Biography of General Tom Thumb, Sideshow Performer

Biography of General Tom Thumb, Sideshow Performer General Tom Thumb (Charles Sherwood Stratton, January 4, 1838–July 15, 1883) was an unusually small man who, when promoted by the great showman Phineas T. Barnum, became a show business sensation. When Stratton was 5 years old, Barnum began exhibiting him as one of the wonders in his popular New York City museum. Fast Facts: Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton) Known For: Sideshow performer for P.T. BarnumBorn: January 4, 1838 in Bridgeport, ConnecticutParents: Sherwood Edwards Stratton and Cynthia ThompsonDied: July 15, 1883 in Middleboro, MassachusettsEducation: No formal education, although Barnum taught him to sing, dance, and performSpouse: Lavinia Warren (m. 1863)Children: Unknown. The couple traveled with a baby for a while, which may have been one of several rented from foundling hospitals, or their own who lived from 1869–1871. Early Life Tom Thumb was born Charles Sherwood Stratton on January 4, 1838, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the third of three children of carpenter Sherwood Edwards Stratton and his wife Cynthia Thompson, who worked as a local cleaning woman. His two sisters, Frances Jane and Mary Elizabeth, were of average height. Charles was born as a large baby but he simply stopped growing at the age of five months. His mother took him to a doctor, who couldnt figure out his condition- it was likely a pituitary gland issue, not known at the time. Until his teens, he stood only 25 inches tall and weighed 15 pounds. Stratton never had a formal education: at the age of 4, he was hired by P.T. Barnum, who taught him to sing and dance and do impressions of famous people. Barnums Discovery of Tom Thumb Visiting his home state of Connecticut on a cold November night in 1842, the great showman Phineas T. Barnum thought to track down an amazingly small child he had heard about. Barnum, who already employed several â€Å"giants† at his famed American Museum in New York City, recognized the value of young Stratton. The showman made a deal with the boy’s father, a local carpenter, to pay three dollars a week to exhibit young Charles in New York. He then hurried back to New York City to begin promoting his new discovery. A Sensation in New York City â€Å"They came to New York, Thanksgiving Day, December 8, 1842,† Barnum recalled in his memoirs. â€Å"And Mrs. Stratton was greatly surprised to see her son announced on my Museum bills as General Tom Thumb.† With his typical abandon, Barnum had stretched the truth. He took the name Tom Thumb from a character in English folklore. Hastily printed posters and handbills claimed that General Tom Thumb was 11 years old, and that he had been brought to America from Europe â€Å"at great expense.† Charlie Stratton and his mother moved into an apartment in the museum building, and Barnum began teaching the boy how to perform. Barnum recalled him as â€Å"an apt student with a great deal of native talent and a keen sense of the ludicrous.† Young Charlie Stratton seemed to love performing. The boy and Barnum forged a close friendship that lasted many years. General Tom Thumb’s shows were a sensation in New York City. The boy would appear onstage in various costumes, playing the part of Napoleon, a Scottish highlander, and other characters. Barnum himself would often appear onstage as a straight man while â€Å"The General† would crack jokes. Before long, Barnum was paying the Strattons $50 a week, an enormous salary for the 1840s. A Command Performance for Queen Victoria In January 1844, Barnum and General Tom Thumb sailed for England. With a letter of introduction from a friend, newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, Barnum met the American ambassador in London, Edward Everett. Barnum’s dream was for Queen Victoria to see General Tom Thumb. Barnum, of course, maximized the trip to London even before leaving New York. He advertised in the New York papers that General Tom Thumb would be having a limited number of farewell performances before setting sail on a packet ship to England. In London, a command performance was arranged. General Tom Thumb and Barnum were invited to visit Buckingham Palace and perform for the Queen and her family. Barnum recalled their reception: We were conducted through a long corridor to a broad flight of marble steps, which led to the Queen’s magnificent picture gallery, where Her Majesty and Prince Albert, the Duchess of Kent, and twenty or thirty of the nobility were awaiting our arrival. They were standing at the farther end of the room when the doors were thrown open, and the General walked in, looking like a wax doll gifted with the power of locomotion. Surprise and pleasure were depicted on the countenances of the royal circle at beholding this remarkable specimen of humanity so much smaller than they had evidently expected to find him. The General advanced with a firm step, and as he came within hailing distance made a very graceful bow, and exclaimed, â€Å"Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen!† A burst of laughter followed this salutation. The Queen then took him by the hand, led him about the gallery, and asked him many questions, the answers to which kept the party in an uninterrupted strain of merriment. According to Barnum, General Tom Thumb then performed his usual act, performing â€Å"songs, dances, and imitations.† As Barnum and â€Å"The General† were leaving, the Queen’s poodle suddenly attacked the diminutive performer. General Tom Thumb employed the formal walking stick he was carrying to fight off the dog, much to everyone’s amusement. The visit to Queen Victoria was perhaps the greatest publicity windfall of Barnums entire career. And it made General Tom Thumbs theater performances a huge hit in London. Barnum, impressed by the grand carriages he saw in London, had a miniature carriage built to take General Tom Thumb around the city. Londoners were enthralled. And the smashing success in London was followed by performances in other European capitals. Continued Success and a Celebrity Wedding General Tom Thumb continued performing, and in 1856 he embarked on a cross-country tour of America. A year later, along with Barnum, he again toured Europe. He began to grow again during his teens, but very slowly, and he eventually reached a height of three feet. In the early 1860s, General Tom Thumb met a small woman who was also in Barnum’s employ, Lavinia Warren, and the two became engaged. Barnum, of course, promoted their wedding, which was held on February 10, 1863, at Grace Church, an elegant Episcopal cathedral at the corner of Broadway and 10th Street in New York City. Scenes of General Tom Thumbs life, including his wedding. Getty Images   The wedding was the subject of an extensive article in The New York Times on February 11, 1863. Headlined â€Å"The Loving Liliputians,† the article noted that a stretch of Broadway for several blocks was â€Å"literally crowded, if not packed, with an eager and expectant populace.† Lines of policemen struggled to control the crowd. The account in The New York Times began by pointing out, in a humorous way, that the wedding had been the place to be: Those who did and those who did not attend the wedding of Gen. Tom Thumb and Queen Lavinia Warren composed the population of the Metropolis yesterday, and thenceforth religious and civil parties sink into comparative insignificance before this one arbitrating query of fate: Did you or did you not see Tom Thumb married? While it may seem absurd, the wedding was a very welcome diversion from news of the Civil War, which was going quite badly for the Union at that point. Harper’s Weekly featured an engraving of the married couple on its cover. President Lincolns Guest On their honeymoon trip, General Tom Thumb and Lavinia were guests of President Abraham Lincoln at the White House. And their performing career continued to great acclaim. In the late 1860s, the couple embarked on a three-year world tour that even included appearances in Australia. A genuine worldwide phenomenon, General Tom Thumb was wealthy and lived in a luxurious house in New York City. In a few of the couples performances, they held a baby said to have been their own child. Some scholars believe that Barnum simply rented a child from local foundling homes. Strattons obituary in The New York Times reported that they did have a child of normal size born in 1869, but that he or she died in 1871. Death The Strattons continued to perform until the 1880s, when they retired to Middleboro, Massachusetts where they had had a mansion built with custom-made small furniture. It was there, on July 15, 1883, that Charles Stratton, who had fascinated society as General Tom Thumb, died suddenly of a stroke at the age of 45. His wife, who remarried 10 years later, lived until 1919. It is suspected that both Stratton and his wife both had growth hormone deficiency (GHD), a condition related to the pituitary gland, but no medical diagnosis or treatment was possible during their lifetimes. Sources Hartzman, Marc. Tom Thumb. American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of Historys Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers, p 89–92. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006.  Hawkins, Kathleen. The real Tom Thumb and the birth of celebrity. Ouch Blog, BBC News, November 25, 2014. Web.Lehman, Eric D. Becoming Tom Thumb: Charles Stratton, P.T. Barnum, and the Dawn of American Celebrity. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2013.  Obituary for Tom Thumb. The New York Times, July 16, 1883.