February 16, 2026 • 48 mins
P.T. Barnum is famous to movie-going audiences as the charming 'Greatest Showman,' but the reality was far more complicated, and much darker. P.T. Barnum's very first foray into showbusiness was purchasing an enslaved woman named Joice Heth, whom he displayed as a public spectacle, promoting her a 161-year-old woman who once nursed George Washington.
SOURCES:
'The Showman and the Slave' by Benjamin Reiss
'Medical Apartheid' by Harriet A. Washington
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-pt-barnum-greatest-humbug-them-all-180967634/
“P.T. Barnum and Africa” Bernth Lindfors
The Colossal P.T. Barnum Reader, edited by James W. Cook
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Folks, it's a hug.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
No one I haven't seen when us to see.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
The Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we
wish were true.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And the truths that sound like lies.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm the ghost of no Danish Warts and I'm the
evil twin of Lizzie Logan.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Welcome to the show. We don't have the script in
front of us. This episode. We were seeing if we
could just go at it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
But I thought we had memorized it and we mostly did.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, maybe a new a new podcast, I think new
iHeart podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
That was never part of it now, I mean that
was pretty close. I think we just forgot when the
like hand off happened.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Well, Lousey Logan, I have some very very exciting news.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Oh my god, what's your very very exciting news.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It's finally time, Oh my god for what for? Finally
an episode focused on P. T. Barnum himself. Oh, amazing
great Hoaxter, the Hoaxter of all Hoaxter, Hoaxer of all Hoasters.
Have you seen My real question is have you seen
the movie The Greatest Showman? I have? And what are
your thoughts about the Greatest Showman.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, okay, so I've seen the Greatest Showman and I've
also seen Jenny Nicholson's review of the Greatest Showman on YouTube,
so i know that it's not accurate.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It is not accurate.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I mean, listen, what what what are my thoughts about
that film? It's fun to watch people dance mine, It's
fun to watch people have fun at the circus.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, and like that.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm not the biggest Basic and Paul fans, so that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I don't know that one was one where like it
seemed like it would be right up my alley. But
I think I already knew too much about P. T.
Barnum that I couldn't, like do the suspension of disbelief.
I think I'm not I love when things aren't. I'm like,
if you're making a movie, it doesn't have to be
historically accurate. I'm just saying it affected my enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Dan is a defender of the as of now upcoming
Wuthering Heights adaptation.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I am without even seeing it. I'm gonna say I
think an adaptation is someone's visceral experience and adapting it
to their artistic vision. And I think that's great.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I will hear. Okay, when I saw The Greatest Showman,
I walked out thinking that did nothing for me. But
I think if I'd seen it when I was twelve, yeah,
it would have really hit, Like it would have hit
the way like the movie of Rent really hit when
now you go back and watch it and you're like, well,
that's weird, that's all the choices. But I was like, no,
(02:40):
if I were twelve, I would have that soundtrack on repeat.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Phantom of the Opera also really hit for me when
I was when that movie came out. Whenever that was.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, Phantom of the Opera, I will say, holds up
and is a rip Roar and ride.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I think we both defend Gerard Butler phantomas.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Ye oh, absolutely absolutely well.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
The thing that The Greatest Showman does not. And okay,
so before we start, a few like disclaimers. If you
like The Greatest Showman, that's great. It's a work of fiction,
enjoy a musical. I think that's great. I'm not someone
who's like and it shouldn't exist. I'm a defender of
anachronisms and having fun that the movies. Okay, A more
serious disclaimer is this episode is going to feature a
(03:21):
lot of historical racism and very uncomfortable racism sometimes, and
I will be quoting from some antebellum texts that are
frankly like disgusting and disconcerting. And if that's just something
you don't want to deal with right now, I get it,
fair enough, that's this episode's going to involve that.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, and he and he wasn't nice to people with
like deformities and differences, right.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, I mean this episode we're not even going to
like fully get into that because he did a lot
and focus just on one specific hoax.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Oh okay, so this is not an overview.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It's not an overview. It's his first, very first hoax.
It's sort of like a prequel, but just it is
racism heavy.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Bring it on.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
If I say the name Joyce Hath, does that mean
anything to you?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Not one single thing?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, Well what about Pt. Barnum? Yes, I know about him,
So we are going to go back in time, okay
to eighteen thirty five.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Great.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
PT.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Barnum is just a twenty five year old nobody. He
has moved to New York City. He's worked as a shopkeeper.
He's tried to start a newspaper as a newspaper editor,
worked as a lottery manager, worked at a boarding house.
He's had a lot of just jobs great. He wants
to get rich quick. It's I think the reason that
(04:42):
the Pt. Barnum story resonates with so many people is
he he is someone who was born with nothing and
became wildly rich and famous in his lifetime.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
He was a dreamer.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
He was a dreamer and he really was. He really
like embodies the idea of like this is a bootstraps
situation that he built out of thin air he dreamed
himself into. I'm going to say greatness in like the
you know in the Harry Potter when he's like greatness,
He's not good great like I say greatness without any
(05:12):
moral judgment.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's like great, just like important friend power.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
What we're going to be talking about is his very
first showman job in the show show Business, his first entertainment,
his first entertainment, his first I mean hoax. Okay, really
spoiler alert, it is a hoax, but that's what this
show is and that's kind of what he did. So
he hears from this man named Coleie Bartram. I think,
just like an acquaintance who suggests that Barnum traveled to
(05:40):
Philadelphia to meet this other showman named R. W. Lindsay
who has a show going, and the word on the street,
according to Barnum's friend Colie Bartram, is that this Lindsay
fellow wants to get out of the biz and go
back to Kentucky because he's not really making a profit.
And what Lindsay's show is a very old woman that
(06:04):
he claims is the one hundred and sixty one year
old former nurse of George Washington.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You mentioned this in a previous episode. Yeah, I assume
this isn't like a show that plays every night at eight.
It's more like a standing exhibit. Like, how is that
a show? How does a person a show?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It is a show, You buy tickets, you go see her,
she tells tales, she exactly, she goes on. I mean
she is on stage, and Barnum, on this suggestion of
this acquaintance, travels to Philadelphia to see this show, and
the show is a very old, semi paralyzed woman on
stage singing hymns that she had sang to George Washington
(06:43):
one hundred and fifty years ago, one hundred and fifty
years ago, telling tales of her dear quote, dear little Georgie,
dear little George, and just sort of talking about him
growing up. The popular story of George Washington and the
Cherry Tree, which is not true, is sort of already
(07:06):
a story in the zeitgeist that someone had written about
in a book. She's going to reiterate that story. People
are going to talk about it, and people just want
to like see her both as like a relic of
that bygun Era founding Fathers, but also because she's a
specimen in and of herself, Okay, in like a freak show. Way, Yeah,
this is a woman that they're claiming to be one
(07:28):
hundred and sixty one years old.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
So Barnum goes to Philadelphia, sees the show, and then
meets with her backstage in the Masonic Hall where the
show had happened, and quote finds her to be quote
very garrulous when speaking of her protege, dear little George,
and he describes what she looks like.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
You know what does mean?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I think like that she has like energy even for
a very very old woman.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
He describes her as having one fixed arm stuck. So
she's half paralyzed. He'd describe her as totally blind, no teeth,
a head of thick, bushy gray hair, and nails four
inches long and toenails a quarter inch thick.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And as she does, sound really old.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I think something that I just want to flag here
is a lot of these descriptions of her, both from
Barnum and also from the press at the time and
also from people who come to see her, are grotesque.
And they are going to describe her in this way
that is, I mean, like a creature of some sort.
(08:34):
It's very othering. I should say, this is a black woman.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
See I didn't know that one yep, and she had
been I assume a slave then not.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Only had been a slave, well she still.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Isn't because they're in Philly, which is part of the North. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, this is an interesting He wants to go back.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
To Kentucky because he wants to go be in the
Handabellum South.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
This is indeed a situation that we'll have to get into. Okay, okay, okay,
So I'm just going to walk through the way that
pet Barnum would have experienced this. He meets this woman
they you know, Lindsay's show that he's not really making
money on is saying that she's George Washington. Was George
Washington's nurse. It is eighteen thirty five. George Washington was
(09:17):
born in seventeen thirty two. So I'm not going to
make anyone listening do the math. I did the math.
If she was fifteen when she was his nurse, that
means she would be one hundred and eighteen now, okay,
But also they're claiming that she's one hundred and sixty
one because Lindsay as like quote unquote proof of the
(09:38):
fact that she was George Washington's nurse, offers a bill
of sale dated from February fifth, seventeen twenty seven from
Augustine Washington, who is George Washington's father, saying that he
sold this woman, Joyce Heth, when she was fifty four
years old to their friend and neighbor Elizabeth Attwood, and
(10:00):
then Lindsay claims that Joyce was present at the birth
of George Washington, even clothed the newborn infant, and then
would later claim that he that she suckled yeah him,
that she was a wet nurse. Sorry he suckled her.
Nurse him nursed him, thank you. But even given that age,
(10:21):
if she had been fifty four in seventeen twenty seven
and he wasn't born for another five years, she wasn't
going to be his wet nurse at fifty nine years old.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
I mean, this is a woman who apparently just defies
all you know, known biology. Yeah, of course, I guess
if you're going to make it to one hundred and sixty,
you're not going to go through menopause for a while
because you have a long ass life span ahead of you.
But I do understand what you're saying that this is
even by.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The lie, it's not really plausible.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah. I mean, if I were trying to sell this,
I would just say that she was one hundred and eighteen,
because I mean, I don't know about back then, but
like people live to one hundred and ten, you know
what I mean, that's like a less of a stretch.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
But Lizzy, but this is someone you want to buy
tickets to. Well, you want people to buy tickets to
come see her. So part of the reason that the
life is so outrageous is because you're like, oh my god,
that's unbelievable. I have to see this for myself.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Okay, Barnum is a liar, but yeah, nokidding, And so
a lot of it is Lindsay, I'm assuming, yeah, But
we don't have Lindsay's writing on this. We have Barnum's
writing about his conversations with Lindsay. So a lot of
our sources on this are Barnum's own writings, which changed
multiple times throughout his life. His first time that he
(11:42):
writes about this is a complete lie, and then he'll
write about it decades later in his autobiography, and then
in later editions we'll even revise it further. Great, So
almost everything you have to take with a grain of salt.
But what is kind of interesting is this almost historiography
of where you get to see how Barnum presented the
(12:02):
story and what that says about him at any given time.
But this is the version that I think is closest
to the truth that Lindsay from Kentucky had owned this woman,
had decided that maybe he would make a profit displaying her,
and didn't really make enough money, wanted to get out
(12:23):
of the business, and sold her to P. T.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Barnum. Slavery was already outlawed in New York City around
this time Barnum is going to display her, he exploits
a loophole and he quote leases Heath for a year
at one thousand dollars. He goes into debt. He had
to borrow five hundred. He didn't even have enough money.
But to quote berth Lynn Force, who's a professor at
(12:47):
u T Austin, Peter Barnhum quote began his career in
show business by going into debt to buy a super
annuated female slave who turned out to be a fraud,
so she was still purchased. Yeah, the asking price that
Lindsay wanted was three thousand dollars and he paid a
thousand and it was like a lease on a person.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Do we and maybe we're going to get to this,
do we know if George Washington had a real nurse?
Like is she pretending to be someone who actually existed?
I mean I know that he owned slaves as an
adult and like grew up on a plantation.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
She's not impersonating someone with a name that we know.
But like George Washington absolutely has black slaves on his plantation.
He owned slaves. That is a I was going to
say plaus not only plausible thing, truthful thing, but the
thing that p. T. Barnum has that Lindsay doesn't have
is like showbiz pizaz. And starting on August tenth, eighteen
(13:47):
thirty five, he books her a two and a half
week stint at this theater in New York City called
Nibblo's Garden advertised the Childhood Wet Nurse of George Washington
eighteen thirty five as quote on the poster, the greatest
natural and national curiosity in the world, which you know,
why not?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, I mean, if you're if you're gonna go in
on a lie go all in, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They say that she quote was the first person who
put clothes on the unconscious infant, who in after days
led our heroic fathers onto glory, to victory and freedom. Ironic. Yeah,
to use her own language, quote, she raised him. They
say that she weighs but forty six pounds.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Well, people were smaller than she.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Did not weigh forty six pounds, And they say in
the advertisement she retains her faculties in an unparalleled degree,
converses free lease, sings numerous hymns, relates many interesting anecdotes
of the boy Washington, and often laughs heartily at her
own remarks or those of spectators.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Okay, so okay.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
The thing that I want to point out here is
that she is an object on display for two purposes.
One just because, in a gay Barnum freak show way,
this is a woman who is a toothless, semi paralyzed
woman that they're saying is one hundred and sixty one
years old. She is extraordinarily old looking, Okay, and later,
(15:22):
even though it spoiler alert is a hoax, this woman
was not one hundred and sixty one years old. Barnum,
in his defense, will be like, well, no one who
saw her whatever, that she was not that old, Okay,
So like it was a freak show specimen to see.
And also if you weren't, if it wasn't enticing enough
(15:43):
for you to come see in one hundred and sixty
one year old woman, this appeal to this national pride
was also it gives it like an air of respectability almost.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, like, oh, I'm not going to see how old
she is. I'm going to learn about history. And that's
why I bought my ticket, not because I'm you know,
I just want to gaw at an old lady exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I'm not going to a freak show to gwet like
a human specimen. I'm going to like honor our country
and like pay homage to the patriotism of our country. Yeah,
admission was twenty five cents children half priced less than
ten dollars today. A bargain.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
I mean, when you don't have to pay the star
of your show, I guess you can keep overhead there.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, you know she's singing hymns told telling stories about
little George. As I mentioned earlier, the story about the
George Washington cutting down a cherry tree and then telling
his father, I cannot tell a lie I cut down
a cherry tree. That is a fully fictional story that
was popularized in a in eighteen o nine book by
a man named Mason Weim called Life of Washington. That
(16:50):
was almost like an educational book, but it became like
a very popular story, and so she would tell the
story as if she had seen it. She looked in incredibly,
incredibly old. One of the people who sees her writes, indeed,
she is a mere skeleton covered with skin. Her whole
appearance very much resembles a mummy of the days of
(17:11):
the Pharaohs, taken entire from the Catacombs of Egypt.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I feel so bad for this lady. I just want
to like feed her jello. I know.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
The historian Eric Lott claims that Barnum was earning fifteen
hundred dollars a week, which is the equivalent of forty
six thousand dollars a week.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
That's so much money. And she was.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Working unpaid ten to twelve hours a day.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And then starting this summer it's a month's long traveling
exhibit for Barnum. They go to Providence, Boston, Lowell, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford,
New Haven, Albany, and a few other places. What's kind
of interesting is, as we were talking about, like that
part of the appeal was just this like carnival sensibility
of like, come see the very old woman who looks
(17:57):
like a mummy. But the travel at different stops, he
leans into different parts of the appeal of her.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Oh sure, because the local flavor.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The local flavor. Where at when abolitionists were upset about
the show because it's like, here is an enslaved woman
that you're putting on display like further exploiting, Barnham claims
that the proceeds of the exhibit were going to freeing slaves.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
There's no evidence to think of a slave he could
have freedom.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That there, Yeah, and the appeal to the patriotism because again,
she was not George Washington's nursemaid. There's no actual factual
connection to George Washington. But there's this is a period
of urbanization and upheaval in the country, and during a
time of massive upheaval, people look towards stability, and so
(18:46):
the veneration of the Founding Fathers becomes really popular in
that time because it's like there's this rapid urbanization, anxieties
about loss of traditions, especially going into the Civil War.
There's a lot of chaos happening. There's a writer named
Henry Cole who writes to the Son complaining about this,
about her being on display, not questioning whether or not
(19:08):
she is Washington's nurse maid, but she says, why she
who nursed the father of our country, the man to
whom we owe our present, happy and prosperous condition, should
at the close of her life be exhibited as our
rarer monsters are. Is there not philanthropy enough in the
American people to take care of her although her skin
(19:29):
be black?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Oh, how generous yeah. To me, this sort of I mean,
this isn't like one to one at all because it's
not on display. But I feel like the desire to
sort of connect with like a previous quote unquote like
to do it. I don't know exactly what the connection is,
but what's reminding me of is every election. Yeah, we're like,
(19:57):
I don't know, is there a Kennedy who can help?
Like we went to the moon and did like civil
rights and stuff, like just one of those guys around
and like, we're gonna take whatever Kennedy we can get.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Who who are around here? We met George Washington, here's
the closest person we have to joy Like.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Are you vaguely related to someone we've heard of that
we know? We like, Okay, can you be in charge?
Or can I can I just listen to you talk? Really?
I know what to do.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's it. So it's like, not only would you understand
why this was such a popular attraction, Not only did
people you know they're bored. It's the eighteen thirties want
to go to like quote a freak show to look
at human oddity. It's why TLC is still a channel.
But then they could also pat themselves on the back
because they're like, ah, George Washington, Yeah, and we're going
(20:43):
to get into this and to Barnum as a showman later.
But to fast forward a little, the historian Benjamin Reese,
I just want to shout him out, because he articulated
this very well. I think where she indulged in quote
the popular desire for images of white domination, because which
is basically so not only do you get to look
(21:03):
at like a I'm putting this in air quotes, but
like a weird looking person, like a freak, like, oh,
look at this old lady, and get to be like ah,
George Washington. I get to think about our founding fathers.
You also get to feel superior to a very very
old black woman.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And she's telling I mean, from what it sounds like,
it sounds like she's telling a version of history in
which she's very happy. Yes, And I am sure like
if you have any anxiety around slavery, either because you
own slaves and don't want to think of yourself as
a bad person, or you're even like an abolitionist but
very worried about how slaves are being treated, it's like
(21:42):
Green Book or whatever, where it's like, it's probably very
comforting to watch this woman be like, I had a great.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Time, Yeah, George, I.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Raised this kid, and I had a great life, and
I'm so old, So I mean, how could I have
been mistreated if I'm lasted all these years? Like this
slavery really that bad if I get to just like
take care of a cute.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Baby, Lizzie. It's so interesting that you mentioned that. Another
sort of justification that makes people feel good about her
on display is there's a very racist narrative, particularly around
pro slavery people at this time, that black people need
a tropical climate in order to throw Jesus. That it's like,
(22:25):
you know, because they come from Africa, they shouldn't be
in the north where it's cold. They should be in
the South, where it's warm. And there's the argument that
her longevity is actually that's normal in the South. Actually
black people where they're quote supposed to be, they're all
living one hundred and fifty, one hundred and sixty. And
the only reason that it's crazy that she seems even
(22:47):
sick now is because she's in the North and she's
not supposed to be. But again, even a lot of
the critique of her on display. Isn't because she's a
black person that P. T. Barnum purchased and is displaying
like that letter from Henry Cole. It's like, this woman
raised George Washington even though she's black. Can't we find
(23:07):
our kindness in our hearts for more dignity? Yeah, and
the more old fashioned New England press so New York
they're like eating this stuff up. But the Courier, which
is a Bostonian paper, will write those who imagine they
can contemplate with delight a breathing skeleton subjected to the
same sort of discipline that is sometimes exercised in a
menagerie to induce the inferior animals to play on natural
(23:31):
pranks for the amusement of bare and spectators will find
food to their taste by visiting Joyce Head, basically being
like it's a moral failing to like go to a
freak show. Yeah, but their criticism isn't it's bad to
enslave a person. It's that it's bad for the moral
health of the audience to go indulge in this sort
(23:53):
of shenanigan.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah. I mean I feel like it's like, oh, you're
half your halfway there, buddy, like you're you know what,
they're like, You're you're grasping at the idea that like,
we should not delight in the pain of others, and
you're framing it as lesser beings, but really it's just others.
Like you, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.
You're gonna get there.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
You're gonna get there. Barnum, for his part, again Master Showman,
is going to sort of plant stories that subvert all
of these narratives to encourage people to go. He plant
stories playing up how like religious and pious she is
so you don't have to feel bad about going, and
also plays up her cleanliness. There's a planted story where
he says there is nothing in her appearance which can
(24:38):
be possibly be unpleasant to the minds of the most fastidious,
that it's like, you don't have to feel bad about
about coming to see her. It's just a clean, happy,
old woman. And he also plays up the fact that
it's like this is so much better than slavery, that
she used to be a slave and now she's just
hanging out in a theater. Barnum will also have the
(24:59):
strategy and tour numbers kind of decrease, especially around Boston,
where people are like less excited about this. His strategy
is to like call himself a humbug to drum up
publicity and like a no press is bad press situation,
and so he plants an article in the paper saying
that Joyce Heath is not a human being. What purports
(25:19):
to be a remarkably old woman is simply a curiously
constructed automaton made up of whalebone, india, rubber, and number
springs that ingeniously put together and made to move at
the slightest touch. And then they say that he's a ventriloquist.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
But she doesn't even play chess.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So but it does that did remind me of that
thing where it's like the fastest way to get a
right answer on the Internet is like say the wrong thing.
Oh funny, where he came up with a He pointed
out that this was a lie in a wrong way,
so people could be like, Nope, nope, she is real,
But then it's like you're answering the wrong question.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
She is a real person, but she's not over sixty
one year old the human she's pretending the.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Nurse of George Washington. But this is what Barnum is
really good at he's really good at manipulating the story
to suit his purposes. And the best way he's going
to do that, and I say best in like the
way I met greatest earlier, with like no moral judgments.
The smartest, the smartest way he's going to do that
(26:21):
is when she dies. Yeah, because this very very old
woman dies and Barnum announces that she will be publicly
autopsied because he's like, is she actually one hundred and
sixty one years old? Let's find out, Like, let.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
The woman rest in peace, like she had no dignity
in life, and now she will have no dignity in death.
And the number of like weird medical experiments that were
done on enslaved people boggles my mind and makes me
very mad.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Well, I'm glad you said that, because it's something that
I found particularly interesting. Is the year before all of
this happened, there had been talk of moving wash George
Washington's remains from Virginia up to beneath the Capitol rotunda
like sacred relics like have them in Washington, DC. But
people resisted and ultimately didn't happen. And it kind of
(27:19):
didn't happen because people didn't want to like engage with
the corporeality of George Washington, like you don't want to
dig up his bones.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, he's already on the dollar, like you know, he's
already like around.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
But like invoking his corpse kind of cheapens him as
an idea. And at this point he was already so
venerated as an idea that no one's like, no one
wants to think too much about his physical body.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Yeah, and I mean like even I mean this is
you know, jumping ahead a few presidents, but like the
Lincoln memorial, like he big, he big, you know what
I mean, Like we like to think of these people
as like huge.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
As ideas, abstract ideas and not like rotting human bones.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
So it's like we're not going to touch George Washington's bones,
but we can sure cut open his nurse in front
of an audience. And so in eighteen thirty six, for
fifteen hundred spectators, Barnum gets a surgeon, David L. Rodgers,
to perform an autopsy at New York's City Saloon, charging
fifty cents twice the price of what it cost to
(28:23):
go see here. Oh yeah, this is the one time
online into one time only the doctor cuts through the
enters the thoracic cavity, cuts through the ribcage, notes the
coronary arteries and cardiac valves are not calcified. Sees that
she likely died of tuberculosis and says that she's no
more than eighty years old. Says that this is an
(28:45):
old woman, but not one hundred and sixty one. Yeah.
Even after this, Barnum kind of continues with the press. Like, first,
there's like he plants a lot of stories in the paper.
First that like the autopsy victim was another per and
that Heath is still alive somewhere, or that her ashes
are going on tour of Europe, or that her body
(29:06):
is being embalmed just sort of.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
The ashes probably doesn't tell a very good story though
any hymns.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, it's a very like, uh, he's just trying to
like keep the ball in the air of like how
can we still be talking about him? Okay, but she
you know, her remains are buried in Bethel, Connecticut, where
Barnum is from.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
And I hope nobody messes with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Argue, I mean, again, we're taking Barnum's word for this.
He says that her remains received a respectable burial.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
I mean any burial that doesn't involve like poking her anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Yeah, So the afterlife of Joyce, hef there's the autopsy,
which is the literal afterlife. But then how Barnum frames
this story? Okay, because this was Barnum's first foray into
show business in there was a financial panic in eighteen
(30:06):
thirty seven. You know, a few years after this, Barnum
sort of fell out of show business and was trying
to reclaim the spotlight. He got a writing job and
in eighteen forty one he publishes a serialized semi autobiographical
novella called Adventures of an Adventurer being some Passages in
the Life of Barnaby Diddlium, which is sort of like
(30:29):
a very loose as like autobiography that's a heightened version
of his life. There's elements of truth from his life,
but with him as sort of like a like rare
rabbit character, likelled a trickster, like sarcastic. It's like a
humbug about humbugs people have written, and it's like he's
(30:50):
writing about him being a trickster. But it's like a
clever trickster.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
But it's like the catch me if you can guy
writing a book about how he outsmarted everybody and got
away with all those scams, and then someone fact checked
it and was like, like two of these things happen, Yeah,
lest he just could just made up.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
It's the book itself. Book. This like serialized story is
pretty much an example of like Jacksonian democratic values, like
Jacksonian democracy, which is like the slaves are all like
lazy and trying to get out of work, and all
the abolitionists are like self righteous nags, and all the
jokes are kind of at the expense of these like
moral crusaders. So the version of the Joyce Heth story
(31:31):
that he presents in this version is that you know,
he's like even saying like my first you know, for
into show business, that he just came across a as
he calls her a negro wench who has been bedridden
for twelve years and basically her owner, her slave owner
says she bears a charmed life I fancy and lives
(31:53):
on for the sole purpose of picking my pockets by
remaining while I live on the pension list. And then
it says I felt a great curiosity to see the
woman who was thus swindling my friend by her disgusting
pernicity to cling to life at his expense, and then
says she was exempt from all work the horror of
a Negro. She enjoyed the elysium of her race idleness
(32:17):
to its fullest extent. So in this story, he comes
across and very, very old slave woman, who how dare
she is still alive, not working, and this poor slave
owner has to pay to feed her.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I'm sure it's like really high end food too.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And she's been this poor you know, this this scam
scam artist who's been bedridden for twelve years.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
She came up with this crafty plot to not die.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah, And in the story that Barnum tells, he comes
up with the idea that she while say she was
George Washington's nurse, and he says, I pulled out her
teeth so she would look older.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
The thing is which is related to the actual George
Washington who wore dungers made of slave.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Teeth, and he also in this version of the story,
he like purposefully gets her addicted to whiskey so that
she like wants to work for him. It's like Yeah,
he's a sick pimp move. Yeah, he like figures out
how to trick her, and he like makes a fake
baptism record for her and ages it in tobacco juice,
and then eventually she like enjoys being in on the humbug.
(33:27):
But he in this version he very much like bought
a lazy slave and like tricked her into working for
him and came up with this idea.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Himself, which he didn't even well that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
He did not pull out all of her teeth by noah,
you know, And he did not come up with the
George Washington story. He just bought the exhibit. Yeah, but
I think it's interesting that in this eighteen forty one
semi autobiographical version, he thinks that makes him look the best.
I mean, like that's like the fun version of the story.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yeah, because it it doesn't I don't know, it like
gets out of having to deal with like this woman's
whole sad life before he entered it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
And like you said, in like a green book way,
it's like a narrative of slavery that like people want
to believe, Yeah, because the alternative is reckoning with the
vast human misery and suffering that humans have inflicted on
other humans. Yeah, but that was like the fun. And
when I say democrat, I mean like an eighteen thirties democrat,
like a Jackson Democrat, which is the Southern Like that
(34:35):
was the fun narrative where it's like these abolitionist skulls
aren't in on the fun. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And you know, luckily today we never call people humorless
when they just try to point out that we should
treat everyone equally.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, Barnum's tune is going to change quite literally.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Does the war have anything to do with that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Okay, can tell politics. But before we get there, I
want to just point out that his American Museum will
open in December eighteen forty one. And in his career
as a showman showman, he's going to make a habit
of exploiting and othering people, particularly with racism.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yes, and that I actually did know.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
One of his biggest exhibits is a quote zip the Pinhead,
which he displays as a creature called what is it
as the creature, which is like a he frames like
a monkey man, like a missing link who doesn't speak
and like wears a hair shirt it turns out it's
(35:41):
just it was just a black man named William Henry
Johnson who was a cook for someone that Barnum knew
in Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean he really bootstrapped by just like exploiting people.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, he didn't invent this. As Lynn first point out,
African quote freaks were a common side show fra at
this time, and this happened a lot, and like plenty
of the people were not actually from Africa. They were
just black people who happened to be around. Yeah, but
this was like one of his most successful hoaxes sido
attractions he had. He did have like real Pigmies and
(36:16):
Zulus and then Arab dancers and equestrians and his wild
Moorish caravan. So sometimes he did have people from other
countries and races, although he did have children who he
displayed as Aztec children who were just from El Salvador.
He would get the Siamese twins Chang and Eng, who
were actually conjoined twins. They did not get along with Barnum.
(36:38):
They only lasted like a season. And incidentally Chang and
Eng were slave owners themselves. They like actually very interest.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
They actually from science. They were they were from these
but they were actually Siamese.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
They were actually Siamese and Siamese twins. And then they
would be on the they would like be written as
just a white man. They kind of got what do
you mean? They would be written in like these not
a syllabus. What's it called a census?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Oh okay, they just counted as like one whit white man. Yeah,
and really they were too conjoined Asian guys.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
But I guess if you're rich enough and owned slaves,
they're like, well, we don't know what to do with you.
I guess you're really rich, so you're a white guy. Okay,
but that's just incidental. But basically throughout his entire life
and all of his career, racially othering of people and
putting people on display in a quote unquote human zoo
is very much Barnum's MMO wow. But later in his life,
(37:32):
after all of this, he's going to want to get
into politics. After the Civil War, he's going to switch
from being a Jacksonian Democrat into a Republican, but like
a Republican in the Lincoln sense. In the eighteen hundred Cents,
he unsuccessfully runs for Congress. He becomes the mayor of
Bridgeport in eighteen seventy five, as you know, holding up
(37:52):
the Republican platform, which is enfranchising newly freed slaves, and
he says he was a slave owner, and he's really
embarrassed about it. Even says, quote, I whipped my slaves.
I ought to have been whipped a thousand times for
this myself, but by then I was a Democrat, one
of those nondescript democrats who are northern men with Southern principles.
So he's doing that thing where he's like Mayakoppa. He
(38:16):
writes an autobiography, Struggles and Triumphs, which is in eighteen
sixty nine, the edition, which is like the version of
the story that I think is most accurate to the reality,
but which we're still going to take with a grain
of salt, because the way he frames Joyce heth is
he's like, I honestly believed it to be genuine. He says,
(38:37):
quote something to which, as I have said, I did
not seek, but which by accident came my way and
seemed almost to compel my agency. So he's just saying like,
I don't know, I came across this and it was
pretty amazing. Did he have other slaves he did, okay,
but he claims that he did not understand that Joyce
(39:01):
Heath was an impostor. He was shown a deed of
sale and he believed it. And he said, if she
was an impostor, then who taught her these things? How
did she know so much about George Washington? Like, I
don't know. And then even when he goes through the
autopsy and says, then the doctor said it was a fraud,
he says, the doctors disagreed, and this quote dark subject
(39:23):
will probably always be shrouded in mystery.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Oh, I guess we never know who could have known?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I guess we'll never know. So that's sort of his
last version. His version of events that he tells in
the final edit of his biography is like, I guess
I believed her. And even after the autopsy, you know,
one doctor said she was less than eighty, but people disagreed.
So who am I to say?
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
And he even justifies, as I said, I assert that
when Joyce Heath was living, I never met six persons
out of the many, many of thousands who visited her
who seemed to doubt the for age and history.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Okay, just because you duped a lot of peoples.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I mean, you were right. His sort of excuse for
being a fraudster and like engaging in, as he called them, humbugs,
is like, well, I'm giving people their money's worth, so
I'm not actually cheating them.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
We are not. You're not giving your star her money's
worth because you're not giving her her money.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Also, you're not you're lying to people.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Yeah, but whatever, Yeah, I I don't like it, don't.
I don't think that that argument holds water of like, well,
you came to be entertained, and you were entertained. It's like, no,
if you pay to see a lady who's one hundred
and sixty, you better see a lady who's one hundred
and sixty.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And a connection to George Washington. You're really I mean
he is. He's exploiting obviously this enslaved woman, but he's
exploiting people's nostalgia and hunger for like the nobility of
our founding fathers. Yeah, but again he's giving people what
they really want, which is their basest impulses, which just
to see something weird and freaky and then couching it
(41:03):
in something that they can pretend is noble. He was
a master manipulator.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
I mean that is like very smart, yeah and devious.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, it's like when a hat girl wears glasses, so
then guys can feel good and being attracted to them.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
It's exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, it's like a girl with big boobs but glasses.
They're like, oh my god, I'm or she's brunette.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
There is, I mean, there is a whole thing of
I feel like guys are like, you know who I
actually think is really.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Hot Lizzie Kaplan, Lizzie.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Kaplyn and Harvey Plaza's crazy. Yeah, she's like very conventionally attractive,
like but it's like but they kind of scowl and
they have dark hair, so you know, I'm not I'm
not one of those superficial guys who was into I
don't know, Sidney Sweeney. I'm into like old girls like
Aubrey Plaza. Yeah, it's like that's a hot girl.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
That's a hot girl.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
That's a hot girl.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Pezzi Barnum would be a master of this. You want,
but this is Pete Barnum's very first for me into
show business. It was wildly successful for him. They left
this out of the Greatest Showman.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
I more and more I'm like agreeing with the Jenny
Nicholson take of like, why didn't they just write a
musical inspired by P. D. Barnum and call him something
else so that we didn't have to reckon with any
of this, Not because I care if like the movie
holds up, but I'm just like, you are burnishing the
reputation of someone who not only doesn't deserve it, but
(42:31):
like probably should be the subject of a movie about
what a like con man he was.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
You should Why would you want to launder the reputation
of a truly horrible person? Yeah, just make a musical
about a circus.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yeah, just like call him something else?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, call him something else. I will watch music.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Cir I'm the Gilded Age. They have a family that's
like obviously the Vanderbilts, but they call them something else
so that they don't have to deal with the stuff
that happened to the actual Vanderbilts, and like, do that.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, I would have vastly preferred that. I think part
of the reason that I did not enjoy The Greatest
Showman is because I have read a lot about P. T.
Barnum and I know he is not a good person. No,
this is I think evidence that he was not a
good person, and I think something I really regret, not
it's not a regret. Something I wish we had was
(43:19):
more or any access to Joyce HEF's interiority or experience,
because everything we have about her is either filtered through
barnum or filtered through the audience. Yeah, and people are like,
you know, she's telling stories, she's in on it, but
we don't know what her mindset.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Was, right, And I'll also say, like the whole thing
of him, you know, seeing the light later. I want
to be clear, I do think people can change, and
like the sooner you realize slavery is bad, the better,
Like if it takes until you're middle aged, better that
than five years, you know. Like I'm not like we
got to give him credit. I'm like, I do think.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
It's better, better than not better than.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Him dying thinking slavery is cool. Yeah, like it's always
good to learn something, But that doesn't then retroactively make
me think like, well, in that case, the Greatest Showman
is a documentary because by the end of his life
he was less problematic. It's like, no, you still did
a lot about things.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Still did a lot about things. Better than not that
you eventually come out against slavery. But I think that
it is worth us as modern day citizens recognizing the
ways in which someone like Joyce Heath was a mass
pop cultural attraction and why people wanted to go see her.
(44:43):
I think it both like let you feel good about
George Washington and our country and also let you feel
better than a black person. That's why people wanted to go.
A lot of the descriptions were grotesque. And then even
the people who defended her quote unquote like defended her
like saying like you shouldn't go. It was more looking
out for like the morality of the presumably white audience members. Yeah,
(45:08):
as opposed to any any instinct towards humanity on her part.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Right that like she's a victims.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
It's like you, as a white spectator, think about your
moral hearts. It would be it's you shouldn't look on
grotesqua rie. That's not good for you. Or even like
even though she's black, she still touched George Washington, so
let's not you know, treat her too poorly. It's bad.
(45:34):
And I think it's very interesting that P. T. Barnum
arguably the most American like capital a American figure in
American history began his career by exploiting an old enslaved woman,
and I think that kind of makes him even more American.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I mean, it's like a very American story to be like,
what was America built on? I know, George Washington and
not paying a black person. So I'll grab onto those
two ideas make some money.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
You know what America is built on the legend of
George Washington.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
Yeah, the fictionalized I present the reputation America was built
on a guy trying to get rich.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, the idealized vision of George Washington and exploited labor. Yeah.
And there you go, and there you go. Lizzie. Where
can the good people find you?
Speaker 3 (46:21):
You can contact me via Hoax the podcast on Instagram.
I respond to all the messages. I have a good
time chatting with y'all.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Dana.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Where can the good people find you?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Well, they can email Pokes Thepodcast at gmail dot com.
I want to thank everyone personally who's emailed with great
episode recommendations. They all go on the master list. It's
really lovely to hear from people who listen to the show.
And you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at
danishwartz with three z's. Oh and I should promote this.
In July, I'm leading a pilgrimage to the south of France.
(46:55):
Hell yeah, with a program called common Ground. This is
the fourth trip I've done because it's a really really
special group that I really love doing this with. You
should google common Ground pilgrimages Danish words. This one is
in the south of France, and we're gonna be talking
about Julia Child, who is a really wonderful person, kind
of the opposite of a Pet Barnum type in that
(47:16):
she's really good and the more you learn about her,
the more you're like, hell yeah, I won't be there,
Lizzy won't be there, but I will be yep, and
you can still come. You can sign up. We're gonna
have a great time. It's in July. Yeah, that's in
your book. Oh and I have a book coming out
in May called The Arcane Arts.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
That's really good. I've read it.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I co wrote under the pseudonym sd coverly because it's
not a hoax. I'm telling you right now that's that's
the pseudonym we co wrote the book under. And you
can pre order it now. Please do that. Thank you
so much for listening, Please hoax responsibly.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Bye Folks.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are Danas
Schortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick
and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. Kali and
producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music was
composed by Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
(48:22):
Thanks for listening.
You are listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Folks, it's a hug.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
No one I haven't seen when us to see.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
The Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we
wish were true.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And the truths that sound like lies.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm the ghost of no Danish Warts and I'm the
evil twin of Lizzie Logan.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Welcome to the show. We don't have the script in
front of us. This episode. We were seeing if we
could just go at it.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
But I thought we had memorized it and we mostly did.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, maybe a new a new podcast, I think new
iHeart podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
That was never part of it now, I mean that
was pretty close. I think we just forgot when the
like hand off happened.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Well, Lousey Logan, I have some very very exciting news.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Oh my god, what's your very very exciting news.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It's finally time, Oh my god for what for? Finally
an episode focused on P. T. Barnum himself. Oh, amazing
great Hoaxter, the Hoaxter of all Hoaxter, Hoaxer of all Hoasters.
Have you seen My real question is have you seen
the movie The Greatest Showman? I have? And what are
your thoughts about the Greatest Showman.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, okay, so I've seen the Greatest Showman and I've
also seen Jenny Nicholson's review of the Greatest Showman on YouTube,
so i know that it's not accurate.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It is not accurate.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I mean, listen, what what what are my thoughts about
that film? It's fun to watch people dance mine, It's
fun to watch people have fun at the circus.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, and like that.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm not the biggest Basic and Paul fans, so that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I don't know that one was one where like it
seemed like it would be right up my alley. But
I think I already knew too much about P. T.
Barnum that I couldn't, like do the suspension of disbelief.
I think I'm not I love when things aren't. I'm like,
if you're making a movie, it doesn't have to be
historically accurate. I'm just saying it affected my enjoyment.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Dan is a defender of the as of now upcoming
Wuthering Heights adaptation.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I am without even seeing it. I'm gonna say I
think an adaptation is someone's visceral experience and adapting it
to their artistic vision. And I think that's great.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I will hear. Okay, when I saw The Greatest Showman,
I walked out thinking that did nothing for me. But
I think if I'd seen it when I was twelve, yeah,
it would have really hit, Like it would have hit
the way like the movie of Rent really hit when
now you go back and watch it and you're like, well,
that's weird, that's all the choices. But I was like, no,
(02:40):
if I were twelve, I would have that soundtrack on repeat.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Phantom of the Opera also really hit for me when
I was when that movie came out. Whenever that was.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, Phantom of the Opera, I will say, holds up
and is a rip Roar and ride.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I think we both defend Gerard Butler phantomas.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Ye oh, absolutely absolutely well.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
The thing that The Greatest Showman does not. And okay,
so before we start, a few like disclaimers. If you
like The Greatest Showman, that's great. It's a work of fiction,
enjoy a musical. I think that's great. I'm not someone
who's like and it shouldn't exist. I'm a defender of
anachronisms and having fun that the movies. Okay, A more
serious disclaimer is this episode is going to feature a
(03:21):
lot of historical racism and very uncomfortable racism sometimes, and
I will be quoting from some antebellum texts that are
frankly like disgusting and disconcerting. And if that's just something
you don't want to deal with right now, I get it,
fair enough, that's this episode's going to involve that.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah, and he and he wasn't nice to people with
like deformities and differences, right.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, I mean this episode we're not even going to
like fully get into that because he did a lot
and focus just on one specific hoax.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Oh okay, so this is not an overview.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
It's not an overview. It's his first, very first hoax.
It's sort of like a prequel, but just it is
racism heavy.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Bring it on.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
If I say the name Joyce Hath, does that mean
anything to you?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Not one single thing?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, Well what about Pt. Barnum? Yes, I know about him,
So we are going to go back in time, okay
to eighteen thirty five.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Great.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
PT.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Barnum is just a twenty five year old nobody. He
has moved to New York City. He's worked as a shopkeeper.
He's tried to start a newspaper as a newspaper editor,
worked as a lottery manager, worked at a boarding house.
He's had a lot of just jobs great. He wants
to get rich quick. It's I think the reason that
(04:42):
the Pt. Barnum story resonates with so many people is
he he is someone who was born with nothing and
became wildly rich and famous in his lifetime.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
He was a dreamer.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
He was a dreamer and he really was. He really
like embodies the idea of like this is a bootstraps
situation that he built out of thin air he dreamed
himself into. I'm going to say greatness in like the
you know in the Harry Potter when he's like greatness,
He's not good great like I say greatness without any
(05:12):
moral judgment.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's like great, just like important friend power.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
What we're going to be talking about is his very
first showman job in the show show Business, his first entertainment,
his first entertainment, his first I mean hoax. Okay, really
spoiler alert, it is a hoax, but that's what this
show is and that's kind of what he did. So
he hears from this man named Coleie Bartram. I think,
just like an acquaintance who suggests that Barnum traveled to
(05:40):
Philadelphia to meet this other showman named R. W. Lindsay
who has a show going, and the word on the street,
according to Barnum's friend Colie Bartram, is that this Lindsay
fellow wants to get out of the biz and go
back to Kentucky because he's not really making a profit.
And what Lindsay's show is a very old woman that
(06:04):
he claims is the one hundred and sixty one year
old former nurse of George Washington.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You mentioned this in a previous episode. Yeah, I assume
this isn't like a show that plays every night at eight.
It's more like a standing exhibit. Like, how is that
a show? How does a person a show?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It is a show, You buy tickets, you go see her,
she tells tales, she exactly, she goes on. I mean
she is on stage, and Barnum, on this suggestion of
this acquaintance, travels to Philadelphia to see this show, and
the show is a very old, semi paralyzed woman on
stage singing hymns that she had sang to George Washington
(06:43):
one hundred and fifty years ago, one hundred and fifty
years ago, telling tales of her dear quote, dear little Georgie,
dear little George, and just sort of talking about him
growing up. The popular story of George Washington and the
Cherry Tree, which is not true, is sort of already
(07:06):
a story in the zeitgeist that someone had written about
in a book. She's going to reiterate that story. People
are going to talk about it, and people just want
to like see her both as like a relic of
that bygun Era founding Fathers, but also because she's a
specimen in and of herself, Okay, in like a freak show. Way, Yeah,
this is a woman that they're claiming to be one
(07:28):
hundred and sixty one years old.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
So Barnum goes to Philadelphia, sees the show, and then
meets with her backstage in the Masonic Hall where the
show had happened, and quote finds her to be quote
very garrulous when speaking of her protege, dear little George,
and he describes what she looks like.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
You know what does mean?
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I think like that she has like energy even for
a very very old woman.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
He describes her as having one fixed arm stuck. So
she's half paralyzed. He'd describe her as totally blind, no teeth,
a head of thick, bushy gray hair, and nails four
inches long and toenails a quarter inch thick.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And as she does, sound really old.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I think something that I just want to flag here
is a lot of these descriptions of her, both from
Barnum and also from the press at the time and
also from people who come to see her, are grotesque.
And they are going to describe her in this way
that is, I mean, like a creature of some sort.
(08:34):
It's very othering. I should say, this is a black woman.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
See I didn't know that one yep, and she had
been I assume a slave then not.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Only had been a slave, well she still.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Isn't because they're in Philly, which is part of the North. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, this is an interesting He wants to go back.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
To Kentucky because he wants to go be in the
Handabellum South.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
This is indeed a situation that we'll have to get into. Okay, okay, okay,
So I'm just going to walk through the way that
pet Barnum would have experienced this. He meets this woman
they you know, Lindsay's show that he's not really making
money on is saying that she's George Washington. Was George
Washington's nurse. It is eighteen thirty five. George Washington was
(09:17):
born in seventeen thirty two. So I'm not going to
make anyone listening do the math. I did the math.
If she was fifteen when she was his nurse, that
means she would be one hundred and eighteen now, okay,
But also they're claiming that she's one hundred and sixty
one because Lindsay as like quote unquote proof of the
(09:38):
fact that she was George Washington's nurse, offers a bill
of sale dated from February fifth, seventeen twenty seven from
Augustine Washington, who is George Washington's father, saying that he
sold this woman, Joyce Heth, when she was fifty four
years old to their friend and neighbor Elizabeth Attwood, and
(10:00):
then Lindsay claims that Joyce was present at the birth
of George Washington, even clothed the newborn infant, and then
would later claim that he that she suckled yeah him,
that she was a wet nurse. Sorry he suckled her.
Nurse him nursed him, thank you. But even given that age,
(10:21):
if she had been fifty four in seventeen twenty seven
and he wasn't born for another five years, she wasn't
going to be his wet nurse at fifty nine years old.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
I mean, this is a woman who apparently just defies
all you know, known biology. Yeah, of course, I guess
if you're going to make it to one hundred and sixty,
you're not going to go through menopause for a while
because you have a long ass life span ahead of you.
But I do understand what you're saying that this is
even by.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
The lie, it's not really plausible.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah. I mean, if I were trying to sell this,
I would just say that she was one hundred and eighteen,
because I mean, I don't know about back then, but
like people live to one hundred and ten, you know
what I mean, that's like a less of a stretch.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
But Lizzy, but this is someone you want to buy
tickets to. Well, you want people to buy tickets to
come see her. So part of the reason that the
life is so outrageous is because you're like, oh my god,
that's unbelievable. I have to see this for myself.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Okay, Barnum is a liar, but yeah, nokidding, And so
a lot of it is Lindsay, I'm assuming, yeah, But
we don't have Lindsay's writing on this. We have Barnum's
writing about his conversations with Lindsay. So a lot of
our sources on this are Barnum's own writings, which changed
multiple times throughout his life. His first time that he
(11:42):
writes about this is a complete lie, and then he'll
write about it decades later in his autobiography, and then
in later editions we'll even revise it further. Great, So
almost everything you have to take with a grain of salt.
But what is kind of interesting is this almost historiography
of where you get to see how Barnum presented the
(12:02):
story and what that says about him at any given time.
But this is the version that I think is closest
to the truth that Lindsay from Kentucky had owned this woman,
had decided that maybe he would make a profit displaying her,
and didn't really make enough money, wanted to get out
(12:23):
of the business, and sold her to P. T.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Barnum. Slavery was already outlawed in New York City around
this time Barnum is going to display her, he exploits
a loophole and he quote leases Heath for a year
at one thousand dollars. He goes into debt. He had
to borrow five hundred. He didn't even have enough money.
But to quote berth Lynn Force, who's a professor at
(12:47):
u T Austin, Peter Barnhum quote began his career in
show business by going into debt to buy a super
annuated female slave who turned out to be a fraud,
so she was still purchased. Yeah, the asking price that
Lindsay wanted was three thousand dollars and he paid a
thousand and it was like a lease on a person.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Do we and maybe we're going to get to this,
do we know if George Washington had a real nurse?
Like is she pretending to be someone who actually existed?
I mean I know that he owned slaves as an
adult and like grew up on a plantation.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
She's not impersonating someone with a name that we know.
But like George Washington absolutely has black slaves on his plantation.
He owned slaves. That is a I was going to
say plaus not only plausible thing, truthful thing, but the
thing that p. T. Barnum has that Lindsay doesn't have
is like showbiz pizaz. And starting on August tenth, eighteen
(13:47):
thirty five, he books her a two and a half
week stint at this theater in New York City called
Nibblo's Garden advertised the Childhood Wet Nurse of George Washington
eighteen thirty five as quote on the poster, the greatest
natural and national curiosity in the world, which you know,
why not?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, I mean, if you're if you're gonna go in
on a lie go all in, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They say that she quote was the first person who
put clothes on the unconscious infant, who in after days
led our heroic fathers onto glory, to victory and freedom. Ironic. Yeah,
to use her own language, quote, she raised him. They
say that she weighs but forty six pounds.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Well, people were smaller than she.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Did not weigh forty six pounds, And they say in
the advertisement she retains her faculties in an unparalleled degree,
converses free lease, sings numerous hymns, relates many interesting anecdotes
of the boy Washington, and often laughs heartily at her
own remarks or those of spectators.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Okay, so okay.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
The thing that I want to point out here is
that she is an object on display for two purposes.
One just because, in a gay Barnum freak show way,
this is a woman who is a toothless, semi paralyzed
woman that they're saying is one hundred and sixty one
years old. She is extraordinarily old looking, Okay, and later,
(15:22):
even though it spoiler alert is a hoax, this woman
was not one hundred and sixty one years old. Barnum,
in his defense, will be like, well, no one who
saw her whatever, that she was not that old, Okay,
So like it was a freak show specimen to see.
And also if you weren't, if it wasn't enticing enough
(15:43):
for you to come see in one hundred and sixty
one year old woman, this appeal to this national pride
was also it gives it like an air of respectability almost.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, like, oh, I'm not going to see how old
she is. I'm going to learn about history. And that's
why I bought my ticket, not because I'm you know,
I just want to gaw at an old lady exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I'm not going to a freak show to gwet like
a human specimen. I'm going to like honor our country
and like pay homage to the patriotism of our country. Yeah,
admission was twenty five cents children half priced less than
ten dollars today. A bargain.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
I mean, when you don't have to pay the star
of your show, I guess you can keep overhead there.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, you know she's singing hymns told telling stories about
little George. As I mentioned earlier, the story about the
George Washington cutting down a cherry tree and then telling
his father, I cannot tell a lie I cut down
a cherry tree. That is a fully fictional story that
was popularized in a in eighteen o nine book by
a man named Mason Weim called Life of Washington. That
(16:50):
was almost like an educational book, but it became like
a very popular story, and so she would tell the
story as if she had seen it. She looked in incredibly,
incredibly old. One of the people who sees her writes, indeed,
she is a mere skeleton covered with skin. Her whole
appearance very much resembles a mummy of the days of
(17:11):
the Pharaohs, taken entire from the Catacombs of Egypt.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
I feel so bad for this lady. I just want
to like feed her jello. I know.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
The historian Eric Lott claims that Barnum was earning fifteen
hundred dollars a week, which is the equivalent of forty
six thousand dollars a week.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
That's so much money. And she was.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Working unpaid ten to twelve hours a day.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And then starting this summer it's a month's long traveling
exhibit for Barnum. They go to Providence, Boston, Lowell, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford,
New Haven, Albany, and a few other places. What's kind
of interesting is, as we were talking about, like that
part of the appeal was just this like carnival sensibility
of like, come see the very old woman who looks
(17:57):
like a mummy. But the travel at different stops, he
leans into different parts of the appeal of her.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Oh sure, because the local flavor.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
The local flavor. Where at when abolitionists were upset about
the show because it's like, here is an enslaved woman
that you're putting on display like further exploiting, Barnham claims
that the proceeds of the exhibit were going to freeing slaves.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
There's no evidence to think of a slave he could
have freedom.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That there, Yeah, and the appeal to the patriotism because again,
she was not George Washington's nursemaid. There's no actual factual
connection to George Washington. But there's this is a period
of urbanization and upheaval in the country, and during a
time of massive upheaval, people look towards stability, and so
(18:46):
the veneration of the Founding Fathers becomes really popular in
that time because it's like there's this rapid urbanization, anxieties
about loss of traditions, especially going into the Civil War.
There's a lot of chaos happening. There's a writer named
Henry Cole who writes to the Son complaining about this,
about her being on display, not questioning whether or not
(19:08):
she is Washington's nurse maid, but she says, why she
who nursed the father of our country, the man to
whom we owe our present, happy and prosperous condition, should
at the close of her life be exhibited as our
rarer monsters are. Is there not philanthropy enough in the
American people to take care of her although her skin
(19:29):
be black?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Oh, how generous yeah. To me, this sort of I mean,
this isn't like one to one at all because it's
not on display. But I feel like the desire to
sort of connect with like a previous quote unquote like
to do it. I don't know exactly what the connection is,
but what's reminding me of is every election. Yeah, we're like,
(19:57):
I don't know, is there a Kennedy who can help?
Like we went to the moon and did like civil
rights and stuff, like just one of those guys around
and like, we're gonna take whatever Kennedy we can get.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Who who are around here? We met George Washington, here's
the closest person we have to joy Like.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Are you vaguely related to someone we've heard of that
we know? We like, Okay, can you be in charge?
Or can I can I just listen to you talk? Really?
I know what to do.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's it. So it's like, not only would you understand
why this was such a popular attraction, Not only did
people you know they're bored. It's the eighteen thirties want
to go to like quote a freak show to look
at human oddity. It's why TLC is still a channel.
But then they could also pat themselves on the back
because they're like, ah, George Washington, Yeah, and we're going
(20:43):
to get into this and to Barnum as a showman later.
But to fast forward a little, the historian Benjamin Reese,
I just want to shout him out, because he articulated
this very well. I think where she indulged in quote
the popular desire for images of white domination, because which
is basically so not only do you get to look
(21:03):
at like a I'm putting this in air quotes, but
like a weird looking person, like a freak, like, oh,
look at this old lady, and get to be like ah,
George Washington. I get to think about our founding fathers.
You also get to feel superior to a very very
old black woman.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And she's telling I mean, from what it sounds like,
it sounds like she's telling a version of history in
which she's very happy. Yes, And I am sure like
if you have any anxiety around slavery, either because you
own slaves and don't want to think of yourself as
a bad person, or you're even like an abolitionist but
very worried about how slaves are being treated, it's like
(21:42):
Green Book or whatever, where it's like, it's probably very
comforting to watch this woman be like, I had a great.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Time, Yeah, George, I.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Raised this kid, and I had a great life, and
I'm so old, So I mean, how could I have
been mistreated if I'm lasted all these years? Like this
slavery really that bad if I get to just like
take care of a cute.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Baby, Lizzie. It's so interesting that you mentioned that. Another
sort of justification that makes people feel good about her
on display is there's a very racist narrative, particularly around
pro slavery people at this time, that black people need
a tropical climate in order to throw Jesus. That it's like,
(22:25):
you know, because they come from Africa, they shouldn't be
in the north where it's cold. They should be in
the South, where it's warm. And there's the argument that
her longevity is actually that's normal in the South. Actually
black people where they're quote supposed to be, they're all
living one hundred and fifty, one hundred and sixty. And
the only reason that it's crazy that she seems even
(22:47):
sick now is because she's in the North and she's
not supposed to be. But again, even a lot of
the critique of her on display. Isn't because she's a
black person that P. T. Barnum purchased and is displaying
like that letter from Henry Cole. It's like, this woman
raised George Washington even though she's black. Can't we find
(23:07):
our kindness in our hearts for more dignity? Yeah, and
the more old fashioned New England press so New York
they're like eating this stuff up. But the Courier, which
is a Bostonian paper, will write those who imagine they
can contemplate with delight a breathing skeleton subjected to the
same sort of discipline that is sometimes exercised in a
menagerie to induce the inferior animals to play on natural
(23:31):
pranks for the amusement of bare and spectators will find
food to their taste by visiting Joyce Head, basically being
like it's a moral failing to like go to a
freak show. Yeah, but their criticism isn't it's bad to
enslave a person. It's that it's bad for the moral
health of the audience to go indulge in this sort
(23:53):
of shenanigan.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah. I mean I feel like it's like, oh, you're
half your halfway there, buddy, like you're you know what,
they're like, You're you're grasping at the idea that like,
we should not delight in the pain of others, and
you're framing it as lesser beings, but really it's just others.
Like you, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.
You're gonna get there.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
You're gonna get there. Barnum, for his part, again Master Showman,
is going to sort of plant stories that subvert all
of these narratives to encourage people to go. He plant
stories playing up how like religious and pious she is
so you don't have to feel bad about going, and
also plays up her cleanliness. There's a planted story where
he says there is nothing in her appearance which can
(24:38):
be possibly be unpleasant to the minds of the most fastidious,
that it's like, you don't have to feel bad about
about coming to see her. It's just a clean, happy,
old woman. And he also plays up the fact that
it's like this is so much better than slavery, that
she used to be a slave and now she's just
hanging out in a theater. Barnum will also have the
(24:59):
strategy and tour numbers kind of decrease, especially around Boston,
where people are like less excited about this. His strategy
is to like call himself a humbug to drum up
publicity and like a no press is bad press situation,
and so he plants an article in the paper saying
that Joyce Heath is not a human being. What purports
(25:19):
to be a remarkably old woman is simply a curiously
constructed automaton made up of whalebone, india, rubber, and number
springs that ingeniously put together and made to move at
the slightest touch. And then they say that he's a ventriloquist.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
But she doesn't even play chess.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So but it does that did remind me of that
thing where it's like the fastest way to get a
right answer on the Internet is like say the wrong thing.
Oh funny, where he came up with a He pointed
out that this was a lie in a wrong way,
so people could be like, Nope, nope, she is real,
But then it's like you're answering the wrong question.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
She is a real person, but she's not over sixty
one year old the human she's pretending the.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Nurse of George Washington. But this is what Barnum is
really good at he's really good at manipulating the story
to suit his purposes. And the best way he's going
to do that, and I say best in like the
way I met greatest earlier, with like no moral judgments.
The smartest, the smartest way he's going to do that
(26:21):
is when she dies. Yeah, because this very very old
woman dies and Barnum announces that she will be publicly
autopsied because he's like, is she actually one hundred and
sixty one years old? Let's find out, Like, let.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
The woman rest in peace, like she had no dignity
in life, and now she will have no dignity in death.
And the number of like weird medical experiments that were
done on enslaved people boggles my mind and makes me
very mad.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Well, I'm glad you said that, because it's something that
I found particularly interesting. Is the year before all of
this happened, there had been talk of moving wash George
Washington's remains from Virginia up to beneath the Capitol rotunda
like sacred relics like have them in Washington, DC. But
people resisted and ultimately didn't happen. And it kind of
(27:19):
didn't happen because people didn't want to like engage with
the corporeality of George Washington, like you don't want to
dig up his bones.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, he's already on the dollar, like you know, he's
already like around.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
But like invoking his corpse kind of cheapens him as
an idea. And at this point he was already so
venerated as an idea that no one's like, no one
wants to think too much about his physical body.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Yeah, and I mean like even I mean this is
you know, jumping ahead a few presidents, but like the
Lincoln memorial, like he big, he big, you know what
I mean, Like we like to think of these people
as like huge.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
As ideas, abstract ideas and not like rotting human bones.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
So it's like we're not going to touch George Washington's bones,
but we can sure cut open his nurse in front
of an audience. And so in eighteen thirty six, for
fifteen hundred spectators, Barnum gets a surgeon, David L. Rodgers,
to perform an autopsy at New York's City Saloon, charging
fifty cents twice the price of what it cost to
(28:23):
go see here. Oh yeah, this is the one time
online into one time only the doctor cuts through the
enters the thoracic cavity, cuts through the ribcage, notes the
coronary arteries and cardiac valves are not calcified. Sees that
she likely died of tuberculosis and says that she's no
more than eighty years old. Says that this is an
(28:45):
old woman, but not one hundred and sixty one. Yeah.
Even after this, Barnum kind of continues with the press. Like, first,
there's like he plants a lot of stories in the paper.
First that like the autopsy victim was another per and
that Heath is still alive somewhere, or that her ashes
are going on tour of Europe, or that her body
(29:06):
is being embalmed just sort of.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
The ashes probably doesn't tell a very good story though
any hymns.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, it's a very like, uh, he's just trying to
like keep the ball in the air of like how
can we still be talking about him? Okay, but she
you know, her remains are buried in Bethel, Connecticut, where
Barnum is from.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
And I hope nobody messes with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Argue, I mean, again, we're taking Barnum's word for this.
He says that her remains received a respectable burial.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
I mean any burial that doesn't involve like poking her anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Yeah, So the afterlife of Joyce, hef there's the autopsy,
which is the literal afterlife. But then how Barnum frames
this story? Okay, because this was Barnum's first foray into
show business in there was a financial panic in eighteen
(30:06):
thirty seven. You know, a few years after this, Barnum
sort of fell out of show business and was trying
to reclaim the spotlight. He got a writing job and
in eighteen forty one he publishes a serialized semi autobiographical
novella called Adventures of an Adventurer being some Passages in
the Life of Barnaby Diddlium, which is sort of like
(30:29):
a very loose as like autobiography that's a heightened version
of his life. There's elements of truth from his life,
but with him as sort of like a like rare
rabbit character, likelled a trickster, like sarcastic. It's like a
humbug about humbugs people have written, and it's like he's
(30:50):
writing about him being a trickster. But it's like a
clever trickster.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
But it's like the catch me if you can guy
writing a book about how he outsmarted everybody and got
away with all those scams, and then someone fact checked
it and was like, like two of these things happen, Yeah,
lest he just could just made up.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
It's the book itself. Book. This like serialized story is
pretty much an example of like Jacksonian democratic values, like
Jacksonian democracy, which is like the slaves are all like
lazy and trying to get out of work, and all
the abolitionists are like self righteous nags, and all the
jokes are kind of at the expense of these like
moral crusaders. So the version of the Joyce Heth story
(31:31):
that he presents in this version is that you know,
he's like even saying like my first you know, for
into show business, that he just came across a as
he calls her a negro wench who has been bedridden
for twelve years and basically her owner, her slave owner
says she bears a charmed life I fancy and lives
(31:53):
on for the sole purpose of picking my pockets by
remaining while I live on the pension list. And then
it says I felt a great curiosity to see the
woman who was thus swindling my friend by her disgusting
pernicity to cling to life at his expense, and then
says she was exempt from all work the horror of
a Negro. She enjoyed the elysium of her race idleness
(32:17):
to its fullest extent. So in this story, he comes
across and very, very old slave woman, who how dare
she is still alive, not working, and this poor slave
owner has to pay to feed her.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I'm sure it's like really high end food too.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
And she's been this poor you know, this this scam
scam artist who's been bedridden for twelve years.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
She came up with this crafty plot to not die.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah, And in the story that Barnum tells, he comes
up with the idea that she while say she was
George Washington's nurse, and he says, I pulled out her
teeth so she would look older.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
The thing is which is related to the actual George
Washington who wore dungers made of slave.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Teeth, and he also in this version of the story,
he like purposefully gets her addicted to whiskey so that
she like wants to work for him. It's like Yeah,
he's a sick pimp move. Yeah, he like figures out
how to trick her, and he like makes a fake
baptism record for her and ages it in tobacco juice,
and then eventually she like enjoys being in on the humbug.
(33:27):
But he in this version he very much like bought
a lazy slave and like tricked her into working for
him and came up with this idea.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Himself, which he didn't even well that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
He did not pull out all of her teeth by noah,
you know, And he did not come up with the
George Washington story. He just bought the exhibit. Yeah, but
I think it's interesting that in this eighteen forty one
semi autobiographical version, he thinks that makes him look the best.
I mean, like that's like the fun version of the story.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yeah, because it it doesn't I don't know, it like
gets out of having to deal with like this woman's
whole sad life before he entered it, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
And like you said, in like a green book way,
it's like a narrative of slavery that like people want
to believe, Yeah, because the alternative is reckoning with the
vast human misery and suffering that humans have inflicted on
other humans. Yeah, but that was like the fun. And
when I say democrat, I mean like an eighteen thirties democrat,
like a Jackson Democrat, which is the Southern Like that
(34:35):
was the fun narrative where it's like these abolitionist skulls
aren't in on the fun. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And you know, luckily today we never call people humorless
when they just try to point out that we should
treat everyone equally.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Yeah, Barnum's tune is going to change quite literally.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Does the war have anything to do with that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Okay, can tell politics. But before we get there, I
want to just point out that his American Museum will
open in December eighteen forty one. And in his career
as a showman showman, he's going to make a habit
of exploiting and othering people, particularly with racism.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yes, and that I actually did know.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
One of his biggest exhibits is a quote zip the Pinhead,
which he displays as a creature called what is it
as the creature, which is like a he frames like
a monkey man, like a missing link who doesn't speak
and like wears a hair shirt it turns out it's
(35:41):
just it was just a black man named William Henry
Johnson who was a cook for someone that Barnum knew
in Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean he really bootstrapped by just like exploiting people.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, he didn't invent this. As Lynn first point out,
African quote freaks were a common side show fra at
this time, and this happened a lot, and like plenty
of the people were not actually from Africa. They were
just black people who happened to be around. Yeah, but
this was like one of his most successful hoaxes sido
attractions he had. He did have like real Pigmies and
(36:16):
Zulus and then Arab dancers and equestrians and his wild
Moorish caravan. So sometimes he did have people from other
countries and races, although he did have children who he
displayed as Aztec children who were just from El Salvador.
He would get the Siamese twins Chang and Eng, who
were actually conjoined twins. They did not get along with Barnum.
(36:38):
They only lasted like a season. And incidentally Chang and
Eng were slave owners themselves. They like actually very interest.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
They actually from science. They were they were from these
but they were actually Siamese.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
They were actually Siamese and Siamese twins. And then they
would be on the they would like be written as
just a white man. They kind of got what do
you mean? They would be written in like these not
a syllabus. What's it called a census?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Oh okay, they just counted as like one whit white man. Yeah,
and really they were too conjoined Asian guys.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
But I guess if you're rich enough and owned slaves,
they're like, well, we don't know what to do with you.
I guess you're really rich, so you're a white guy. Okay,
but that's just incidental. But basically throughout his entire life
and all of his career, racially othering of people and
putting people on display in a quote unquote human zoo
is very much Barnum's MMO wow. But later in his life,
(37:32):
after all of this, he's going to want to get
into politics. After the Civil War, he's going to switch
from being a Jacksonian Democrat into a Republican, but like
a Republican in the Lincoln sense. In the eighteen hundred Cents,
he unsuccessfully runs for Congress. He becomes the mayor of
Bridgeport in eighteen seventy five, as you know, holding up
(37:52):
the Republican platform, which is enfranchising newly freed slaves, and
he says he was a slave owner, and he's really
embarrassed about it. Even says, quote, I whipped my slaves.
I ought to have been whipped a thousand times for
this myself, but by then I was a Democrat, one
of those nondescript democrats who are northern men with Southern principles.
So he's doing that thing where he's like Mayakoppa. He
(38:16):
writes an autobiography, Struggles and Triumphs, which is in eighteen
sixty nine, the edition, which is like the version of
the story that I think is most accurate to the reality,
but which we're still going to take with a grain
of salt, because the way he frames Joyce heth is
he's like, I honestly believed it to be genuine. He says,
(38:37):
quote something to which, as I have said, I did
not seek, but which by accident came my way and
seemed almost to compel my agency. So he's just saying like,
I don't know, I came across this and it was
pretty amazing. Did he have other slaves he did, okay,
but he claims that he did not understand that Joyce
(39:01):
Heath was an impostor. He was shown a deed of
sale and he believed it. And he said, if she
was an impostor, then who taught her these things? How
did she know so much about George Washington? Like, I
don't know. And then even when he goes through the
autopsy and says, then the doctor said it was a fraud,
he says, the doctors disagreed, and this quote dark subject
(39:23):
will probably always be shrouded in mystery.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Oh, I guess we never know who could have known?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I guess we'll never know. So that's sort of his
last version. His version of events that he tells in
the final edit of his biography is like, I guess
I believed her. And even after the autopsy, you know,
one doctor said she was less than eighty, but people disagreed.
So who am I to say?
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
And he even justifies, as I said, I assert that
when Joyce Heath was living, I never met six persons
out of the many, many of thousands who visited her
who seemed to doubt the for age and history.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Okay, just because you duped a lot of peoples.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I mean, you were right. His sort of excuse for
being a fraudster and like engaging in, as he called them, humbugs,
is like, well, I'm giving people their money's worth, so
I'm not actually cheating them.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
We are not. You're not giving your star her money's
worth because you're not giving her her money.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Also, you're not you're lying to people.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Yeah, but whatever, Yeah, I I don't like it, don't.
I don't think that that argument holds water of like, well,
you came to be entertained, and you were entertained. It's like, no,
if you pay to see a lady who's one hundred
and sixty, you better see a lady who's one hundred
and sixty.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And a connection to George Washington. You're really I mean
he is. He's exploiting obviously this enslaved woman, but he's
exploiting people's nostalgia and hunger for like the nobility of
our founding fathers. Yeah, but again he's giving people what
they really want, which is their basest impulses, which just
to see something weird and freaky and then couching it
(41:03):
in something that they can pretend is noble. He was
a master manipulator.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
I mean that is like very smart, yeah and devious.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, it's like when a hat girl wears glasses, so
then guys can feel good and being attracted to them.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
It's exactly the same.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, it's like a girl with big boobs but glasses.
They're like, oh my god, I'm or she's brunette.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
There is, I mean, there is a whole thing of
I feel like guys are like, you know who I
actually think is really.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Hot Lizzie Kaplan, Lizzie.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Kaplyn and Harvey Plaza's crazy. Yeah, she's like very conventionally attractive,
like but it's like but they kind of scowl and
they have dark hair, so you know, I'm not I'm
not one of those superficial guys who was into I
don't know, Sidney Sweeney. I'm into like old girls like
Aubrey Plaza. Yeah, it's like that's a hot girl.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
That's a hot girl.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
That's a hot girl.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Pezzi Barnum would be a master of this. You want,
but this is Pete Barnum's very first for me into
show business. It was wildly successful for him. They left
this out of the Greatest Showman.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
I more and more I'm like agreeing with the Jenny
Nicholson take of like, why didn't they just write a
musical inspired by P. D. Barnum and call him something
else so that we didn't have to reckon with any
of this, Not because I care if like the movie
holds up, but I'm just like, you are burnishing the
reputation of someone who not only doesn't deserve it, but
(42:31):
like probably should be the subject of a movie about
what a like con man he was.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
You should Why would you want to launder the reputation
of a truly horrible person? Yeah, just make a musical
about a circus.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yeah, just like call him something else?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, call him something else. I will watch music.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Cir I'm the Gilded Age. They have a family that's
like obviously the Vanderbilts, but they call them something else
so that they don't have to deal with the stuff
that happened to the actual Vanderbilts, and like, do that.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, I would have vastly preferred that. I think part
of the reason that I did not enjoy The Greatest
Showman is because I have read a lot about P. T.
Barnum and I know he is not a good person. No,
this is I think evidence that he was not a
good person, and I think something I really regret, not
it's not a regret. Something I wish we had was
(43:19):
more or any access to Joyce HEF's interiority or experience,
because everything we have about her is either filtered through
barnum or filtered through the audience. Yeah, and people are like,
you know, she's telling stories, she's in on it, but
we don't know what her mindset.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Was, right, And I'll also say, like the whole thing
of him, you know, seeing the light later. I want
to be clear, I do think people can change, and
like the sooner you realize slavery is bad, the better,
Like if it takes until you're middle aged, better that
than five years, you know. Like I'm not like we
got to give him credit. I'm like, I do think.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
It's better, better than not better than.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Him dying thinking slavery is cool. Yeah, like it's always
good to learn something, But that doesn't then retroactively make
me think like, well, in that case, the Greatest Showman
is a documentary because by the end of his life
he was less problematic. It's like, no, you still did
a lot about things.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Still did a lot about things. Better than not that
you eventually come out against slavery. But I think that
it is worth us as modern day citizens recognizing the
ways in which someone like Joyce Heath was a mass
pop cultural attraction and why people wanted to go see her.
(44:43):
I think it both like let you feel good about
George Washington and our country and also let you feel
better than a black person. That's why people wanted to go.
A lot of the descriptions were grotesque. And then even
the people who defended her quote unquote like defended her
like saying like you shouldn't go. It was more looking
out for like the morality of the presumably white audience members. Yeah,
(45:08):
as opposed to any any instinct towards humanity on her part.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Right that like she's a victims.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
It's like you, as a white spectator, think about your
moral hearts. It would be it's you shouldn't look on
grotesqua rie. That's not good for you. Or even like
even though she's black, she still touched George Washington, so
let's not you know, treat her too poorly. It's bad.
(45:34):
And I think it's very interesting that P. T. Barnum
arguably the most American like capital a American figure in
American history began his career by exploiting an old enslaved woman,
and I think that kind of makes him even more American.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I mean, it's like a very American story to be like,
what was America built on? I know, George Washington and
not paying a black person. So I'll grab onto those
two ideas make some money.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
You know what America is built on the legend of
George Washington.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
Yeah, the fictionalized I present the reputation America was built
on a guy trying to get rich.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, the idealized vision of George Washington and exploited labor. Yeah.
And there you go, and there you go. Lizzie. Where
can the good people find you?
Speaker 3 (46:21):
You can contact me via Hoax the podcast on Instagram.
I respond to all the messages. I have a good
time chatting with y'all.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Dana.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Where can the good people find you?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Well, they can email Pokes Thepodcast at gmail dot com.
I want to thank everyone personally who's emailed with great
episode recommendations. They all go on the master list. It's
really lovely to hear from people who listen to the show.
And you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at
danishwartz with three z's. Oh and I should promote this.
In July, I'm leading a pilgrimage to the south of France.
(46:55):
Hell yeah, with a program called common Ground. This is
the fourth trip I've done because it's a really really
special group that I really love doing this with. You
should google common Ground pilgrimages Danish words. This one is
in the south of France, and we're gonna be talking
about Julia Child, who is a really wonderful person, kind
of the opposite of a Pet Barnum type in that
(47:16):
she's really good and the more you learn about her,
the more you're like, hell yeah, I won't be there,
Lizzy won't be there, but I will be yep, and
you can still come. You can sign up. We're gonna
have a great time. It's in July. Yeah, that's in
your book. Oh and I have a book coming out
in May called The Arcane Arts.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
That's really good. I've read it.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I co wrote under the pseudonym sd coverly because it's
not a hoax. I'm telling you right now that's that's
the pseudonym we co wrote the book under. And you
can pre order it now. Please do that. Thank you
so much for listening, Please hoax responsibly.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Bye Folks.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are Danas
Schortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick
and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. Kali and
producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music was
composed by Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
(48:22):
Thanks for listening.
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