Comments on: Happy 170th Birthday, General Tom Thumb

By: Phineas Taylor y la boda del siglo « El baúl de Josete

Phineas Taylor y la boda del siglo « El baúl de Josete — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:45:36 +0000

[...] información y fotos en Coil house, en la Wiki, aquí y aquí, en Mision Creep , en DHM library y en Getty [...]

By: Paul Komoda

Paul Komoda — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:45:09 +0000

Nadya, the subject of individuals with abnormal conditions being presented as “Magical” beings has dislodged yet another strange memory from the late 80′s.

I had once seen a film called The Aurora Encounter( Google arigato) which featured a young actor named Mickey Hays who was afflicted with Progeria, portraying a diminutive alien visitor. It was a sort of an E.T. scenario played out in the Old West.
For the role, he only wore pointy “bat-boy” ear prosthetics, and funky, be-jewelled Ren-Fair duds.
Hays recieved a good degree of media attention while he was alive, on talk shows and the like, always presenting a very positive outlook.

Also of note, is that the actor who played Spanky from The Little Rascals plays the Governor of the town in the film, and looks, for all the world, like an enlarged version of his child self!

By: Nadya

Nadya — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:05:50 +0000

This story was so touching, and sad. I always wonder about the entire “little people in entertainment thing.” As long as I could remember, and even when I was a little kid, I *hated* movies with little people in them in roles where they were dwarves or some other magical creates. It completely turned me off to watching a movie. Not because I was repulsed by the look of little people, but because I could never suspend my disbelief. Thanks to knowing my sister’s schoolmate who was little, and to my mom being a doctor, I knew what dwarfism was from a young age and I could never, ever get the idea out of my head that the “magical” people in movies were actually people with a very serious problem. When I bring this up, people always argue and they say “what would you rather, that they not have a job and make tons of money as an actor?” Of course, life forces you into certain professions because of the abilities that nature gives you, but it’s just sad that throughout history they’ve been forced so much more than other people into making money off being a spectacle.

That said, I think for Stratton, it worked out pretty well: he and Barnum had a good relationship, and he had Lavinia (”his wife?” agreed with Bunny: lamest tombstone inscription ever).

Also (and you KNOW that I can be Miss PC), but I hate the term “little people.” It sounds condescending when people say it. At least in my mind.

By: gooby

gooby — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:50:42 +0000

Happy Birthday, General, sir.

The end of that story really got me…

jeez… (tissue break)

By: Paul Komoda

Paul Komoda — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:55:33 +0000

What an extraordinary story!
Regardless of whatever dubious ethics where involved, Stratton seems to have experienced an exceedingly fulfilling life as a consequence of his involvement with Barnum. Quite a heartbreaking conclusion.
Those portraits are wonderful, of course. I love the image of the bearded General in his latter years.

Somewhat on the same subject, I’ve never actually seen a carnival sideshow in my life. As a child( here we go again )I always found them incredibly fascinating and disturbing in the midst of the balloons, popcorn, clowns, and rides. Behind the glittering family-oriented cacaphony was this frightening world that I only knew through the garishly painted images hung above each display room,visually extolling the weird anatomies and preturnatural conditions one was expected to encounter within.
The first one I had ever come across had several large paintings of a baby whose mouth, nose, and single(?) eye were depicted appearing in altering arrangements on it’s face. Of course, my memory has a way of embelishing things. I would be most interested to know what I actually saw….which, I am certain, had very little to do with the truth in the first place.

By: Skerror

Skerror — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:54:38 +0000

It’s pretty ingenious how these kinds of shows used to pass dwarfs off as generals and princes of imaginary lands and such. They’d have these rich back stories behind all the exhibits and it would add in all this disconnect from the reality…that of people ogling and exploiting physical deformities in their fellow humans. Molding them into bourgeoisie or authority figures makes it harder to for people to summon up outrage as well. The audience must’ve been dazzled on all fronts. I never knew Tom Thumb was as complicit as he was…what a rad pair of grifters they were!

What’s up chaoflux? PDXO in da Coilhouse!

By: D

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:38:11 +0000

Well written, a pleasure to read.

By: chaoflux

chaoflux — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:11:58 +0000

My history teacher in high school was apparently his great nephew or something like that. Growing up in CT and even being in proximity to the Barnum Museum, I still never got filled in on the rest of the story to Tom Thumb.

Its a shame that it ended in a bad place, but I can’t think of any little person’s story who doesn’t end on a similar note, but then again, I only have known one personally.

By: Shay

Shay — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:19:02 +0000

That was touching.

By: Bunny

Bunny — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 05:57:30 +0000

Wow, I had no idea that TT and PT were so close. Great story… that headstone is a shame though… “his wife?”