Becoming Tom Thumb. Eric D. Lehman
as a private citizen utterly discombobulate our notions of what a freak was, and what an actor was, if we artificially attempt to separate the two. It is a failure of historians who, caught up in misinformed notions of what the disabled body meant on stage and in society, have mistaken the evidence and robbed the disability community of a figure whose impact on American life included, but was not limited by his short stature.23
Chemers views Charles through the lens of disability studies, and this could be a useful way to handle such a unique celebrity. Comedy studies, body culture, and presentational aesthetics might also be helpful in locating his significance. Whatever the merits or drawbacks of these approaches, they are a step forward in rehabilitating figures that have unjustly disappeared from historical scrutiny.
But there is substantial work to be done beforehand. As Levine would state, the debate over someone like Charles “needs to be rooted not merely in the web of our immediate aesthetic and social predilections but in the matrix of history, which can allow us to perceive more clearly what shapes culture has assumed in the American past, which may in turn allow us to understand better both the possibilities and the effects of the types of cultural boundaries we embrace.”24 With his worldwide appeal and iconic status, he deserves inclusion in a history in which he played an integral part, whether or not his “cultural moment” has passed or whether critics of the day deem his “celebrity status” deserved or not. That is the first task, and the task of this book: to illuminate the full story of Charles Stratton the man, his life as a performer and traveler, playboy and comedian.
Echoes of that story have reverberated persistently but faintly during the last century, in “Tom Thumb Weddings” and in a smattering of children’s and young adult books. These books often draw on the extensive photographic record, and repeat the information in Barnum’s autobiography and other accessible sources. One of the first to do so was “Grandpapa Pease’s Tom Thumb,” which took the form of a long poem with colored line drawings, part of a “Toy Books for Young People” series along with Cinderella and Puss in Boots. The author switched the original English fable about a small man at King Arthur’s court and replaced it with Charles’s biography, turning him into a “real” Tom Thumb for children.
Later narratives would exaggerate Charles’s story more or less depending on author and intention, but all would focus on the fairy-tale aspect of his rise to fame and fortune. And who could blame them? There is a fantastical element to the story: the man in miniature who became one of the world’s most popular entertainers. When first reading the remarkable tale years ago, I was tempted to think the whole account one of Barnum’s humbugs. Perhaps the photographs had been faked, and stories of audiences with world leaders invented. But as Charles’s remarkable talents and life appeared in diary after diary, newspaper after newspaper, suddenly it became clear that he was no children’s story, but one of the great figures of the nineteenth century, marginalized by posterity.
Separating legend and fact is not easy when dealing with such a man. Sometimes, like so many celebrities before and after him, Charles disappears into his role, often becoming Tom Thumb completely. Who was he? An entertainer? An entrepreneur? A lover, maybe, who kissed more ladies than Don Juan? Was he an actor or a singer? A clown or a pioneer? Perhaps a yachtsman, a horse breeder, or a gentleman of leisure? Of course, he was all of these and more, “containing multitudes” as his contemporary Walt Whitman might have put it. He was Tom Thumb, the legend, Charles Stratton, the man, and there is no contradiction.
I would first like to thank Kathy Maher, director and curator of The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her generosity with the extensive collections of Tom Thumb and P. T. Barnum materials was invaluable. Adrienne Saint Pierre’s help at the museum made my research a pleasure to look forward to. Of course Mary Witkowski and Elizabeth Van Tuyl at the Bridgeport History Center were extremely helpful as always, guiding me through this astonishing storehouse of the city’s illustrious past. I must also thank Rebecca Dowgiert at the Magnus Wahlstrom Library at the University of Bridgeport for her help with the archives, as well as Nancy Gedraitis and Gladys Beals at the Middleborough Historical Association. And starting this book would have been especially difficult without the researchers who had come before me, in particular A. H. Saxon, Neil Harris, Michael Chemers, Alice Desmond, and P. T. Barnum himself, who began the process by collecting newspaper articles on “The General” in the 1840s, and while recording his own life included numerous anecdotes that would otherwise have been lost. I would also like to thank my editors, Parker Smathers and Susanna Tamminen, as well as Marian O’Keefe, Thomas Juliusburger, Darryl Brock, Rachel Paschael, David and Trena Lehman, designers Christian Lutin and Melissa Matos, and all the others who assisted with this book.
And special thanks to my wife Amy Nawrocki, whose critical poetic eye, passionate wisdom, and unwavering support for my writing and research has made this possible.
Charles Stratton raced down the long, glittering halls. The two men with him walked steadily, even formally, but his tiny legs could barely keep up, even at a run. One man was his mentor and manager, Phineas Taylor Barnum, who towered over Charles by almost four feet, though he himself was not unusually tall. Both were common Connecticut Yankees, but if either felt nervous at being in Buckingham Palace they did not show it. This was one thing for a confident showman who knew well the humbugs hidden behind the glitter. But for a child who had stopped growing after a few months of life, and now stood only two feet high and weighed only fifteen pounds, it was a miracle.
The showman and the child had not been in England long. Arriving in Liverpool on the transatlantic steamer Yorkshire after a grueling nineteen-day journey from New York, accompanied by Charles’s parents and a tutor, they had subsequently given scattered exhibitions in Liverpool and London to limited success. After all, there were dozens of “dwarfs” exhibiting around the lush green countryside and blackened factory towns of England. But P. T. Barnum never shrank from a challenge, and tried a new approach, renting the former home of Lord Talbot at 13 Grafton Street, in London’s wealthy West End. From this prominent address he sent formal invitations to aristocrats, newspapers, and politicians to visit “General Tom Thumb, the celebrated American dwarf.” The ploy proved irresistible. A reporter from The Patriot visited him at Grafton Street, writing of Charles: “He is playful in his manner, acute in all his answers, very observant of all that passes or is said before him, and takes part in light conversation and even vouchsafes to be jocular.” They also noted that the boy was not sickly, seemingly surprised that “he possesses great strength for his stature.”1
One of the first aristocrats to take the bait and invite Charles and Barnum to her London home was the Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild. Her open carriage picked them up at Grafton Street and drove the pair to the imposing mansion at 148 Piccadilly, where servants ushered them upstairs to a drawing-room. The Baroness and twenty friends received them, and under the glare of candelabra, Charles danced a hornpipe that he had learned aboard ship, and sang in his unearthly treble voice. For their trouble, a “well-filled purse” was slipped into Barnum’s hand. Word got around, and more wealthy Londoners invited them to their homes.2
But it was the American ambassador, Edward Everett, who held the key to everlasting fame and riches. Barnum brought a letter of introduction to Everett, and he and Charles dined with the ambassador on March 2, 1844. Everett wrote that he had “General Tom Thumb to lunch with us to the great amusement of the whole family and household. A most curious little man. Should he live and his mind become improved, he will be a very wonderful personage.” A few days later, on March 8. Everett invited both “Tom Thumb” and the master of the Queen’s household, Mr. Charles Murray, to his home.3 Barnum knew this might be a scouting mission for Murray,