Oddlet: P.T. Barnum · 1 min read
Sep 7, 2026
This Way to the Egress
He painted a sign over the back door reading THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS, and patrons walked through it expecting a beast.
Phineas Taylor Barnum opened his American Museum at Broadway and Ann Street on January 1, 1842, and charged twenty-five cents to get in. At peak, fifteen thousand people paid it every day. They came to see the Feejee Mermaid, which was advertised as a beautiful sea maiden and turned out to be a dried monkey stitched to a fish tail, about three feet long, which one Charleston reporter said had robbed him of ever romanticizing mermaids again. They paid the quarter anyway. Thirty-eight million visits over twenty-four years.
The problem with fifteen thousand people is that they linger.
So Barnum painted a sign over the back exit. It read THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS. Patrons who did not know the word followed the arrow expecting some new exotic beast, a great feathered Egress perhaps, and found themselves standing on the sidewalk. To come back in cost another twenty-five cents. In 1866 he published a book called The Humbugs of the World, anatomizing everyone else's frauds for the reading public. Then Connecticut elected him to the legislature four times.
He had told them, at length, in print, exactly what he was doing.
They kept lining up.
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- Wikipedia — P.T. Barnum — Comprehensive biographical spine — dates of birth, death, marriages, museum acquisition and fires, Jenny Lind contract, political dates, quotes on slavery.
- Connecticut History (CTHumanities) — 'P.T. Barnum: An Entertaining Life' — Regional academic source on Barnum's Connecticut political career, Bridgeport development, Iranistan mansion, and family.
- The Barnum Museum, Bridgeport — 'The Man, The Myth, The Legend' — The subject's own museum. Specific dollar figures for Jenny Lind tour, Tom Thumb salaries, and circus dates.
- Wikipedia — Barnum's American Museum — Museum location, admission price, visitor counts, fire dates, exhibit list, and the 'Egress' sign mechanic.
- Wikipedia — Fiji mermaid — Feejee Mermaid construction (monkey/fish taxidermy), Kimball/Lyman/Griffin roles, $12.50/week rental fee, exhibition timeline.
- Museum of Hoaxes — 'The Feejee Mermaid (1842)'
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