The greatest showman: how people had fun in the 19th century

Levitation, magicians, slot machines, "wise pigs", tricks of acrobats - people of the 19th century had a great choice how to spend time. If you look at the newspapers of America and Europe at that time, you can see that the public was offered dizzying and varied entertainment. This industry has flourished in response to the great social and cultural changes that the industrial revolution has generated. It led to an increase in the urban population, a rapidly growing middle class gained wealth and free time.

Thanks to the development of communications, primarily railways and shipping links, entertaining trips were more often arranged between the continents. People went to resorts, on tourist trips. This all contributed to an unprecedented increase in the appetite for entertainment. Here, those who knew how to create them came to the fore. And among them were the best.

Phineas Taylor Barnum to this day bears the title of "The Greatest Showman of Humanity." He was an American businessman and politician who owned his own circus called the Barnum and Bailey Circus. This man did amazing things that not even in our time, everyone can repeat. In his career, several interesting events can be highlighted. He promoted his circus shows in a variety of ways.
Barnum began to show people with unusual abilities and called the whole action in 1872 "The Greatest Show on Earth." He was the first owner of the circus, which moved from point to point on the train. Remember how in children's cartoons circus animals ride fun in cars? He used live advertising to announce his shows.
Right on the street, he set up small scenes and invited people to perform in them, thereby involving the public in the action. On his posters, the businessman used a special font, which today is known as Barnum. He was the first in the history of show business to organize tours of artists.

In 1850, Barnum organized the American tour of singer Jenny Lind for $ 1,000 for 150 nights. Jenny Lind was from Europe, and no one knew her in America. Queen Victoria loved her. Impresario used this to its fullest. Many contemporaries thought of him that he often took risks, but in fact he was a very good businessman, he thought through every step.
Barnum said that "the audience is a strange animal and, it would seem, you know human nature very well and, as an artist, you understand how to please her, but she is so fickle ..."
One of his greatest achievements is the creation of hoaxes. Once in 1835, the owner of a black slave, Joyce Hat, looked at him. He told Barnum that he had supporting documents stating that this woman was 161 years old and she was a nanny with US President George Washington. Barnum probably understood that something in this story was not right, but nevertheless seized on this idea and bought a black woman for $ 1,000. It was a good price. In order to carry out this transaction, he had to sell his stake in the grocery business. With her, he immediately went on tour in several cities in the United States.
People were ready to buy cheap tickets in order to look at the woman who was changing diapers for President Washington. For a year and a half, the company made good money and brought its organizer the first money. It all ended when Joyce Hat died. In fact, as the autopsy established, she was no more than 86 years old. But Barnum managed to earn - the rest does not matter.

In 1842, several businessmen gave the showman a loan, and with this money he opened his own museum. There he posted various wonders - the current model of Niagara Falls, panoramas of biblical subjects. He invented one of the wonders himself. He called her "siren from the island of Fiji." It was presented to the public as a real animal. In fact, Barnum combined a stuffed monkey with a fish tail. Over time, the museum’s collection has expanded significantly, and today it is one of the most visited exhibition centers in the United States.

Such an incident speaks of Barnum’s abilities as a businessman. Once a beggar approached him on the street and asked him for money. To which the businessman replied that he simply didn’t give money, but he was ready to pay him one and a half dollars a day if he would act as follows: you need to take five bricks, then put one on the corner where Broadway and Ann Street intersect, the second - a stone's throw from the Barnum Museum, the next one is a little further away from it, on the corner of Broadway and Visy Street, the fourth is in front of St. Paul’s Church, the latter is left in his hands and walked with it with a worried look from one brick to another. Moreover, put the one in the hand, and take the one on the sidewalk. Each time the church beats the clock, go to the Barnum Museum, visit each hall and again return to its fraud with bricks.

Half an hour after the man began his strange action for the public, more than 500 people stared at him. Everyone was interested in what he was doing with the bricks, why he was going to the museum and why he was returning to the bricks again. Each time, in order to understand the meaning of what he is doing, the staring audience bought tickets to the museum again and again. An hour later, the crowd was more than a thousand people.

A man repeated this work every day. Until one day the police became interested, worried by an ever-growing crowd of rotozeys.
Only then did Barnum cease his performance. This action served as an excellent advertisement for the museum. As the inventor himself said, after that Broadway became the busiest street in New York.

Watch the video: The Greatest Showman. Official Trailer 2 HD. 20th Century FOX (May 2024).