P. T. Barnum

Phineas Taylor Barnum (July 5, 1810 - April 7, 1891) was an American showman, politician and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871-2017). Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me," and his personal aim was "to put money in his own coffers."Barnum is widely, but erroneously, credited with coining the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute."Born in Bethel, Connecticut, Barnum became a small-business owner in his early twenties and founded a weekly newspaper, before moving to New York City in 1834. He embarked on an entertainment career, first with a variety troupe called "Barnum's Grand Scientific and Musical Theater", and soon after by purchasing Scudder's American Museum, which he renamed after himself. Barnum used the museum as a platform to promote hoaxes and human curiosities such as the Feejee mermaid and General Tom Thumb. In 1850 he promoted the American tour of singer Jenny Lind, paying her an unprecedented $1,000 a night for 150 nights. After economic reversals due to bad investments in the 1850s, and years of litigation and public humiliation, he used a lecture tour, mostly as a temperance speaker, to emerge from debt. His museum added America's first aquarium and expanded the wax-figure department. While in New York, he converted to Universalism and was a member of the Church of the Divine Paternity, now the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York.