The Lost Museum Archive

Among P.T. Barnum's greatest feats of showmanship was transforming a tiny four-year old Bridgeport, Connecticut, boy named Charles Stratton into an international celebrity known as Tom Thumb. Barnum was closely associated with his diminutive star, escorting him on an 1844 tour of Europe that included an audience with Queen Victoria. By the early 1860s Stratton began exhibiting himself outside of Barnum's auspices, but in 1863 Barnum paid for, and tirelessly promoted, Stratton's lavish wedding to fellow Barnum exhibitee Lavinia Warren. This photograph of Barnum and Stratton was created by daguerreotypist Samuel Root.