The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Phineas Taylor Barnum was perhaps the greatest showman of all time. He had a gift for research and exhibition of unusual people, animals and a series of strange, some are false alarms, as Feejee Mermaid.

Although the Barnum & Bailey circus continues as a testament to his talent for promotion, was also a politician and journalist, and as an influence in the United States and Europe in the 19th century. Tomanipulate could push to spin doctors today “inept hacks.

PT Barnum, and was better known, was born in Bethel, Connecticut, July 5, 1810. After his father died in 1826, lost his life to his rural ideal, and was drawn to the lights of the city of Brooklyn, New York, where he worked for a short period as its store.

His own fascination with curiosities, strange and bizarre, convinced that his contemporaries of the era also seduce, began to collect and display data in his career. His reading of the feelings of the time had come, and people gathered in large numbers in different places, he built, including the American Museum in New York.

Early efforts involved Joice Heth, who advertised as “the greatest natural curiosity in the world and national levels.”

Interested persons fiction, African American women was 161 years, he convinced his audience that as a slave, tending to a young George Washington.

When a doctor cuts your actual age of 80 after her autopsy, Barnum insisted that his body was a fake and always performed elsewhere.

In 1841, he founded and built the Barnum Museum of America in the heart of the old city of New York. It consists of an eclectic mix of loud and exciting attractions, including Tom Thumb and Mermaid Feejee, exhibits with natural history and taxidermy exhibit Menagerie, and art, and a wax room, reading and theater in which Shakespeare performed.

For many historians and social scientists, the Museum of America was the foundation of New York, urban evolution.

Remarkably perceptive of the changing demographics of the city and the confluence of different cultures, Barnum line exhibitions, and educational materials to reflect different cultures and tastes, and each of the layers of social classes of the time. There is literally something for everyone.

The public response has been almost as varied as the diversity of the museum. Some loved the theater and museum some were appalled by it.

The flames of the wrath that has been fueled by Barnum support of temperance, and July 13, 1865, the American Museum was burned to the ground. Never determined that the fire was set. Then he built a new museum Uptown, which also burned.

It is perhaps the best known, however, two notes: Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind.

In 1842 he discovered Charles Sherwood Stratton, who was called Tom Thumb, a man who was only 25 inches tall and weighs only 15 pounds at age 11.

Barnum study two years in the training of Tom sing, dance and mime, and then embarked on a world tour with her boyfriend who made the public fascination with national and European level, including royalties and Abraham Lincoln. Tom Thumb has become a “must” for the American Museum.

Jenny Lind, Barnum called “The Swedish Nightingale” was a musical prodigy. Could play the piano for four years and has developed an extraordinary voice, which has amply demonstrated the influence and politics, including President Millard Fillmore, General Winfield Scott, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Washington Irving and others .

The Barnum & Bailey Circus, which he called “the greatest show on Earth” is his most lasting legacy.

Mixing politics with their passion for the bizarre Barnum allowed to serve one year as mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and has served two terms in the Legislature of Connecticut.

The Barnum Museum is an excellent chronicle of the life and times of Phineas Taylor Barnum and well worth a visit.