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From the ‘Greatest Showman on Earth’

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THE HARTFORD COURANT

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, the Barnum Museum is not for suckers.

The three floors of the newly refurbished museum located in Bridgeport, Conn., are filled with memorabilia from the life and times of Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891), the father of mass-market entertainment.

Welcoming guests to the first floor is a six-foot animated statue of Barnum. Visitors can find displays dedicated to Barnum’s life: photographs, articles of clothing, his checkbook (his checks were imprinted with a picture of his first mansion). Video monitors offer bits of the 1986 TV film, “Barnum,” starring Burt Lancaster.

The second floor offers selections of 19th-Century fine and decorative arts, reproductions of Barnum’s four mansions and a display of the many goods made in Bridgeport’s factories since the beginning of New England’s industrial age.

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The entire third floor is dedicated to Barnum’s circuses and his American Museum in New York. Here you can find advance publicity material for singer Jenny Lind and scaled-down furnishings from the home of Gen. Tom Thumb, as well as a scale model of “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4:30 p.m. It is closed Mondays and national holidays. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and students, and $2 for children ages 2 to 18.

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