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General Tom Thumb quickly gained widespread fame and became a household name. He toured the country and even performed for Queen Victoria of England and the young Prince of Wales. At the peak of his popularity, he attracted large crowds of fans wherever he went. In , Stratton began to experience slow growth for the first time since infancy, gradually reaching a height of 89 cm by the age of In , he married another dwarf named Lavinia Warren, and their wedding became a major public event.
Under Barnum's guidance, Stratton became very wealthy, owning a beautiful home in New York, a yacht, and many other valuable possessions.
General tom thumb biography of william butler: Charles Sherwood Stratton (January 4, – July 15, ), better known by his stage name "General Tom Thumb", was an American with dwarfism who achieved great fame as a performer under circus pioneer P. T. Barnum.
Barnum molded the boy into an entertainer , and provided the child with an expensive and exquisitely tailored wardrobe. He was presented as General Tom Thumb and his age bumped up to eleven years. He debuted on December 8, At first, he was shy about appearing in public, but he took to the stage and began imitating famous little people like Napoleon and Cupid.
The General was a hit. Thirty thousand people attended his first week performances. In America, Thumb remained the principal attraction at the American Museum for many years. In , Thumb returned to America very rich. Thumb eventually bought a mansion in Bridgeport, and toured alone for a time. He teamed up with Barnum at times when the showman's bank account was running low.
The wedding was attended by 2, guests, many of them the A-list celebrities of the day. The couple toured for many years, and made a large fortune.
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Learning about Charley Stratton, Barnum arrived at the Stratton home and offered the family three dollars a week to take the four-year-old boy down to New York City. Initially, Cynthia Stratton balked at the offer, but the pay was higher than her husband's. Ultimately, she agreed to a four-week trial. In December of , Stratton and his mother traveled to New York City, where Barnum provided them living quarters on the fifth floor of the museum, across the hall from a room occupied by two giants.
Barnum groomed all of his acts to perform: for instance, his armless man cut out paper Valentines with scissors using his feet, and the bearded lady performed a tender musical interlude. To increase entertainment value, he decided to pass off the preschool-aged Stratton as a mature, well-mannered young man.
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As such, Barnum worked hard to disguise the dwarf's extreme youth. He gave Stratton wine to drink at age five, cigars at age seven, and tobacco at age nine. He was outfitted in finely tailored suits with gloves and walking canes to match, and learned to click his heels and twirl the cane like a proper English gentleman.
Initially, Stratton sat in a small diorama each morning and afternoon, where he was gawked at by museum-goers strolling through the galleries. They asked Stratton questions, and he offered plucky answers, as Barnum trained him to do.
Stratton sometimes appeared in costume, wearing a body stocking and standing still as a statue while dressed as different Grecian heroes. He also mimicked Napoleon and Cupid. Over time, Stratton honed his performances, and he eventually became the center of attention. He told personal stories filled with puns. Another prank involved the show's emcee asking for a child to come forward and stand next to Stratton as a way to illustrate his height.
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Although he amassed a small fortune, he eventually squandered it on a steam-powered yacht, expensive clothing, and Shetland ponies. His mother took him to a doctor, who couldn't figure out his condition—it was likely a pituitary gland issue, not known at the time. Until his teens, he stood only 25 inches tall and weighed 15 pounds.
Stratton never had a formal education: at the age of 4, he was hired by P. Barnum, who taught him to sing and dance and do impressions of famous people.
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Visiting his home state of Connecticut on a cold November night in , the great showman Phineas T. Barnum thought to track down an amazingly small child he had heard about. He then hurried back to New York City to begin promoting his new discovery. Stratton was greatly surprised to see her son announced on my Museum bills as General Tom Thumb. With his typical abandon, Barnum had stretched the truth.
He took the name Tom Thumb from a character in English folklore. Charlie Stratton and his mother moved into an apartment in the museum building, and Barnum began teaching the boy how to perform. The boy and Barnum forged a close friendship that lasted many years.
The boy would appear onstage in various costumes, playing the part of Napoleon , a Scottish highlander, and other characters. With a letter of introduction from a friend, newspaper publisher Horace Greeley , Barnum met the American ambassador in London, Edward Everett. Barnum, of course, maximized the trip to London even before leaving New York. He advertised in the New York papers that General Tom Thumb would be having a limited number of farewell performances before setting sail on a packet ship to England.