On March 28, 1884 at the Jersey City docks, an anxious press of newsmen gathered in the hold of the ship, Lydian Monarch, to witness the unveiling of a “sacred white” elephant – so claimed its captivating presenter, P.T. Barnum. Toung Laloung, “Gem of the Sky,” had been “wrenched” from King Thibaw of Siam by the world’s most famous showman. Only three years before, he and James A. Bailey had joined forces to introduce the first three-ring circus in the world.
The ship bearing Barnum's coup had sailed through the Suez Canal, first stopping for several weeks in Liverpool, England, where thousands flocked to the London Zoological Gardens to gaze at and ponder the authenticity of Toung Laloung. His celebrated arrival earned an extra supplement to the Illustrated London News. Two months later in America, now Barnum’s latest trick faced the more skeptical eyes of the New York Press, which enjoyed a love-hate relationship with his infamous New York museum of oddities and exotics, freaks and fakes.
“The Sacred Beast Is Here,’ headlined The New York Times the following day, quoting a less than boastful Barnum: “Of course, we have all learned by this time that there is no such thing as a really pure white elephant. This is a sacred animal, a technical white elephant, and as white as God makes ‘em.”
In fact, as later remembered by press agent Dexter Fellows in his book, This Way to the Big Show, the immediate reaction of scribes was far more a yawn than a wow. “`What they expected to see was a mastodon as white as the driven snow.” Barnum, when pushed for his own opinion, granted, “Well, it’s whiter than I expected to find it.” What they actually beheld — a kind of mulatto mastodon — was “the real thing,” wrote Fellows. Meaning not a typical hoax from the prince of humbug.
In fact, remarkably, Toung Taloung generated lively, learned discussion in the American press over issues such as race and whiteness, skin-dying and technology.
Toung Laloung, above, in a farming commercial
Forepaugh's Light of Asia, below
Eight days before, in Philadelphia, rival showman Adam Forepaugh had unveiled his own version, The Light of Asia. But a sneaky reporter would expose a shameless white-wash job. The two Whites made for better ad copy than patronage. By season’s end, following the sudden “death”of The Light of Asia, Barnum would joke in his 1889 autobiography that Forepaugh’s painted pachyderm had not died, but “was simply un-dyed!”
Toung Laloung laid bare. Pink spots were sacred.
From Silly to Serious
On a more sober note concerning fair dealing with the public, two months following Toung Taloung’s New York premiere, on May 19, five brothers from baraboo, Wisconsin, gave their first circus show under a 600-seat tent. Destined for greatness, in six years the enterprising Ringlings were on rails, and within another three, battling the Big Boys. They would make a name for themselves by refusing to operate a grift show.
P.T. Barnum, above. the Ringlings, below. c. 1884.
While working on my musical, Those Ringlings, I more than once wondered what Barnum might have known and thought of the brothers. He had the last six years of his life to follow their rise. The brothers went on rails in 1890. Barnum died a year later. Had he lived longer, I have wondered how he (with Bailey, of course) might have held his own against the rising force of these five honest-dealing Wisconsin devils. How he might have answered their bombastic ad copy blasting his show in 1895 as being run by “disgruntled, outclassed, overshadowed and overwhelmed would-be rivals.” And that was just a starter.
Audaciously one season, the brothers pitched their tents virtually across the street from the Barnum & Bailey headquarters in Bridgeport.
By then, P.T. was long gone
It was tempting to give him at least some kind of a cameo in my musical. I thought of some of the things herein discussed. But then, might I risk committing the same fictions that I have accused others of doing? Is it possible to take liberties while preserving the essential truth of a story?
Those who read my forthcoming book, Those Ringlings: The Complete Book and Lyrics of the Musical, due out by fall from BearManor Media, may have to judge for themselves. I only dare promise you that, whatever you find, it will (hopefully) fall woefully short of the full scale fabrications on parade in a movie called The Greatest Showman. Cheers!
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A primary source for this posting is the excellent essay, “Race and the White Elephant War of 1884,” by Ross Bullen, found in The Public Domain Review:
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/race-and-the-white-elephant-war-of-1884
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