P. T. Barnum

On museum ethics and animal welfare in 19th century America.

The 11-foot-tall elephant reshaped our language, which has proved surprisingly apt.

Among P. T. Barnum's “human curiosities” was a supposed escapee from an Ottoman harem, marketed as both the pinnacle of white beauty and an exotic other.

Barnum called himself the “Prince of Humbugs,” which left open the possibility that one day there would arise a king.

The great showman taught us to love hyperbole, fake news, and a good hoax. A century and a half later, the show has escaped the tent.

A bizarre episode in circus history became an unlikely forum for discussing 19th-century theories of race.

How the “Greatest Show on Earth” enthralled small-town crowds and inspired shopping malls

Today’s creepy clowns are not a divergence from tradition, but a return to it.

Produced by the master entertainer P. T. Barnum, a melodrama about the dangers of alcohol was the first show to run for a hundred performances in New York City.

A new documentary tells the history of the big top.

Our mortuary conventions reveal a lot about our relation to the past.

How an erroneous 18th-century story about the “Caucasian race” led to a centuries of prejudice and misapprehension.

Walking needs no publicist. The simplest, most accessible form of exercise has been around since humans first foraged and traveled on the ground.

The night violent anti-government conspirators sowed chaos in the heart of Manhattan.

In defense of the furred and the hoofed.

Sturmann Yanghis, a 17-year-old South African, was put on stage in America as a “wild savage.” Harvard claimed his remains when he died. Then they disappeared.

These caricatures of well-known Philadelphians transpose human heads onto animal forms.

Creating a personal myth allows celebrities to create just that—a myth.

Already prone to boiler explosions that regularly killed scores of passengers, steamboats were pushed to their limits in races that valued speed over safety.

Why Barnum Brown could not stop collecting.