2013
Barnum Festival Jenny Lind, Kathryn Bowden and 2013 Barnum Festival Ringmaster,
John Stafstrom
Kathryn
Bowden of Glastonbury CT wins the American Jenny Lind Competition in Bridgeport
The
65th Annual Jenny Lind competition took place on Saturday, May 18, at the Recital
Hall of the Arnold Bernhard Center, 126 Park Avenue, on the campus of the University
of Bridgeport. A Connecticut winner, Kathryn Bowden from Glastonbury and a graduate
of the University of Connecticut was crowned the American Jenny Lind winner for
2013. She was a member of the Chataqua Opera program in the summer of 2012. She
is actively pursuing a career in opera at this time.
The Jenny
Lind title includes a $2,000 cash prize and the winner will perform a joint concert
with her counterpart, the Swedish Jenny Lind, at the historic Bijou Theatre in
Downtown Bridgeport on June 27 at 7:30 p.m. This annual event is sponsored by
the Barnum Festival with support from theNorden Club. ... more
information.
Connecticut Post, March 6, 2013 -- When P.T.
Barnum built his famous mansions and museums, the great showman spared no expense
to ensure a modern, over-the-top experience that would incite curiosity.
Kathleen
Maher, curator and executive director of the Barnum Museum, hopes to replicate
that excitement more than a century later when the museum eventually reopens --
albeit with a more reserved budget. ... read
more.
IAAPA
Hall of Fame Award presented to Kathy Maher, Executive Director and Curator of
the Barnum Museum on behalf of PT Barnum's Family by Ron Gustafson, Chair of the
IAAPA Hall of Fame Awards Committee and Public Relations & Educational Programs
Director for Quassy Amusement Park in Middlebury CT
The
Barnum Museum is delighted to be participating in a major exhibition Circus
And The City, curated by Bard Graduate Center in New York.
Working
with Bard for three years with planning, discussions and logistics, The Barnum
Museum lent an number of extraordinary objects from our collection including;
P.T. Barnum's 1829 Top Hat, Tom Thumb's c. 1844-1850 Court Suit, Jumbo Promotional
Handkerchief, Tickets, Barnum & Bailey and American Musuem Posters. Our thanks
to our friends at Bard for opening such an exceptional presentation!
"Circus
and the City: New York 1793-2010" runs through Feb. 3 at the Bard Graduate
Center Galleries, 18 West 86th Street, Manhattan; (212) 501-3023, bgc.bard.edu/gallery.
On
September 18, 2012, at The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport CT, Quinnipiac University
professors Jerry Conlogue and Ron Beckett used a portable X-ray system from Kubtec
to uncover some damage inside the plaster cast bust of P.T. Barnum created by
Thomas Ball in the 1880s.
These X-ray images revealed a sub-surface crack
on the nose of the bust. No visible damage could be seen on the outside. Quinnipiac
University has had Kubtec's Kubscan CR scanner for two weeks and the professors
were testing it at the museum to make sure it worked properly before they take
it to Ecuador in January to study many mummies. Kubtec is a Milford CT based manufacturer
of digital imaging products, so representatives from the firm were on hand to
also make sure it was functioning properly. ... Read
More.
Quinnipiac
University professors are using X-Rays to see damage to the museum's collection
caused by a tornado the hit Bridgeport in 2010. ... View
the Video.
The
Barnum Museum has been completely closed to the general public since January 2011
and the historic portion closed ever since the June 24, 2010 tornado hit Bridgeport.
A unique exhibition called Recovery in Action is now being presented
on Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the People's United Bank Gallery
... More
Info.
In an authoritative
biography of Barnum, author Neil Harris, professor of history at the University
of Chicago, describes the culture and climate of America in the 19th century that
produced such an outsized, and sometimes outrageous, figure. ... View
the Video.
Many in large part place credit for Bridgeport's visual arts renaissance at the
attractive feet of five dynamic, tireless individuals who believe they are on
an important mission. All are women -- and none live in Bridgeport. Their names
are familiar to artists and hard-core arts lovers, who consider them Bridgeport's
arts doyennes. Beyond that circle, their names are perhaps less known. Yet these
women are helping to shape the "new" Bridgeport, creating events to
draw visitors downtown. They are the force behind the development of special events,
such as the annual Bridgeport Art Trail.
Their names: Eileen Walsh, Kathleen
Maher, Robbin Zella, Suzanne Kachmar and Marianne Brunson Frisch. ... Read
More.
Were
you to think of the half-dozen most enduring figures in Connecticut history, P.T.
Barnum would have to be on the list.
The
"world's greatest showman" created the circus that became the Ringling
Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, among many other entertainment ventures.
He also served as mayor of Bridgeport, the city where he spent much of his life
(he was born in Bethel). He is remembered in the Park City with a one-of-a-kind
museum in an eclectic building that Mr. Barnum initiated. ...
Read
More.
Following
historic renovations to sites including the Statue of Liberty and the US Capital
dome in Washington, D.C., Swanke Hayden Connell Architects has been awarded the
contract to help restore Bridgeport's Barnum Museum, which suffered significant
damage during a tornado that struck the Park City on June 24, 2010. ... more
& to view video.
It
took P.T. Barnum years to overcome the loss of his wealth and first mansion, the
Iranistan, in 1856.
The tragedies did nothing
to deter the showman, though, who went on to bigger and better things, including
the creation of his famous traveling circus and the construction of three more
mansions.
Now, more than 150 years later, Kathy
Maher, curator of the Barnum Museum, is hoping for a similar, albeit, quicker,
rebirth of the 120-year-old national landmark after the extensive damage caused
by a tornado that tore through the city last June.
Maher
announced on Friday the hiring of Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, of New York,
to restore the museum, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Read
more...
January
2011 - The Barnum Museum has been awarded $40,000 from the Fairfield County Community
Foundation (FCCF) to be used to match a $100,000 Endangered Building Grant received
from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. This grant was awarded
in the fall of 2010 to assist with an extensive architectural review necessary
to determine the full scope of the museum's structural damage which occurred during
the June 24, 2010 tornado in Bridgeport CT ... more
information.
The
expert Visual Merchandising team from Macy's stores in Connecticut was at the
Barnum Museum on Thursday, Dec. 9. doing what they do best, creating an ambiance
in celebration of the holiday spirit for the huge plate glass windows fronting
Main Street in downtown Bridgeport...More.
RINGLING
BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY® CONTRIBUTES $10,000 TO THE BARNUM MUSEUM
IN HONOR OF P.T. BARNUM'S 200TH BIRTHDAY
Feld
Entertainment, Inc., producers of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey®
presented The Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut with a contribution of
$10,000 in honor of Phineas Taylor Barnum's 200th birthday. The funds will help
support the museum's continued preservation and restoration efforts of the famed
showman's papers, unique curiosities and artifacts...more
information.
Barnum
Museum's tornado damage could exceed $6 million Keila Torres, Staff Writer
CT
Post -- After further assessments of the June 24 tornado's devastating aftermath,
staff at the Barnum Museum discovered structural damages to the historic Main
Street structure are substantially higher than the $2.4 million estimate submitted
to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"We're
probably exceeding $6 million at this time," said Kathleen Maher, executive
director and curator of the museum, one of Bridgeport's signature cultural institutions.
"A lot of it was revealed after FEMA came."... Full
Article.
(Bridgeport
CT - July 16, 2010)- The Barnum Museum announced today that they have been awarded
a $1,500 grant from the Fairfield County Community Foundation's Financial Management
Assistance Fund to assist with the financial and operational management at the
museum.
The
city's oldest celebrity has a few more stories to tell, even after 4,000 years.
Pa-Ib,
the mummy that has both frightened and fascinated patrons of the Barnum Museum
for decades, underwent her most extensive diagnostic examination to date at Quinnipiac
University in January, and the complete results of that research will
be presented at the museum Thursday evening...Full
Article and Photos.
Quinnipiac
Mummy Experts Explore The Barnum Museum's 4000 Year Old Mummy
The Fairfield County
Community Foundation (FCCF) announced today an award of $20,000 to The Barnum
Museum. The grant will be used to support the museum's general operating budget
and comes right when it is needed the most to continue programming, maintain the
landmark building and help support administrative and marketing expenses.
The
Fairfield County Community Foundation promotes the growth of community and regional
philanthropy to improve the quality of life throughout Fairfield County. Individuals,
families, corporations and organizations can establish charitable funds and contribute
to existing funds. The Foundation also provides philanthropic advisory services,
and develops and leads initiatives to tackle critical community issues. For more
information, visit www.fccfoundation.org
or click
here for our press release.
The
last remains of Barnum's mansions By Tony Spinelli Staff
writer Posted: 03/02/2009 03:05:33 PM EST
CT Post -A
drive along Clinton Avenue in Bridgeport reveals dozens of fine, large, old homes
that in the 1800s were the not-so-humble abodes of some wealthy and substantial
people.
And the most splendid "show homes" of all
those in the West End neighborhood were those owned by Bridgeport's most famous
resident, Phineas Taylor Barnum.
As one of the country's first
19th century self-made millionaires, P.T. Barnum built himself four magnificent
homes in the city.
If
you add up the attendance for every major-league baseball, basketball, football
and hockey game this year, the combined total will come to about 140 million people.
That's a big number, but it's barely a fraction of the number of people who will
visit American museums this year.
Museums
are big business, attracting billions of tourist dollars, advancing science, and
educating and amusing more than 850 million people annually.
"Museums
are often thought of as nice amenities," says Ford Bell, head of the American
Association of Museums. "People don't think about museums as being a critical
piece in our educational infrastructure in this country." More
on npr.org...
Published in The Bridgeport
News - Thursday, October 02, 2008
Hampton Hotels’ Save-A-Landmark
program has begun an initiative to help physically improve the Barnum Museum. The
company donated $40,000 to the museum and organized a group of local hotel employees
to join a one-day volunteer restoration effort at the downtown cultural landmark.
More
than 30 volunteers from local Hampton Hotels spent about 150 hours at the museum...more
Barnum
put his stamp on Bridgeport: Connecticut Post - Hardly a day goes by without
a reminder or two of Bridgeport's long association with circus impresario and
showman P.T. Barnum...Full
Article.
From
The Boston Globe: Nestled between the intellectual pretensions of New Haven
and the hedge-fund haughtiness of the Gold Coast, Bridgeport is a down-to-earth,
ethnically rich community that also happens to be the biggest city in Connecticut...more
From
The New York Times - Arts Section By JOHN STRAUSBAUGH - Published:
11/09/07
Weekend Explorer: When Barnum Took Manhattan
Today New Yorkers may think of Phineas Taylor Barnum only
when the circus comes to town. But for almost 60 years he was one of the most
celebrated figures in the city. He entertained and amused tens of millions here.
When he died in 1891, The Washington Post called him “the most widely known
American that ever lived.”... Link
to Full Article
