
P.T. Barnum
(1810 - 1891)
Having started a fruit-and-confectionary store and founded the weekly Herald of Freedom, P.T. Barnum at the age of twenty-five in 1835 purchased for $1,000 a slave named Joice Heth, whom he advertised for exhibition as the 161-year-old former nurse of George Washington. Between 1842 and 1868, he ran the American Museum, attracting 38 million visitors to his various marvels, among them the twenty-five-inch-tall Gen. Tom Thumb and the “Siamese twins” Chang and Eng.