Commodore Nutt: Barnum's dwarf star, NYC police officer

The attentions of most New Yorkers 150 years ago today were understandably occupied by the events of the Civil War. The general mood in April 1862 had turned cynical and grim. It had been one year since the first battle at Fort Sumter. The bloodiest skirmish yet, the Battle of Shiloh in northwestern Tennessee, left thousands dead on the battlefield just two weeks before, and attention now turned to the standoff at Fort Pulaski.

And yet the city in April 1862 was overflowing with distraction. The jewellers Ball Black & Co. displayed a framed personal letter from Queen Victoria, thanking New Yorkers for their well wishers following the death of her husband a few months earlier. Across the street, at Niblo's Garden, theatergoers could delight in 'The Enchantress', featuring actor William Wheatley, who would later stage the world's first Broadway musical, 'The Black Crook', on that very stage. Merry gentleman and naughty ladies drank up in lower Manhattan's various concert saloons, bracing for the effects of a new law passed that month that would effectively close down such bawdy amusements. (Luckily, the law had little effect.)

But New York's merry king of showbiz in 1862 was P.T. Barnum, his American Museum still New York's most popular attraction. That April, Barnum featured a 'living hippopotamus' and two beluga whale in its basement, and among the museum's many shows at Broadway and Ann Street was the feature 'Hop O' My Thumb, or The Ogre And The Dwarf' starring Barnum's biggest small star General Tom Thumb.

Thumb, however, was not Barnum's only dwarf star in 1862. Earlier that year, Barnum unveiled a New Hampshire teenager afflicted with dwarfism and presented him with the stage name Commodore George Washington Nutt. Known as the '$30,000 Nutt' due the amount of money he was supposedly paid (although later disproven), the young man was advertised as "the Smallest Man in Miniature in the known world" and "Most Attractive and Interesting human being ever known."

At right: Nutt in an illustration from Harpers Weekly, February 1862, 'bursting out of his shell'

Although Nutt would perform at the museum, he was frequently used as an instrument to promote Barnum's many endeavors. He would serve as Tom Thumb's friendly rival for the hand of diminutive actress Lavinia Warren (whom Thumb later married at Grace Church in 1863) and tour throughout Europe with Barnum. But on April 17, 1862, Nutt had a local duty to perform -- at the headquarters of the New York Police Department.

According to the Daily Tribune, Nutt met with local police commissioners in an effort to get an officer specifically assigned to Barnum's museum. And just in case the idea would be met with indifference, Nutt himself applied to become a New York police officer, although his height of three feet might have precluded him from such an occupation.

A uniform was immediately ordered for the young star, and by telegraph to the Ninth Precinct, he claimed he would hold 'extraordinary powers to arrest' troublemakers at the Museum. It appears, however, that Nutt held few responsibilities for the police force.

During his tour of the police facilities, including the famed Rogue's Gallery, the charming performer even got in a rather dirty joke. According to the article, "Some one said that on the stage the Commodore had been seen to kiss a girl on the mouth. 'Well, that was the right place, wasn't it?' was the reply."

Top picture courtesy NYPL

Circus activism: Barnum's female stars demand right to vote, name baby giraffe 'Miss Suffrage' at Madison Square Garden

The famed Barnum & Bailey's presented an elaborate Cleopatra-themed stage show during its 1912 season, featuring over 1,500 performers. The show had debuted just the week before at Madison Square Garden. Certainly some of its stars -- perhaps Cleopatra herself? -- participated in the March 1912 suffrage event. 

Women did not have the right to vote one hundred years ago. I know this is not an unknown fact. There are people who are still alive who remember that an extra X chromosome excluded you from what is today considered a basic American right for adults.

This struck me as particularly odd this morning, having read last evening all about some odd events from a hundred years ago, March 31, 1912, involving the Barnum & Bailey circus troupe, in town to perform at Madison Square Garden (back in its Madison Square location). The female stars of Barnum's traveling show decided to throw their support behind the suffragist cause -- and the newspapers could barely keep their laughter in check.

Modern women activists of the day were happy to see any headlines relating their cause, as long as the environment was a respectable one. The circus was not one of those environs. Then consider that most newspapers were operated by men and read by men. While some progressive sheets supported suffrage, several chose to cast the cause in a satirical light where possible. The ladies of Barnum & Bailey gave reporters a particularly ripe opportunity for a little spoofing.

Seventy-five women employed by America's most famous circus organized an afternoon suffrage rally and invited the press to the world's first 'circus suffrage society'. How indeed could reporters resist a group of comely acrobats and horse wranglers, presenting their cause on the site of caged animals?

It was meant as a solemn pronouncement; reporters mocked it. "They Organize As Man-Eating Hyena Grins, Elephants Trumpet', went the Tribune headline, as the circus's publicity agent "solemnly sw[o]re last night with a hand on his heart that the meeting was a real, honest-to-goodness suffrage meeting." [source]  This was Barnum territory, after all. Although the great showman had died many years earlier, perhaps after decades of chicanery and misdirection, nobody could take a Barnum photo opportunity with a straight face.

But it was a serious endeavor, led by petite circus rider Josie De Mott (pictured at left) and acrobat Zella Florence. Included in the audience were animal trainers, wire walkers, 'hand balancers', dancers, acrobats and even a few strong ladies, including the renown Katie Sandwina, 'the female Hercules' (pictured below).

Not in attendance, however, were key members of the mainstream suffrage movement -- notably Brooklyn socialite Inez Millholland and the movement's de facto leader Harriet Stanton Blatch, the daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Mrs. Blatch, the New York Times noted, was having tea with her fellow esteemed suffragists at their 46 East 29th Street headquarters. (It should be noted they were only a block away from Madison Square Garden!) However, perhaps recognizing the value of a traveling suffragist show, they did deign to send a representative named Beatrice Jones.

Clearly flustered by the appearance of the press -- the society ladies of the suffrage movement did not consider a circus ring an appropriate political venue -- Jones repeatedly asked the ladies if they were serious, then dispensed advice on how to conduct themselves as standard-bearers of the roving suffragist cause.

At one point, the male half of Barnum's husband-and-wife riding act stormed in and dragged his partner from the meeting. The crowd assailed the interloper with boos and hisses.

After the meeting, De Mott and the other circus suffragists created a dandy of a photo op, moving to a cage and presenting the name of 'Miss Suffrage' to a young baby giraffe. The Times coyly suggested the animal was male: "[B]y nightfall he couldn't abide even the sight of a suffragette."

The 'proper' suffragists acquiesced and eventually did meet with their more flamboyant sisters over tea the following week. The society activists marveled at the vigor of the Barnum ladies. "It is because they have so much exercise," one exclaimed, all the while "looking envious at the at the smooth skins and rosy cheeks," the Times condescendingly added.

Top picture courtesy the Boston Public Library. The picture of Ms. DeMott comes from this blog about West Hempstead history and has a lovely story about the feisty circus star. And as for Mrs. Sandwina (at right), you can read all about this wonderful lady at Forgotten Newsmakers.