Recently in exhibits Category

Tom Thumb ad illustration makes him look really small.

I recently noted that people in York County have always seemed to turn out in droves for whatever entertainment came to town.

In May 1849 the biggest little sensation to hit the circuit appeared at the York County courthouse. He was none other than Tom Thumb, nicknamed "The Little General," and being promoted by the fantastic showman P.T. Barnum.

The lengthy ad in the York Gazette described the little man as one "Who has been received with the highest marks of ROYAL favor by Queen Victoria, and all the principal Crowned Heads of Europe, and who has performed before 6,000,000 or persons during the last six years..."

York Fair week brings back memories of the midway when I was a child. Even though I never spent the money to go see them, I remember the hawkers and big tacky painted banners inviting fairgoers to step in and see the skinniest man, fattest lady, or whatever else they could exhibit to make a buck.

The following ad from the April 11, 1816 York Gazette illustrates how traveling showmen separated Yorkers from their money long before my memories of the 1950s:

What do you think they were?

I just ran across an advertisement for an exhibition of really, really big bones in York in 1828. One bone was said to be 20 feet long. See below for the whole ad, quoted from the February 26, 1828 York Recorder newspaper.