What could a Swedish singer of classical music and a circus barker possibly have in common?
Music. Specifically, a two-year tour of the
United States by The Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind, arranged and
boisterously (and profitably) promoted by none other than Phineas T. Barnum.
From 1850-1852, Swedish singing phenom Jenny
Lind toured the U.S. at Barnum’s invitation. She gave concerts from New York
City to St. Louis, Missouri. And P.T. Barnum was the reason she came. She
controlled the contracts, stipulating the number of concerts (150) and the
amount she would be paid for each. In total, Barnum committed to pay $187,500 (approximately $5,762,000
today) before Lind and her entourage ever left England.
“Lind's
contract called for the total fee to be deposited in advance with the London
banking house of Baring Brothers… To raise the money, Barnum sought loans from New York bankers, who
refused to make the loans based on a percentage of the Lind tour, so Barnum
mortgaged all his commercial and residential properties. Still slightly short,
Barnum finally persuaded a Philadelphia minister, who thought that Lind would
be a good influence on American morals, to lend him the final $5,000.”
But Barnum was not a master at promotion for
nothing. Though few Americans had
ever heard of Lind, Barnum's first press release set the tone of the promotion.
"A visit from such a woman who regards her artistic powers as a gift from
Heaven and who helps the afflicted and distressed will be a blessing to
America." Using the 26 newspapermen on his payroll, he made Lind a
household name before she ever sang a note on these shores. More than 30,000
people showed up at the piers in New York when her boat docked. And she didn’t
sing a note.
 |
| Portrait by Matthew Brady, 1850 |
The tickets came dear. Barnum held auctions for
them, at one point even requiring those interested to pay to get into the
auctions. When she realized ho
w
much money Barnum stood to make from the tour, Lind insisted on renegotiating
their contract. The new agreement, signed on September 3, 1850, gave her the
original $1,000 per concert they had originally agreed to, plus the remainder
of each concert's profits after Barnum's $5,500 concert management fee was paid.
That still left Barnum with $5,500 from each of
the 93 concerts she gave for him. That’s more than half a million dollars. He
made back his investment and then some.
According to American poet Emily Dickinson, who
was in the audience, Lind made $4,000 off one performance in Northampton,
Massachusetts—after expenses.
But, true to her nature, Lind gave her proceeds
to her favored charities in Sweden and here in the U.S.—creating free schools
in her homeland, supporting the building of a church in Chicago, and another
that birthed the Lutheran Augustana Synod in Andover, Illinois. She also gave $5,000 (approximately
$154,000 today) to her Swedish friend, Poly Von Schneidau, for a new camera for
his Chicago studio, later used to create one of the earliest images of Abraham Lincoln.
Tracy Garrett
