P. T. Barnum Sangers

The poster shows the skeleton of Jumbo the elephant. Jumbo was an orphaned Sudanese Elephant that was originally sold to Paris zoo and then to London Zoo.

Jumbo was controversially sold to P. T. Barnum in 1882. Over 100,000 school children wrote to Queen Victoria begging her not to sell the elephant. P.T. Barnum paid £2,000 for Jumbo. He took him to the US and exhibited Jumbo at Madison Square Gardens in New York. Within 3 weeks Barnum made back what he had paid for the elephant.

When in New York, Jumbo was one of Barnum’s elephants that crossed the Brooklyn Bridge to prove that it was safe after 12 people died during a stampede caused by mass panic over collapse fears a year earlier. Jumbo was unfortunately killed a year later in 1885 in a collision with a train.

After this large elephant, the word “jumbo” has become a common word in the English language meaning large.

[Credit: pictureboxblue.com]