. One of the first acts that god barnum into the public eye and in some ways healed the reputation that barnum has to this day one of the other ways that we know the name barnum is often if say, unscrupulous seemingly person, i wont name any such person who achieved high office in this country, there would be, people would immediately slap the barnum label is a and it would not be a complementary label. I think you can traces back to his first act that he became involved in. He did a lot of things teens and 20s and 30s, he started this newspaper, he ran lotteries, and dry goods stores. Winnie was in his early 30s, he felt that he or is life work she somehow have to do with being a showman with exhibiting acts. Any of the time ran a boardinghouse in a store in new york city. He read the paper medevac was on display in philadelphia, and indeed a Person Associated with the act came into the store talk to him about it. The act was a blind signalman. She was reported to be hundred and 61 years old. And further claimed to be the nursemaid of george washington. She would go around tell stories about little george. She would also seeing sort of ancient hymns nobody had really ever heard before. By the way, i love this perspective. If you like maybe i went into the wrong business. [laughter]. But anyway, barnum hurried up to philadelphia from new york, to see this woman whose name joyce. And he was favorably impressed with the possibility that should be could be quite old. He never admitted throughout his life as he often did about other things he did, that he suspected that the she was not 151 years old. The Life Expectancy for a white woman was about 40. I would dare to say for a slave woman that was lost. But anyway, she was blind, to sort of crippled, one of her arms would not move. But her tongue moved very well. She was a very good talker and spoke in a strong voice. Some barnum decided to, she was supposedly owned by a person in kentucky. Some other people and paid him for the rights to exhibit her. But they wanted to get out of that business. So barnum made an offer, brought her to new york after creating a buzz in the newspaper. And begin to exhibit her. It went over very well. Grantor through new england, and at one point, when he got to boston, he became acquainted with a man who is famous for having displaying automatons. Creations that were mechanical that because somebody would maybe be in a box under the stage, would seem to talk and respond to questions. It occurred to him because the crowds have began to for her, to plant a story in the newspaper saying that she was actually an automaton that she had been made out of in your and gadgets and things like that. This sort of became a typical boy for part of many other act, he would either create kind of counterargument about a person or whatever is on display. And then sort of challenge audiences to come and see for themselves. It was something in his museum, people may have paid wants to see this act or whatever it was 90 would of course be encouraging them to come back. The back seat again. I do think if you look the length of his career, one of the things he knew that he was doing was he was not only bringing people in who live lives that were pretty isolated, when he was born, the telegraph had not been invented. The railroads were not running. And throughout his lifetime, people who lived in small villages like the one he was from, bethel, connecticut, began to have more access to the world at large. I think one of the things that barnum did through the museum and exhibits was bring that world to people who were eager to know more about it. And in one of the ways, one of the things he was doing was he was challenging people to use their critical sense. To say come and decide for yourself. Come and look and you make the decision. So thats the sort of pretty part of this. In the case of joyce have, it seemed pretty awful. Joyce was exhibited for a few more months. She became sick and died. Barnum had had an arrangement with the surgeon in new york to do an autopsy of her. The surgeon had been eager to sort of show that it had met in hoax. So barnum rented a big menu advertising and charged admission for this autopsy. The awful. He invited preachers and people like that from. As it turns out, the preacher found or the surgeon found that she had good organs, they were all in good shape. Except for her lungs, she died of tuberculosis. He felt that she could not have been more than 80 years old. This did not slow down by the middle. He continued to, he was not at all chagrined. But this was occasionally continued to get her various kinds of publicity. This to me is barnum at his worst. He also had racial views that were not, actually that were terrible. But as i say, with his connection with these preachers and his wife was a ut or unitarian, she was very much against slavery and he became more morbid evolutionists. And he became a republican, lincoln supporter, through the civil war he was very pro union. Did lots of things in his museum like exhibiting, the hero of charleston. The union hero of charleston. He did a lot of things to support the college. And then after the war, he ran for the legislature in connecticut and he said that he wanted to do that for the sole purpose of voting for the 13th amendment which abolished slavery and he did and as one of his first acts as a legislature. And he also gave a sort of dramatic and widely publicized speech in favor of giving the boat to africanamericans in connecticut. He argued in terms that we would not find particularly noble today he was very much in favor of that. It didnt happen for many more years in connecticut. But eventually, the 14th amendment to proceeded that. But anyway, i make a case in the book that he became more enlightened about race. People in the reviews that pointed out that in 1860 at a point where he was becoming more enlightened, he exhibited a little person, 4 feet tall, a black man who weighed about 50 pounds. As the missing link between Charles Dickens book it just come out on the origin of species in 1959. This was 1960. He started exhibiting this man. This man johnson. Putting in a pursuit. It was just awful. One of the things that was interesting was when he was exhibited there, the white man was upfront telling his story telling him how vaping found in africa or something. In the background, this man would sort of be mocking the white guy. And kind of saying that dont really believe this. This is not really whats going on. It was sort of messed up in some way i guess. And barnum clearly was probably encouraging that he ended up building a house for this man in bridgeport. They were friends for the remainder of barnums life. He went on to be exhibited in a be seen by a hundred million people. And into the around 1920. This another one that is sort of hard to sort of think about. I just leave you with one quick image though. Late in barnums life, he got involved with the circus in the late 1870s. In the late 1880s, ambani, james bailey was the genius behind the circus, took the circus to england. They exhibited, showed in a big building called olympia. It is a huge building that had room for the three rings, the big truck that went around it and at the beginning of each day performer, there were two performances a day. Barnum would get into a fancy carriage with footman and had a team of horses and he would go slowly around the ring. Anyone stop every so often and stand up and say do you want to see barnum. I am barnum. I am mr. Barnum. Any would tip his hat. And then everyone in the crowd would waive. It looks very much like as was pointed out to him by member of the royal family and looked a lot like, it was sort of a triable moment. He was much loved. In at the end of his kind of 1860s, early 1870s, after Ulysses Grant had left the presidency and went on a twoyear tour of the world. Sort of promoting the United States and when he came back, barnum saw him and barnum said, it mustve been wonderful, in the most beloved american who go through the world and he said no barnum, you have it all over me. Everywhere he went people would ask me do you know barnum. [laughter]. So i will stop and if there are questions. [applause]. What was the most surprising thing that you learned about barnum. To learn that he really was a better person than his reputation. I guess that is the thing. You touched on how many of us have used perhaps a simplistic picture barnum to label certain prominent political figure. I would like to turn that around and hear from you how the current status of american politics and american Popular Culture might have formed your view of barnum. That is a great question. There was actually a piece in the new yorker about my book and made the case that i had apparently been clearly unaware of what was going on politically in this country while i was writing the book. Because i tried very hard not to do that. One of the people who wrote a very good book about barnum called humbug, i read to when i started in on this. He kinda gave gave me his blessing and he said, every generation, barnum needs a new book. In each generation and little did he note that i wasnt that much younger than he was. So im aware my own beliefs political beliefs, the beliefs, inform the book. There is certainly a lot of times in the book where i said, a modern sensibility house to understand barnum in this situation. I tried to think my way into the 19th century in certain ways but to apply my own judgment about him. I do think one of the things that came out of the reviews, is this question of whether i was, i know ive been kind of negative here today but in the course of the book, whether i gave barnum too much credit. In fact the New York Times book review, referred to me as barnums wing man. [laughter]. Does that mean you or i understand barnum soon after his wife death, married a 23 yearold. Did you have something to do with that. [laughter]. He was married 40 some years to his wife. His wife, i think they were very much in love early on. Barnum spent an incredible amount of time on the road. I think later it may be get away from her. I dont know. Good early on they were separated a lot. She discovered she hated to travel in one of the ways in which the whole family was cruel, the main front of her when she did travel. And imagine disaster was about to happen. Terribly seasick or whatever. I think they had one apart. He did hide this marriage. Which actually happened on valentines day. What year was that. I can even think right out with the year wouldve been. He brought her back in the following september, they had a church wedding. And it was announced. But it is still pretty soon. His wife had died in november. Thank you for your question. One question people tend to ask me is what barnum wouldve thought of twitter. [laughter]. Have a little bit of time to think about it not just blurt out and answer. I think he wouldve loved it. He was a genius and using newspapers by sort of writing on squibs himself. Which would just be. Word by word. He was enthusiastic advertiser in newspapers. In that way got the attention of editors who became his friends. And he also was one of the ways in which he would kind of replenishes museum, and a couple of major fires in this museum. The next day he would get up and start telegraphing around the world he was in touch with people all over the world to bring new exhibits. And then of course later with the circus, the genius of moving a circus which essentially a small city, and setting it up elsewhere in a matter of of a couple of days was all baileys genius. But barnum embraced it. Soothing embraced the new technologies of his day such as they were. And i can imagine that he wouldnt be all over twitter. And making as much publicity as he could. I think i am allowed to ask a question two. What prompted you to start writing books and can you tell us a little bit more about Clarence Kelly and matthew brady. I was just interested in that and i never got a chance to ask you that. Ive been an editor in the newspaper and magazines. Ive done some writing. I wanted to, at a certain point i decided either needed to write a book or stop thinking about it. And Clarence King was the subject i come to know through wonderful book by woman named Patricia Otoole called the arts. Its about Clarence King and henry adams, john hey and very interesting lives. In the five of them had the kind of social group. In the book king was the sky, they were all very intellectual people. From east. In the book, king would sort of blowing from the west all sunburned. And everybody seemed to be in love with him. Male and female. This is really interesting subject. Really should be a book about him. I kept telling my writer friends, you really need to write a book about Clarence King. Hes really a great character. A friend of mine used to work for the New York Times, so the wise thing once that ive never forgotten witches you just cant give away a good idea. And part of this what makes a good idea good is your enthusiasm for it. So eventually i just said, i will write it myself. So i did that. As i said in the beginning, thats what led me to matthew brady. With both the king book and the barnum book, i was very lucky that there had been very good academic biographies about both figures. So they help me out. In fact the biographer from barnum, named arthur saxon is still alive and extremely generous to me. I wrote him a text yesterday and i said after today, barnum will be his again. [laughter]. But brady with a different character. And as i said theres not been a good book about him. Theres not a lot of people run him. And so a lot of it had to do with looking at the photographs and with him theres the question of what is brady photograph. He ran a studio thats another people out to actually take the photographs and with the recalled photo by matthew brady. And so is a very different kind of challenge to write about. I was wondering if you saw the show meant movie and what you thought of it. Sorry, can you say that again. Did you see the greatest show meant movie. Of the show, im sorry. I did see the movie. Id actually agreed to write something for the daily beast about the little ways in which the movie didnt quite get barnum right. Blake came out of the movie so enraged that i felt i could not write a lighthearted piece so i did not fulfill that. It struck me that there were so many ways, will this whole question of present day sensibility sensibility of the times. The sensibility of the movie is so hollywood. 2018 or whatever the movie came out. 2017. The thing that offended me most was to me it was like a big shocker, hollywood does movie and doesnt get the history right. Thats never happened before of course. [laughter]. It just struck me as being perverse because barnum was so much more interesting than the character they came out in the movie. And just the whole thing, jackman had a dance, whereas one of the people exhibited was a famous opera singer and they traveled around the country together. And at one point, jenny on new years eve try to pull barnum out. As an adult dance. And he said come on barnum you can dance. And after he tried dancing for a little bit, she said, i do believe you are the worst dancer i have ever seen. Im not quite sure that he never danced again. And then any time anything did happen in the movie, and theyre having a to celebrate. And since barnum was very different person that would not have happened. Its just the small things. But anyway, my wife liked the movie. [laughter]. Thank you very much. [applause]