Becoming Tom Thumb. Eric D. Lehman
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the end of their first year together, Barnum probably began to understand how much of his success was wrapped up in Charles’s performances and that while he was making this “dwarf” a fortune, the dwarf was doing the same for him. Success builds on success, and before “Tom Thumb” he had only had minor victories and major failures, with somewhat profitable fakes like the Fejee Mermaid and Joice Heth, and forgettable hoaxes like the wooly horse and a cherry-colored cat. His much-anticipated buffalo hunt across the river in Hoboken was a hilarious failure, although he managed to make a small profit from it.37 As a Pennsylvania newspaper said twenty years later, Charles was “perfectly formed, graceful in every movement, with a shrewdness and wit worthy of his country … the public found in Tom Thumb a reality—nothing of the wooly horse or the Fejee Mermaid school about him; no wonder the General should attain such popularity.”38 Barnum was discovering already that there was little need for exaggeration with “The General.” People expected a humbug, a baby dressed in adult clothes or a mirror illusion, but when they saw him their disbelief evaporated, and suddenly the world was full of wonders again. Unlike the many other “curiosities” that Barnum had championed, Charles Stratton was real.
The next step was to conquer Europe, where an entirely different audience awaited. After a year showing in New York and northeastern America, the departure date was set for a few days after his sixth birthday, in January 1844. The Tribune praised Charles’s appearances before he left for England, and the Evening Post urged, “A few hours more remain for General Tom Thumb to be seen at the American Museum, as the packet in which he has engaged passage to England does not sail to-day in consequence of the easterly winds now prevailing.”39 On one day alone, fifteen thousand people swarmed through the doors of the Museum to see Charles before he sailed, and continued to buy tickets even on the auspicious morning of his actual sailing, January 19.
At noon he was escorted by the City Brass Band and thousands of other New Yorkers to the docks, where he boarded the steamer Yorkshire with his parents, Barnum, and possibly his tutor Professor Guilladeau, a French naturalist.40 On the passport application he is listed as twenty-two inches high, fifteen pounds, and as Charles S. Stratton, alias General Tom Thumb. A few days later in the same passport register it says “Genl. Charles S. Stratton,” a blend of identities that presaged troubles to come for the boy entertainer.41 But perhaps his role-playing was not as much a problem for him as we might imagine. We often give too little credit to children, who slip between the personalities of make-believe without effort, and whose imaginations are usually more fertile than adults. He remained “Charles” to the people of Bridgeport, to his friends and family, and later to his wife. But to everyone else he was now General Tom Thumb, for forty years one of the most recognizable names in the world.
In England, Charles’s comedy developed further, becoming part of a new tradition of “Yankee” characters. Although this Yankee personality would enter literature in the novels of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne in the following decades, it seems to have first been popularized by comedians on the stage. The term was already used by foreigners to describe all Americans, perhaps because northeastern traders were the most frequently encountered. Comedies in early America had featured characters based on these New Englanders, with Royall Tyler’s The Contrast of 1787 the earliest extant play to incorporate “the Yankee” as an important character. But it was not until the 1820s that the type began appearing with regularity. Ironically the first comedian to succeed with this persona was an Englishman, Charles Mathews, an outstanding mimic who created characters that mocked the Irish, French, German, Dutch, and his fellow Englishmen. He used anecdotes, imitations, and songs in dialect to keep the audience amused, and writers like Washington Irving and Samuel Taylor Coleridge praised his talents. In 1824 his three-and-a-half-hour satirical travelogue, Trip to America, set the perceptions of the English public for decades, although the American comedians who followed him would take a slightly less partisan approach to the material.1
From 1826 to 1836 New Yorker James Hackett took this Yankee character to the London stage. He described the character as “enterprising and hardy—cunning in bargains—back out without regard to honour—superstitious and bigoted—simple in dress and manners—mean to degree in expenditures—free of decp.—familiar and inquisitive, very fond of telling long stories without any point.” George Hill of Boston had given an authentic New England flavor to the role in the late 1830s, touring the British Isles between 1838 and 1839 as the best and most famous American comedian known there before the arrival of Charles Stratton. Called “Yankee Hill,” he performed in solo “stand-up” acts and acted in melodramas like Samuel Woodworth’s pastoral comedy The Forest Rose, which sparked an entire genre of Yankee plays to accompany the stand-up comedy routines.2 Barnum himself had already adopted, or perhaps actually embodied, this Yankee character. In later years his solo performances would make great use of its homespun flavor and dry wit, but for the moment he was content to play the straight man to his protégé.
Comedians like James Hackett and George Hill used many characters, not just the Yankee, and Charles did the same. However, all were associated most strongly with this imitation, which represented Americans to Europeans. But not everyone in England thought the “Yankee dwarf” spectacular at first. The London News complained that this “little monster” was “proof of the low state” of theater in the country, though they still faithfully reported his events.3 The paper would change its tune further following his visit to Queen Victoria. After that, nothing could stop the British public in its hunger for the little marvel, and they rushed to London’s Egyptian Hall to see him for a full shilling a head. In 1844 the Egyptian Hall could be found in the tangled mesh of brown streets north of St. James’s Park on Piccadilly. At various times it was also called London Museum and Bullock’s Museum, and housed an average of 15,000 items. The trapezoidal face featured pillars, statues, and elaborate carved cornices, giving it the appearance of an Egyptian temple, and the interior contained a number of rooms for displays and appearances.
Painters who practiced their techniques by copying the intricate art and architecture were frequent visitors to the museum, and they sketched Charles several times while at the hall. The images of him at this age show a cheerful child, with the appearance of confidence, if not its full reality. There is a hint of mockery in his eyes, and a hint of uneasiness in his poses. Barnum created souvenir medals based on one of the sketches, featuring Charles standing on a table leaning against a stack of books. Around the medal image read, “Charles S. Stratton Known as Genl Tom Thumb 25in High” and on the back it stated imperiously, “Under the Patronage of the Queen and Court of England” with “Pub by P.T. Barnum American Museum New York 1844” around the edges. In the middle the text included: “Genl Tom Thumb Born Jan 11, 1832 at Bridgeport, Connecticut U.S.A. At his birth he weighed 9lbs 2oz And was a handsome, hearty, and promising boy. He Increased in size and weight Til 7 months old and then weighed 15lbs and measured 25in since which time he has not increased in size and weight is perfect and elegant in his proportions and has always been in good health.”4 In America, Charles had been “English,” but here he was proudly a “Yankee,” since Bridgeport was now the exotic locale. What is more interesting is that Barnum included Charles’s real name.
Along with souvenir medals, Charles carried small glazed calling cards emblazoned with “General Tom Thumb” in Gothic lettering.5 Also for sale were game counters with his image on one side and “Liberty” on the other, glass paperweights with his visage embedded in it, and more. During the performance he wore special clothes made for him by Gillham Brothers, such as a tiny brown velvet jacket with brass buttons. He hopped on tables and chatted with people until enough new visitors arrived, when he would sing and dance, or tell his “history.”6 James Morgan of Liverpool wrote “General Tom Thumb’s Visit to the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace, 1844” to the tune of Yankee Doodle, of course, and he sang this new version to the delight of the English public.7
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