User:Amorn2/sandbox

Talk Page discussion: (posted on 11/29, no comments on 12/6)

I have found that the section titled "Role in politics and minstrel shows" was copied from New World Encyclopedia. Before discovering this I was going to mention some additions such as P.T. Barnum's campaign speech addressing slavery and some tricks Barnum pulled while in the general assembly to provide more political information. With my recent discovery, I am going to find more citations and restructure this section, separating the two topics and providing more information on minstrel shows as well.

Minstrel Shows

Barnum was a producer and promoter of blackface minstrelsy. Barnum's minstrel shows often used double-edged humor. While replete with black stereotypes, Barnum's shows satirized. For example, a stump speech in which a black phrenologist (like all minstrel performers, a white man in blackface) made a dialect speech parodying lectures given at the time to "prove" the superiority of the white race: "You see den, dat clebber man and dam rascal means de same in Dutch, when dey boph white; but when one white and de udder's black, dat's a grey hoss ob anoder color." Once Barnum lost Jim Sanford, who did most of his minstrel shows, Barnum took that role so he would not disappoint his audience. He sang "Such a Gittin' Up Stairs", which was a song mainly used in minstrel shows. The Freeze Brothers, Larry and Billy, also performed at the Barnum and Bailey circus concerts as blackface tambourine spinners. Promotion of minstrel shows led to Barnum's sponsorship in 1853 of H.J. Conway's politically watered-down stage version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; the play, at Barnum's American Museum, gave the story a happy ending, with Tom and other slaves freed. The success led to a play based on Stowe's Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.

Role in Politics

Barnum was significantly involved in politics. He mainly focused on race, slavery, and sectionalism in the period leading up to the American Civil War. He had some of his first success through Joice Heth, a slave he hired. His opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which supported slavery, led him to leave the Democratic Party and he became part of the new anti-slavery Republican Party.

While the election for a Senator was coming up rather quickly, Barnum involved himself by showing all of what Lafayette Foster, Vice-President and up for reelection for the senators seat, felt about the south. He would set a trap showing all that Foster was pro-south and would not hesitate to go against the majority. Barnum was looking for an endorsement from the government to make his museum free for the people. Originally his request got shot down, but he used this as a gain so he would get something in return. Barnum wrote to Foster asking for help in his project and Foster had no problem saying he would try swaying President Andrew Johnson's mind when it came to helping a friend. Soon after Foster said this, the long document was received by Barnum, and his Museum was endorsed by the government. Barnum also went to the Democratic members and explained why they should no longer pay allegiance to their senator pick. Following this Orris S. Ferry took office over Foster. Barnum was happy that Foster did not get reelected because he was now considered a Northern Republican instead of a Democrat.

While he claimed "politics were always distasteful to me," Barnum was elected to the Connecticut legislature in 1865 as Republican representative for Fairfield and served four terms. In his first two terms Barnum would hire spies to get insider information on the New York and New Haven Railroad lines. In doing this, he foiled a secret that would raising commutation fare of 20 percent. In the debate over slavery and African-American suffrage with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Barnum spoke before the legislature and said, "A human soul, 'that God has created and Christ died for,' is not to be trifled with. It may tenant the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab or a Hottentot – it is still an immortal spirit."

In 1865, Barnum decided to run for a seat in the Connecticut General Assembly. During this process, Barnum's mood and behavior changed when talking about African American suffrage. He showed regret for being involved in such harsh activities, such as whipping, but never stepped forward to speak on the matter. Two years later, Barnum came forward after a failed attempt of running for a seat in U.S. Congress as a Republican. Barnum included in his speech a form of a confession of being involved in the slave trade and beating the slaves he had. Barnum states, "I lived [in the South] myself and owned slaves. I whipped my slaves. I ought to have been whipped a thousand times for this myself. But then I was a Democrat—one of those nondescript Democrats, who are Northern men with Southern principles". Barnum was found not suitable for the position because of the continuation of his display of minstrel shows, even though his beliefs and political affiliation did change.

During his reelection for Congress, Barnum was unliked because of him changing sides. He knew that their would be a sway in the votes but did not know how much. He wrote to the Tribune saying, "we found at least 300 illegal votes registered for the sham democracy 4 towns in this district" and if he was defeated by any more he said, "for certainly I can unseat my opponent for fraud." Barnum was defeated by 1000 votes. After stating his grounds and not winning the majority, Barnum read in a newspaper that his opponent in the election was under investigation for bribery and fraud. Once finding this out, Barnum wanted to make sure his supporters knew that he did not take part in the bribery. He states, "I took no part nor lot in the matter, but concluded that if I had been defeated by fraud, mine was the real success." With that in mind, Barnum was reelected for the next four Congresses and succeeded his favorite Senator, Orris O Ferry.

Barnum was notably, as a Connecticut State Senator, the legislative sponsor of a law enacted by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1879 that prohibited the use of "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception", and also made it a crime to act as an "accessory" to the use of contraception, which remained in effect in Connecticut until being overturned in 1965 by the U.S. Supreme Court Griswold v. Connecticut decision. Barnum ran for the United States Congress in 1867 and lost to his third cousin William Henry Barnum. In 1875, Barnum as mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, worked to improve the water supply, bring gas lighting to streets, and enforce liquor and prostitution laws. Barnum was instrumental in starting Bridgeport Hospital, founded in 1878, and was its first president.