Struggles and Triumphs

by P.T. Barnum

Struggles and Triumphs is the autobiography of P. T. Barnum, the celebrated American showman. Though subtitled Forty Years’ Recollections, it covers a period of over 60 years, from his birth in 1810, to the later years of his career in the 1870s.

Barnum has an engaging style, and his autobiography is crammed with many amusing and interesting incidents as he tells how he learned to make money entertaining the public through circuses, “freak shows,” theatrical presentations, concert tours and the like. On the way he builds up an impressive fortune, only to lose it all through a fraudulous speculation perpetrated on him. Then he starts again, pays off his debts and builds up another, greater fortune. Though often labelled as a “humbug” or “a mere charlatan” it’s clear that the majority of his contemporary Americans held him in affectionate regard.

Also of great interest are Barnum’s philanthropic endeavours: lecturing on teetotalism; supporting negro equality; and funding civic developments.

However modern readers may be upset by Barnum’s rather cavalier treatment of the animals under his care in the various menageries and aquariums he created, and be distressed by the details of how they were lost in the several fires which destroyed Barnum’s Museums.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Memoir, Classics

ebook

First published January 1, 1872

About the author

American man Phineas Taylor Barnum established The Greatest Show on Earth in 1871; its major competition in 1881 merged to form the circus of James Anthony Bailey.

Phineas Taylor Barnum, a best remembered entertainer, promoted such celebrated hoaxes as the Feejee mermaid and founded later the Ringling brothers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._B...

Reviews

[Hannah]

this man… is such an asshole. I don’t say that in a like condemnatory way (he has been dead for 133 years.) it is almost kind of a joy to watch him trot along through the 19th century going "I trust it does not go beyond the bounds of my natural modesty if I mention here that [copies out every single positive newspaper article ever written about him]", and to meticulously list every penny he has ever made with the dedication of that kind of person who really and genuinely finds money-making intellectually interesting because it means having more money, and has he mentioned he is a teetotaler today??, and then casually telling us that he has been directly responsible for the deaths of like four separate giraffes. his thoughts are not interesting. his bigotry is flagrant. his character flaws are many. he lists every single time he has ever successfully pranked someone, and then, he lists every single time someone has failed to prank him.

honestly I had a really nice time living in his head. before reading this I knew nothing about the life of P.T. Barnum (I have seen THE GREATEST SHOWMAN four or five times, which is information unrelated to the previous clause) and after reading this I feel like I know... still not actually all that much about the life of P.T. Barnum, but a weirdly large amount about what kind of person the public of the 1870s wanted public figures to be, so in any event I have got value for money. (this book is in the public domain.)

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say I liked everything about this book, but it was his own story, in his own words, and well worth a read. Top marks.

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose to read P.T. Barnum’s last autobiography (he wrote multiple) after watching the fascinating documentary “The Circus” that PBS released in 2018…knowing full well that while Barnum’s book was written when he was 60 years old, it wouldn’t even begin to touch on his most famous endeavor. That’s because Barnum didn’t join with Bailey to create their famous traveling circus show until Barnum was in his 70s! He pulled extensively, I assume, from the diary he mentions keeping…there’s no other conceivable way for him to recall the details of every minor interaction and transaction as he does. This 400-page book is full of minute details. Barnum goes to great lengths—especially early in his narrative, but occasionally throughout (including one long chapter late in the book that has nothing but these anecdotes)—to entertain readers with anecdotes of practical jokes or other funny happenings, but almost every time it should have come with a warning label: “You had to be there, I guess.” These aren’t as hilarious to us as they must have been to him, and to edit them out would have made more a more concise story of his life. But, despite being written more than 150 years ago, Barnum’s book is a relatively easy read. I did utilize my reading app’s dictionary feature to define some words that aren’t in today’s lexicon, but on the whole Barnum wrote in a way that feels more modern than some of his contemporaries (in my experience of writing from that era, at least). Barnum sometimes glosses over controversies, like the story of Joice Heth, his first sideshow and his first real foray into the work the world would eventually come to know him by. He gives her a few paragraphs, but in this (long) story of P.T. Barnum’s first 60 years of life, this story probably deserves its own chapter. (Perhaps Barnum’s first autobiography had more to say…of course, one wonders why anyone would need more than one, but I assume in his case it was all about the potential for more money. Or to inflate his humongous ego.) Sometimes, I give him credit for at least alluding to moments he allegedly wasn’t proud of (Whether I really believe he wasn’t proud, I don’t know, because he was exceedingly proud every other time he had an idea that made money…including when he used a loophole to pay fewer exhibition taxes in France even though that tax benefited French hospitals). Like when he advertised his American Museum in downtown New York using an illustration of a new attraction that he claimed was a real mermaid, but strongly suspected was actually a monkey and a fish sewn together (which it was). Not only did he trick New Yorkers this way, but he even sent the “mermaid” across the country and collected money from suckers coast to coast. But on the other hand again, part of me thinks these exaggerations and outright lies—what he refers to as “humbugs”—were part of what people were really paying for. Like when people in 2020 flocked to that obelisk that was discovered in the desert, even though they knew it probably wasn’t erected by aliens. At any rate, Barnum’s success always increased after he played a trick on audiences and got negative press, if that says anything. It should be noted that my reading of this man’s autobiography is not an endorsement of his character, because I naturally found his cheerful recollections of buying and selling people (not as slaves, but as exhibitions) horrendous. Not to mention the slaughter of animals in an attempt to capture live ones for his menageries. The circus documentary estimated that for every animal displayed in circuses at that time, several more (maybe as many as 8 or 10) were killed by hunters in an attempt to capture live ones, or they died of other causes in transit from Africa/Asia to Europe and then to America. Barnum also bragged about the money he made when he added an aquarium to the basement of his museum, even though all the whales, sharks, and tropical fish he brought there died from the cold, the confined spaces, or the shock of thousands of visitors pouring in to see them (or were boiled alive in the multiple fires his museums had). Undeterred, Barnum simply kept replenishing them whenever they died, as long as audiences kept wanting to see them. This is Barnum’s real legacy: taking advantage of people and animals to make himself a buck. Needless to say, Barnum is not the type of person I would likely have been friends with. Even a century-and-a-half later, I feel secondhand stress on account of his constantly jumping from one venture to the next in his endless pursuit of another dollar. He couldn’t sit still. And the more I read, the less I liked him. And there’s a good chunk of his book—after the entertaining and informative chapters about his ventures starting the American Museum and traveling with General Tom Thumb and then Jenny Lind—about things that only an absolute Barnum fanatic may be the slightest bit interested in. He writes extensively about establishing the town of East Bridgeport and finding citizens to relocate and build homes there. It’s obviously important to him, but for anyone interested in P.T. Barnum the Impressario, these chapters about P.T. Barnum the City Planner will be a chore to get through—especially because his book is already plenty thick enough as it is. But I did find the chapters about General Tom Thumb and Jenny Lind to be some of the most fascinating in the book. Lind was one of the first singers to become a worldwide celebrity, which was exceptionally difficult at a time when audio recording had not yet been invented, and therefore the only people who knew what her voice sounded like were the people who had attended her live performances. And this was also before microphones or any other method of voice amplification, so she wasn’t able to play for hundred-thousand-person stadiums (this was also before hundred-thousand person stadiums existed, anyway). She was likely playing to a few thousand people at a time, if she was at one of the big opera houses. Nevertheless, word of her talent preceded her across the Atlantic. Barnum booked her for an extraordinary amount of money (several millions in today’s money) without ever actually hearing her voice. Then he had the audacity to claim that he didn’t attribute any of his success to luck or fate, and only to his own hard work (a thing that should make you immediately skeptical of any rich person who has the gall to say it). Anyway, Lind’s concerts in Liverpool a century before the most famous band of all time met in that town created a mania across the pond before she made the journey here to perform. Some people spent as much as half a month’s earnings for the chance to hear a voice that had been described as “more of heaven than of earth.” No recording of Jenny Lind’s voice exists, and anyone who heard her sing has been dead for half a century. All we have are the testimonials of people who heard her…and of Barnum, who cared not one bit about what her voice sounded like but only what people were willing to pay to hear it. Am I the only one who loves discovering random topics on Wikipedia to read about for five minutes? This book introduced me to so many rabbit holes I couldn’t help but fall headfirst into. Look up The Wide Awakes, an organized group of young people that sprung up in 1860 to organize voters after some of them heard Abraham Lincoln give an anti-slavery speech one night. Or Anna Swan, still the second-tallest woman of all time, who Barnum employed in his American Museum (and then go down the rabbit hole of looking up the list of tallest women and realize that only one woman has ever been verified as being 8 feet tall). Look up the early temperance movement, which Barnum took part in after hearing a speaker explain that looking up to prominent men like Barnum who occasionally drank wine made it more difficult for drunks to quit drinking. Barnum lectured on different topics throughout his career, but his lectures on teetotaling (abstaining from all alcohol) were sometimes given free of charge because he felt so strongly about it. Sorry for the novel, but this long book gave me a lot to think about…as well as a lot to gloss over because it’s so monotonous. That’s how it sometimes goes with nonfiction, though!

[Daniel Silliman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A completely charming and very odd book by an American original. I'm sure it speaks to my own idiosyncrasies as much as anything--and it would be hard to recommend this 800+ page autobiography; you have to decide for yourself, with that kind of commitment--but I really loved this weird book.

You really get a sense of Barnum, the man, and a sense of a kind of American character.

[Mark Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating insight into the life of a very clever showman who often gets a bad press in more modern times. Certainly, there are aspects of his life that are not acceptable today, but read in context the book demonstrates that Barnum was very fair and treated his performers and workers extremely well. A very readable book.

[Siouxsie · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, so many unnecessary numbers, details, dates, names. This book was difficult to slog through. Dates were all out of order, major events were skimmed through, yet he spent 5 pages on every single detail of Jenny Lind’s contract. With a super-good editor (please cut 200 pages), this would have been quite interesting.

[Tevilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting view into life in the 19th century. Barnum is a bit of a humble braggot but no one will know how great you are if you don’t tell them!

An interesting read even if his tally of receipts and how unique he is can be tiresome at times

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a man with such a flamboyant career, this memoir was kinda dull. He didn’t come across as arrogant, exactly, but he writes with a self-congratulatory air that got a bit grating after a while. There’s just not a ton of detail, nothing personal or deep, no real emption anywhere in this book.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I have on ongoing fascination with circuses and sideshows and figured something by the Man Himself would be good. The main thing I got from this book was that Barnum really like to talk about himself, and that his reputation is entirely deserved. Because of this, everything in this book is to be taken with an Anna Swan-sized grain of salt.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barnum was a successful showman of the 19th century. This autobiography tells about how he found success selling sights to the American and European public. The book didn't inspire much admiration. He was successful because he watched for an opportunity to sell things. He then used the power of the press to make sure that everybody wanted to see his attractions.

[Blaine Morrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barnum tells his own story, and it's as amusing as his shows doubtless were.