Photograph: Cabinet card photo P.T. Barnum holding two great grandchildren
Part of BM-MSS 002 box 3
1887 – 1888 (Date manufactured/created)
6.5 in H
X
4.25 in W
Photograph of P.T. Barnum holding two of his great-grandchildren, around 1887 or 1888. Barnum fondly referred to his great grandchildren as his "babygrands." This type of photograph is called a cabinet card, a format commonly used by studios from the 1880s until the early 1900s, with the paper photograph mounted on a heavy paperboard, and usually printed with the studio's name in the bottom margin or on the back side. In addition to the Bridgeport studio name Betts on the back of this cabinet card, there is also an old hand-written inscription guessing at the identity of the infant and child. However it is not likely correct. Rather, the older child is almost certainly Henry Hurd Rennell, born in 1884, and the infant is probably his younger brother Frank J. Rennell, born in 1887. A third Rennell child, a girl named Mildred, was born in 1889.
Creator: Betts, 356 Main Street, Bridgeport, CT. n.d.
Creator: Betts, 356 Main Street, Bridgeport, CT. n.d.
A Gift of the Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, Connecticut
2003.009.005