Virtual Exhibitions

Bridgeport Connecticut served as the circus’ winter quarters during Barnum’s reign as the Greatest Showman on Earth. In 1892, just a year after Barnum’s death, the New York Times ran an article describing what a visit to the winter quarters - aptly called “Barnum-and-Bailey-Town” - entailed.  With 1,400 employees and 400 horses alone, the winter scene on today’s Went Field Park must have been overwhelming.

To General U.S. Grant, twice President of the United States, etc:

Thus starts a letter from PT Barnum to General Grant regarding the purchase and display of General Grant’s personal collection of relics. Written on January 12, 1885 this letter addressed Grant’s recent debt to Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt which threw him into financial “embarrassment” and poverty. Barnum wanted to offer Grant “fine income” off of the display of Grant’s war ...

Pa-Ib is perhaps the Museum's oldest resident.  Having been donated to the Bridgeport Scientific Society in 1896, the mummy has been on display and a part of scientific inquiry ever since.  But she came here as a part of a love story...

In 1894, Mrs. PT Barnum, or rather Nancy Fish Barnum, was traveling for the first time since Phineas T...

Frederick Law Olmsted was born and buried in Hartford, Connecticut.  In his role as "father of landscape architecture" he transformed the cities of the Gilded Age through the use of public parks.  He felt the natural settings would improve the minds of those experiencing nature in the parks, that Americans would become happier, better adjusted and productive people if we had more exposure to nature. 

In 1844, PT Barnum set across the 'pond' with Tom Thumb.  Their first stop was in Liverpool and then on to London.  In London, Barnum desperately wanted an audience with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and set about making all the right connections and entertaining all the right guests.  Tom Thumb's performance at Princess's Theatre secured Barnum a fine fortune and a large following, as the London Illustrated News shows below.

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"In the summer of 1878 my sister Minnie died at our home in Middleboro... It proved one of the greatest trials of my life to go again before the public without her, but it was the lifework marked out for me and I resumed it just as others resume their regular duties after an overwhelming grief.  Even now I do not find it easy to speak of it.  All my other sisters and brothers were normal size, and hence she and I were in a measure isolated from them and brought nearer each other." (...

Even when you have inventoried a collection of artifacts, something always surprises you.  One of the friendly challenges our director, Kathy Maher, gave me when I embarked upon the inventory was to find something she'd never seen.  She had worked extensively with the collection as our curator and director so I thought it was a  challenge I would never meet.  Until yesterday. 

Tom Thumb received the royal treatment when he visited London and performed before Queen Victoria.  In fact, a carriage was "manufactured by order of the Queen Victoria, of England, and presented by her Majesty to the little General", according to a biography of Tom Thumb published in 1849 after his European tour.  Not only was it elaborately decorated and furnished, but the Queen presented him with ponies and two boys to serve as his Coachman and Footman!

In late September of 1844, the "Litchfield Enquirer" ran an ad for the American Museum in New York City.  PT Barnum's museum was advertised to have "six splendid halls over 100 feet in length, containing upwards of 500,00 curiosities from every portion of the Globe."  He specifically advertises "Dwarfs, Giants, Ourang Outangs" and his bi-weekly performances by the "most talented performers".  We often wonder what it would have been like to step into his early museum and experie...

Jenny Lind celebrated her 191st birthday this week and we should too even though her name is largely unknown in American culture - except for those of us who have shopped for a crib.  Yet there is a reason her name graces streets, buildings, hospitals, and schools across the globe. 

When Jenny Lind arrived in the United St...