By Katie Neatrour, ’16
Under the wings of Phineas T. Barnum, known as “the Greatest Showman on Earth”, the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind created a musical sensation across America. Although he had never heard Lind’s voice before inviting her to America, P.T. Barnum was well aware of Lind’s international fame. With many other American tour offers on her plate, Lind was nonetheless intrigued by Barnum’s. Despite learning of Barnum’s reputation for celebratory hoaxes, Lind was attracted to his reliable management, his artistic fervor for organizing and publicizing a successful tour, and the promise of earning enough money to support her lifelong project–the building a female musical academy in Stockholm. Barnum promised her the liberation and freedom to exclusively sing at concerts in America, choose her musical associates, and select her own programs, Lind was confident that her strong willpower and sense of independence would keep her from becoming “Barnumized”. In exchange, Barnum was able to fulfill his dream of serving as Lind’s showman by enhancing his reputation and transforming culture through publicity of the “Lind Act” across America. Jenny Lind’s American Tour transformed her celebrity image into an angelic, “innocent” icon through her marketed representation in the press and to American crowds.
With eager eyes, Jenny Lind sailed to New York on August 21, 1850 to begin her American journey. Lind conveyed an impression of goodness and benevolence in her private feminine virtues and desire to help others. Lind embodied the story of the American Dream as she grew up as a poor girl and transformed into a successful, independent woman. Lind enthusiasts fixated on her Christian nature, her elegant angelic figure, her professional success, and her tasteful feminine dress. Her angelic skin and light eyes resembled a musical gift from heaven to the American public. Spread by word of mouth and through the press, she was welcomed with a full deck of Lind inquirers eagerly awaiting her arrival and curious to hear her sing.
Upon her arrival, P.T. Barnum transformed Jenny Lind’s name into a marketing device that spread across the front pages of U.S. newspapers. Barnum’s publicity drew distinguished visitors to Lind’s performances and invited audience participants to engage in Lind fascination through consumerism. Americans found Lind staples accessible as they appeared in popular culture and in fashion. Lind shawls, gloves, and bonnets were modeled in shopping windows and were fashioned in the public sphere by American women. Meanwhile, American gentlemen advertised Lind polkas and smoked Lind cigars. ‘Lindiana’ or Linda mania branded Lind Tea Kettles, ‘Jenny Lind Coat, and even ‘Jenny Lind’ sausages. The fanfare for Lind’s fashions and souvenirs spread around the country with advertisements for Lind wreaths, opera glasses, head-dresses, and sheet music of popular songs. Lind’s popularity created a thirst for souvenirs, and a desire for the production and sale of pictures of the “angelic” Swedish Nightingale. Indeed, these consumer products and souvenirs depicted her as a gift from heaven, with light illuminating her being. Barnum sold Lind as a package filled with musical talent, sincerity, modesty, and charm, and thus capitalized on, and helped produce, an American ideal of femininity.
American audiences responded. In rain or shine, Lind was welcomed with cries, cheers, fireworks, and serenades from everyone from prisoners and orphan children, to military officers. Lind followers gave her standing ovations and showered her with bouquets. Many Lind believers traveled from near and far to splurge their “Lind Funds” and pay exuberant amounts to indulge in a single Lind concert. As her popularity and fame grew in numbers, P.T. Barnum sparked riots by selling more tickets than seats available. Entertained by musicians and fed with luxury, Lind was treated like a queen. With swarming mobs and persistent phone calls, Lind’s celebrity status grew as she was idolized by the American public.
Lindmania extended across the pond as the British found comedic relief in America’s obsession with Lind. London Punch featured a British cartoon illustrating a mockery of Lind enthusiastic American audiences. British and American commentators fixated on the crowds Lind drew to her ticket auctions and mocked their showcase behavior revealing the celebrity angel. The cartoon label mocks auctioneer announcements with “see the greatest wonder of the age – the real Swedish Nightingale, the only specimen in the Country”. Lind’s fame spread in the media from fixation to mockery, consumed by the American and British public spheres.
After Boston, New York, and other northern cities, Barnum’s tour took Lind to the American South. In Charleston and Nashville, audiences showed that they were more discerning–and more critical–than the cartoon images of American mobs. While South Carolinians praised the mellowness of Lind’s singing, The Sumter Banner commented that her voice lacked the high-quality of Italian singers. They suggested that Lind enthusiasts who lacked musical knowledge would soak up her voice whereas, those who appreciate vocal music would fail to be enchanted. With a similar outlook, most Tennesseans were less enchanted with her voice; than her image and style. Tennesseans labeled Lind, far-famed, since her superior vocals did not match the exceedingly high admission fee. Her fashionable sense left a mark in Tennessee where women requested that she model in a gallery. Lind’s angelic nature was reflected in her response as she wished to not exhibit her own image in a selfish fashion but offered the exhibition of her poodle. Lind enthusiasts who lived in Tennessee fixated on the Lind marketing device; fueled by fashion curiosity and advertisements of ‘Jenny Lind Caps’ and Jenny Lind gentlemen’s wear flooding the newspapers.
Marked by her fashion sense, Lind arrived to Richmond with modes of transportation ornamented in the Swedish and American flags. In preparation for the famous singer, Richmond refitted the old Theatre to accommodate for Lind’s spectacle. Upon arrival to Richmond, Richmonders eagerly waited in the pouring rain to catch a glimpse of Lind and proceeded to mill in and out of her hotel. Others rose to their feet to salute her. Richmonders’ hearty enthusiasm to hear Lind’s voice is representative in the battle for tickets and willingness to pay more than necessary. Barnum had never seen such an enthusiastic crowd prior to Richmond, which highlights where her true fandom lied. One Lind enthusiast expressed the angelic image of the Swedish Nightingale in a poem dedicated to Lind, published in the Richmond Enquirer, by suggesting that Lind was destined to sing in Heaven and by referring to her music notes as gifts from above. Richmonders were swayed even more to become Lind believers when the press revealed that Lind did not give money to abolitionists and that she argued with Barnum to lower ticket prices to extend open invitations to poorer classes and donate to local charities. The Swedish Nightingale’s generous donation to local orphanage charities fueled Richmonders’ fixation on Lind and added the image of her as an angelic figure. Many Richmonders advocated for another Lind concert. However, Barnum halted a second concert due to their prior traveling arrangements.
The Swedish Nightingale’s presence in the American public sphere remained the hot topic of discussion and tended to overshadow the pressing debate of slavery. As the spectacle continued, the press developed a new fixation on Lind’s unmarried status while alluding to her ‘Mary the Blessed Virgin’ nature. Gossip about Lind’s unmarried status as a thirty year old fluttered as women typically married young in the 1850s. Curiosity stretched public minds as humor was added in inventing an ideal husband for the “Divine Jenny”. The public’s obsession with Jenny’s ideal husband played with impulses to maintain her as virginal and pure while also fitting her into the norm of the married women’s sphere.
In reflecting on her long tour with Barnum, Jenny had gained confidence through her ability to please her American public audience. With no flowers at her feet, Lind gave her last bow in the same place as her first in America, hinting at the closure of her ‘Lindania’ obsessions with her celebrity status. Americans were enchanted by Lind’s angelic character, innocent demeanor, and overt beneficence. Lind was a commodity who appealed to all social classes and embodied a private woman who held public silence in a world of emerging feminine activism. The Swedish Nightingale altered the American entertainment realm through her appeal to popular culture and her construction of new forms of mass consumption. Jenny Lind embodied a version of the Mary icon, an angel, and a symbol of hope with her heavy presence in the press, in fashion, and in gossip as she became for the the American public a new ideal of female celebrity.
Further Reading Bibliography
Frances Cavanah, Jenny Lind’s America. Ann Arbor: Chilton Book Company, 1969.
Ezra Greenspan and Jonathan Rose, eds. Book History. Volume 1. “Reading Lind Mania” University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, 94-104
Rosenberg, C.G. Jenny Lind in America. New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1851.
Porter Ware and Thaddeus C Lockard Jr., . P.T. Barnum Presents Jenny Lind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981.