Project Gutenberg 2025-05-24 Public domain in the USA. 709 Werner, M. R. (Morris Robert) 1897 1981 Werner, Morris Robert 43027009 Barnum $aGarden City, NY :$bGarden City Publishing Co., Inc., $c1923. Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) "Barnum" by M. R. Werner is a biography written in the early 20th century. It recounts the life and legend of P. T. Barnum, probing beyond his flamboyant self-portrait to assess his character, methods, and influence on American popular culture. The focus is on how a sharp-witted Connecticut Yankee harnessed publicity, spectacle, and shrewd deal-making to build a show business empire. The opening of the book frames Barnum’s own autobiography as both biased and revealing, then argues for a fresh, sourced reappraisal of his place in American life. It sketches his Bethel, Connecticut upbringing—practical jokes, country-store sharpness, early arithmetic prowess, religious tensions, and the formative “Ivy Island” prank—alongside teenage lottery hustles, his father’s death, and a defiant stint as a small-town newspaper editor that led to jail and a triumphal release. Moving to New York, the narrative shows him nearly broke yet relentless, staging his first big attraction with the ancient slave Joice Heth, fanning controversy through the press, and learning the power of sensational publicity. It follows his rough apprenticeship on the road with jugglers and a circus, his willingness to preach on Sunday and sing in blackface on Monday, a string of business failures and swindles, and a turn to writing theatrical ads. The section culminates with his audacious, intricate maneuver to acquire Scudder’s American Museum: persuading the building’s owner to back him, pledging his worthless “Ivy Island” as security, undermining a rival stock scheme through the newspapers, and seizing control—signaled by a cheeky note putting the rival directors on the free list. (This is an automatically generated summary.) https://archive.org/details/barnum00wern/page/n3 20190115001256werner 1923 US Reading ease score: 66.1 (8th & 9th grade). Neither easy nor difficult to read. en Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891 GV Text Category: Biographies Category: History - American 939457 2025-07-30T06:55:53.204698 text/html 897926 2025-05-24T01:08:28 text/html 4378817 2025-07-30T06:56:10.594646 application/epub+zip 4385761 2025-07-30T06:55:57.434740 application/epub+zip 629221 2025-07-30T06:55:55.022677 application/epub+zip 11955745 2025-07-30T06:56:19.407594 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 11908547 2025-07-30T06:56:08.345692 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 824643 2025-07-30T06:55:51.286708 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 804796 2025-05-24T01:08:28 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 13638 2025-07-30T06:56:19.591578 application/rdf+xml 12673 2025-07-30T06:55:55.405679 image/jpeg 1940 2025-07-30T06:55:55.196695 image/jpeg 5322734 2025-07-30T06:55:53.348771 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog