Becoming Tom Thumb: Charles Stratton, P. T. Barnum, and the Dawn of American Celebrity

Hop O’ My Thumb

60 HopO’MyThumb  I n 1846 Charles returned triumphantly to London’s Egyptian Hall. Also exhibiting in the Hall at the time was historical painter Benjamin Robert Haydon, a friend of poets John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and William Wordsworth. Haydon was horrified by the thousands of people flocking to see Tom Thumb, rather than viewing his paintings in a nearby room. “The exquisite taste of the English people,” he said bitterly , “They rush by thousands to see Tom Thumb. They push, they fight, they scream, they faint.They cry help and murder! And oh! And ah! They see my bills, my boards, my caravans and don’t read them. Their eyes are open, but their sense is shut! It is an insanity, a rabies, a madness, a furor, a dream. I would not have believed it of the English people.” Haydon took in less than one percent of Barnum and Stratton’s earnings, and probably not coincidentally committed suicide shortly thereafter.1 Elizabeth Barrett said bitterly that “the dwarf slew the giant,” but Charles Dickens disagreed, saying “he [Haydon] most unquestionably was a very bad painter” and “his pictures could not be expected to sell or to succeed.”2 Whatever the case, it is not clear that Barnum or Charles were even aware of this little side drama they created by their success. Despite Haydon’s lament over the taste of the common English folk, nobility and commoners alike attended his competitor’s shows. The Illustrated London News said “scarcely any exhibition within our memory has excited such interest amongst all circles as ‘The General’ Charles S. Stratton.”3 Indeed, not only royalty and commoners, but even the literary set fell under Charles’s spell. British actor William Charles Macready notes in his diary for May 2, 1846, that after spending a day at the Royal Academy mixing with people like Sir Robert Peel, “at [Charles] Dickens’ suggestion (with no relish on my part) Rogers, Edwin Landseer, Stanfield, Dickens, Talfourd and myself went to the Lyceum to see General Tom Thumb.”4 Though “high art” 61 H o p O ’ M y T h u m b standard-­ bearer Macready may have had “no relish” for it, Charles Dickens certainly did. The Lyceum Theatre had recently experienced a renaissance with dramatic adaptations of Dickens’s works, and now turned to the great author’s public-­ speaking tutor, Albert Smith, who wrote a play for Tom Thumb called Hop O’ My Thumb. It was partially based on the French farce Le Petit Poucet, but with a little more plot and a little less random absurdity.The English milled around the Greek-­ inspired portico and façade waiting for the ticket counter to open, eager to witness the growing dramatic talents of their beloved General. Albert Smith was “a devil of a clever writer,” according to Barnum, and the play “Made £230 in London in the past 2 days, and many persons went away unable to get in.”5 Copies of the souvenir playbill were sold in the theaters and at Egyptian Hall. In the cast list “General Tom Thumb” is printed bold and large—he was clearly the star. His character, “Hop,” is described as “the youngest [of a woodman’s sons], a tarnation cute little brick, first-­ rate to go a-­ head, and no mistake.” The other characters are the usual fantasy and nursery rhyme figures, and the setting is an enchanted forest. At first, Charles seems like he would only have a small walk-­ on part, and be utilized as purely comic relief, an appropriate role for a seven-­ year-­ old boy. In the first scene, Oberon and his sprites find Hop sleeping in a filbert nut, try to catch him, but lose him when he hides in the eye of a daisy. He pops up again out of a slat box and sings his by now famous rendition of “Yankee Doodle,” changing the lyrics even further. Yankee doodle is my name, America my nation, In ladies hearts I raise a flame Of general admiration. Yankee doodle, doodle, doo, Yankee doodle dandy, I love to kiss their pretty lips, As sweet as sugar candy. After this scene his share in the action continues to grow, and the number of lines becomes striking for a child actor on stage. Much of b e c o m i n g t o m t h u m b...