Videos
Showman’s Shorts
with Betsy Golden Kellem
More than a century after his death, P.T. Barnum remains unparalleled as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and entertainment icon. Barnum loved nothing more than joining entertainment and education, and the Emmy- and Telly-winning series Showman’s Shorts honors that legacy. In bite-sized historical journeys, host Betsy Golden Kellem explores Barnum and his world, revealing how much of our modern society we in fact owe to America’s “greatest showman.”
Watch the whole seriesI’m the regional Emmy-winning writer and host of the “Showman’s Shorts” video series for the Barnum Museum.
Narrator, Circus Life and Circus Celebrities (LibriVox audio, Chapter 3), September 2025
The Academic Life podcast, September 9, 2025 The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O’Meara, episode 432, October 2024Host and Ringmaster, Kafka Cafe, New York City, June 2023
“Intellectual Property, Media and the Circus,” San Diego Law Library, January 2022
“Who is Barnum to You?,” The Barnum Museum, July 2021
“Lavinia Warren, The “Fairy Wedding”, and the Birth of Celebrity Culture,” New Perspectives on Women and the Historic Circus, The Ringling, June 2021
Odd Salon SHORTS: Hold My Beer, Odd Salon, May 2021“The Life of Millie-Christine McKoy,” Contemporary Questions About the Historic Circus, The Ringling, March 2021
Articles
In the Limelight
A monthly entertainment history column for JSTOR Daily. What we do for fun shapes us and our world. In the Limelight is your ticket to entertainment history, from the vaudeville stage to the circus, magic shows to the television studio. Bring popcorn!
Read MoreVisit my author page at history.com for regular columns!
“How the Circus Helped Define Childhood,” Historic New Orleans Collection: First Draft, June 24, 2025
“The Clown Egg Register,” Bandwagon, vol. 68, no.4, 2024
“City on Fire,” Atavist Magazine, September 30, 2024
Interviewed in Eric Kim, “The Drink of the Summer, Every Summer,” The New York Times Sunday Magazine, June 30, 2024
“The Mickey Mouse Club Circus,” Bandwagon, vol. 67, no.4, 2023
“Christina Gilligan, The Lion-Whacker of Bridgeport,” Bandwagon, vol. 67, no. 3, 2023
“A Period of Strong Political Excitement: The 1832 Libel Trial of P.T. Barnum,” Connecticut Explored, vol. 21, no.4, Fall 2023
“When Is a Circus Not a Circus?: The Yankee Circus On Mars Goes to Court,” Bandwagon, vol.66, no.4, 2022
“The Man Who Believed Too Much,” Yale Alumni Magazine, January / February 2022
“Circassian Beauty in the American Sideshow,” The Public Domain Review, September 16, 2021
“The Circus Origins of Pink Lemonade,” The Recipes Project, February 16, 2021
“A Tale of Survival, Wrapped in a 19th Century Reindeer-Skin Sleeping Bag,” Atlas Obscura, November 25, 2020
“The Tiger King of the 19th Century,” Slate, April 3, 2020
“The Portly Victorian Undertaker Who Launched the World’s First Low-Carb Craze,” Narratively, April 25, 2019
“The Dangers of Facial Recognition Software,” Washington Post: Made by History, February 8, 2019
“When Hard Rock Music Meant Banging on Actual Hard Rocks,” Atlas Obscura, May 8, 2018
“The 19th-Century “Golden Hours” Convention,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 9, 2018
“This is Me: Curiosity, Oddity & Race on P.T. Barnum’s Stage,” Fugitive Leaves (Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia), February 20, 2018
“The Greatest Showman: The True Story of P.T. Barnum & Jenny Lind,” Vanity Fair, December 22, 2017
“How the Real Madame Tussaud Built a Business Out of Beheadings,” Atlas Obscura, October 10, 2017
“In 1859, a Murderous Congressman Pioneered the Insanity Defense,” Narratively, Sept. 12, 2017
“When New York City Rioted Over Hamlet Being Too British,” Smithsonian Magazine, July 19, 2017
“At Tom Thumb Weddings, Children Get Faux-Married to Each Other,” Atlas Obscura, July 7, 2017
“The Dramatic Courtroom Demo Designed to Expose Arsenic Murders,” Atlas Obscura, May 26, 2017
“How P.T. Barnum Helped the Early Days of Animal Rights,” The Atlantic, May 10, 2017
“The (18th Century) War on the Mainstream Media,” Historista, March 6, 2017
