Amusements as we know them today did not exist. BarnumĪmerica was a new and culturally emerging nation. I had displayed the faculty of getting money, as well as getting rid of it but the business for which I was destined…had not yet come to me.” P.T. It “ was clear to my mind that my proper position in the busy world was not yet reached.

This pilgrimage to the city proved to be a life defining adventure for young Barnum, and as he became an adult, he found himself exploring the vast diversities of the flourishing metropolis, uncovering extraordinary opportunities awaiting his discovery. Although Barnum’s attitude toward farm life-style was not favorable, he found invention in traditional work and by the age of twelve owned a sheep and a calf, sold cherry-rum to soldiers, and was hired to help herd a cattle drive to Brooklyn, New York. As he progressed in years, he exhibited great aptitude for mathematics, and used “head-work” as his method for escaping egregious farming chores. The life of the Barnum family was humble. Family farms rolled along the countryside, and small villages spotted the landscape. Connecticut was grounded in Yankee heritage stable, steadfast, frugal, and pious. America was a fledging nation, raw from ongoing struggles for independence and hardened by years of reconstruction and expansion. On the 5th of July 1810, the nation had just celebrated its 34th year and Phineas Taylor, later to be known as P.T., was born in Bethel, Connecticut.

He acknowledged that his actions forced ‘ better elements in his character‘, reaping the benefits of his many successes, and at times, suffering for his miscalculations. He crafted his life this way, taking chances, stimulating change, always giving back. Barnum seized every moment and found promise in every opportunity. It was, in fact, his life-long love of his American Museum in New York City that drove his marketing machine and revealed a genius beyond the ideals of 19th century society. Barnum was 61 years old when the circus collaboration was presented to him. Although the Barnum name lives on today as part of the American circus legacy, Mr. Barnum’s story begins long before his circus enterprise was created. Barnum embraced the dream of a truly democratic nation, and in doing so, inspired a new American society to reach beyond the limits of ordinary expectations, to see the world as a place of opportunity and wonder. With the burgeoning ambitions of a visionary, yet still a man of his times, P.T. Known to most of the world as the ‘ Great American Showman‘, for more than 150 years, the weight of the Barnum name has forced associations of humbug and merriment the hyperbolic alongside the austere provoked thought and invited controversy welcomed the cynical and engaged and challenged the skeptic. Barnum the name alone conjures ideas and imagination, preconceived notions of a man and philosophy.

The life of pt barnum