“Without promotion something terrible happens: nothing.”—Attributed to P.T. Barnum (in the accompanying image)
One Web site has called Phineas Taylor Barnum (1820-1891) “the Shakespeare of Advertising.” I’d go one or two steps further: If the showman wasn’t the founding father of all that is rude and vulgar in American culture, then show me someone who deserved the title more.
Sure, you can point to con men like the “Duke and the Dauphin” in Huckleberry Finn with their ruse about “The Royal Nonesuch,” but these charlatans depended on unlettered rural or riverboat rubes. In contrast, Barnum figured out how to use the rising urban mass media in the 1840s to hawk curiosities such as the dwarf “General Tom Thumb” and a slave reputed to be more than 160 years old who claimed to have nursed George Washington.
But on this date in 1850, Barnum came closer to Sol Hurok than to Jerry Springer, as he welcomed Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” to the docks of New York to begin a triumphant American tour.
One Web site has called Phineas Taylor Barnum (1820-1891) “the Shakespeare of Advertising.” I’d go one or two steps further: If the showman wasn’t the founding father of all that is rude and vulgar in American culture, then show me someone who deserved the title more.
Sure, you can point to con men like the “Duke and the Dauphin” in Huckleberry Finn with their ruse about “The Royal Nonesuch,” but these charlatans depended on unlettered rural or riverboat rubes. In contrast, Barnum figured out how to use the rising urban mass media in the 1840s to hawk curiosities such as the dwarf “General Tom Thumb” and a slave reputed to be more than 160 years old who claimed to have nursed George Washington.
But on this date in 1850, Barnum came closer to Sol Hurok than to Jerry Springer, as he welcomed Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” to the docks of New York to begin a triumphant American tour.
A decade before, a tumultuous reception for Fanny Essler, Europe’s most famous dancing star, had impressed on Barnum that a cultural star rather than merely an oddity (such as a 21-year-old Quaker woman who, he claimed, was “nearly eight feet tall and weighs 337 pounds”) could also make money. He vowed to surpass that success.
Most Americans had not heard of the soprano whose vocal purity had already led the likes of Queen Victoria to throw flowers at her feet. That changed instantly as soon as Barnum paid Lind and her accompanists $187,000 in advance for a series of 150 performances in America.
Lind, a warm-hearted philanthropist but crafty businesswoman (she’d done all the negotiating with Barnum’s representative), soon had another nickname—“Barnum’s Bird”—because of the showman’s all-stops-out efforts to make her a household name. He ran not only reviews and advertisements, but also a contest to see who could write the best song for her.
Before long, it was nearly impossible to find an American who hadn’t heard of Lind. Diarist Philip Hone noted that “so much has been said, and the trumpet of her fame has sounded so loud, in honor of this new importation from the shores of Europe, that nothing else is heard in the streets, nothing seen in the papers, but the advent of the ‘Swedish Nightingale.’”
Barnum’s guarantee to Lind meant he was in pretty far over his head financially. But as soon as he saw the estimated 30,000 people at the New York waterfront to welcome the soprano, he began to breathe more easily. Her first show, on September 11, 1850, at New York’s Castle Garden, was a sellout, with some seats going as high as $225.
Before she reached 100 performances, Lind thought she could do better, and severed her contract with Barnum. Alone, she did not do as well financially as she had with the unique talents of America’s biggest promoter-huckster. But before their split, she and Barnum had pulled in more than $700,000 in gross receipts.
Was she any good? To be sure, she had her naysayers, such as Walt Whitman. Others, such as Washington Irving, were captivated by her silvery voice and earnest manner.
Most Americans had not heard of the soprano whose vocal purity had already led the likes of Queen Victoria to throw flowers at her feet. That changed instantly as soon as Barnum paid Lind and her accompanists $187,000 in advance for a series of 150 performances in America.
Lind, a warm-hearted philanthropist but crafty businesswoman (she’d done all the negotiating with Barnum’s representative), soon had another nickname—“Barnum’s Bird”—because of the showman’s all-stops-out efforts to make her a household name. He ran not only reviews and advertisements, but also a contest to see who could write the best song for her.
Before long, it was nearly impossible to find an American who hadn’t heard of Lind. Diarist Philip Hone noted that “so much has been said, and the trumpet of her fame has sounded so loud, in honor of this new importation from the shores of Europe, that nothing else is heard in the streets, nothing seen in the papers, but the advent of the ‘Swedish Nightingale.’”
Barnum’s guarantee to Lind meant he was in pretty far over his head financially. But as soon as he saw the estimated 30,000 people at the New York waterfront to welcome the soprano, he began to breathe more easily. Her first show, on September 11, 1850, at New York’s Castle Garden, was a sellout, with some seats going as high as $225.
Before she reached 100 performances, Lind thought she could do better, and severed her contract with Barnum. Alone, she did not do as well financially as she had with the unique talents of America’s biggest promoter-huckster. But before their split, she and Barnum had pulled in more than $700,000 in gross receipts.
Was she any good? To be sure, she had her naysayers, such as Walt Whitman. Others, such as Washington Irving, were captivated by her silvery voice and earnest manner.
But in another way, it didn’t matter. Barnum had put Lind on the map, as far as America was concerned, with his monster publicity campaign, proving that talent alone can get a performer only so far. It was a lesson that other Americans would learn, over and over again, in the years since.
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