Description:

Barnum Phineas

1pp broadside adhered to cream paper measuring 10.75" x 18.5", and advertising the arrival of “The Bearded Lady of Geneva” to P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City, circa 1853. In near fine condition with expected horizontal folds. An isolated area of paper weakness runs through Josephine's right forearm. Actual broadside measures 10.125” x 16.25”.

The Oliver & Brother, Steam Printers broadside is dominated by a woodcut print of the “Bearded Lady of Geneva” at center, depicting a Victorian lady with a 6” long beard standing in a garden setting. The woman’s elegant and costly dress contrasts sharply with her dark and bushy whiskers. The print is crowned by a top headline “The Bearded Lady of Geneva, Barnum’s Museum” and bracketed by side headlines of “The Bearded Lady, At Barnum’s Museum”. Small sized typed text introduces Barnum’s latest curiosity above and below, describing her family life, sideshow travels, and other famous historical bearded precedents. The broadside concludes by advertising concurrent attractions at Barnum’s, such as a giant snake collection, a world-famous diamond replica, and its “Seven Saloons of Wonder” and “National Portrait Gallery”.

P.T. Barnum (1810-1891) was a businessman, entertainer, and author. He was well-versed in salesmanship, publicity, and marketing, having tried his hand at newspaper publication, real estate, book sales, lottery management, and grocery store keeping to name but a few. Barnum opened the American Museum, a gallery of show-stopping attractions, in New York in 1841. In characteristically self-aggrandizing fashion, Barnum announced the opening with strategically placed lights, paintings, flags, and daily hot-air balloon rides!

Barnum employed words such as “remarkable”, “peculiar”, “singular”, “extraordinary” and “freak” to introduce the Bearded Lady of Geneva, also known as Josephine Boisdechene and later Josephine Fortune Clofullia (1827/1831-1875). Josephine was the daughter of a Swiss policeman and lace maker, purportedly born with a fine facial down. By eight years old, the girl’s beard was more than 2 inches; by 15 years old, the beard had lengthened and darkened. Josephine traveled through Switzerland, France, and England attracting curious onlookers.

Barnum enlisted the Bearded Lady for his American Museum around 1853, where she joined a variety of other attractions: giants and little people; Siamese twins and black face minstrels; wax figures and a rogue’s gallery; beauty contests and dog shows; automatons and aquariums. Between the museum’s inception in 1841 and its closure after 1868, Barnum showcased such delightful oddities as George Washington’s 160-year-old black slave nurse, dancing American Indian performers, a “Feejee Mermaid”, and a so-called “man-monkey”.

The Bearded Lady dressed impeccably in feminine finery to further accentuate the strangeness of her facial growth. Josephine supposedly styled her beard in the manner of newly self-appointed French Emperor Napoleon III (1808-1873), and sometimes adorned her beard with jewels. Josephine’s surviving child, also suffering from hirsuitism, exhibited with Barnum’s troupe under the stage name the “Infant Esau”. A photograph of the Josephine can be viewed in the Missouri History Museum's Thomas M. Easterly Collection.

A period P.T. Barnum broadside advertising a gender-bending Bearded Lady!

Provenance: This item was recently discovered in an extra illustrated volume of “History of the City of New York” by Mary L. Booth, New York, W. R. C. Clark, 1867. The monumental task of expanding the original two volumes to twenty-one volumes was given to Emery E. Childs, Esq. of New York City. A lovely india ink drawing of Mary L. Booth labeled “presented by her to E.E.C.” in pencil appears in the first volume of this work. Next to the title page we find an original letter of Booth to Childs dated April 4, 1872: “I am in receipt of your favor of the 4th inst., and am grateful to hear that you are taking the trouble to illustrate my History of the City of New York in the manner you describe. I shall be happy to see you, should you favor me with a call as I am usually in my office during business hours and should be pleased to facilitate your Enterprise by any means in my power”.

It is assumed that the book took several years to assemble, at which point, presumably through Childs, it made its way to Senator Charles B. Farwell of Chicago (who took the seat of John A. Logan in 1887). Farwell had an extensive library in his Lakeside home that survived the great Chicago fire in 1871. In the American Bibliopolist of November 1871, there is an article about the devastation to libraries caused by the tragedy: “Mr. C. B. Farwell’s library is also fortunately far out from the city, at his country house, and is safe. The same remark will also apply to the extensive collection of books and curiosities belonging to Mr. E. E. Childs.” This establishes the Chicago connection between Childs and Farwell.

These items were preserved for over 140 years and have never been on the market. The mostly pristine state of preservation of the items is due from their being wedged in these volumes.

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