Somebody’s Luggage: The Wedding Photos of Charles Stratton and Lavinia Warren

This series of photos, encased in a locket decorated as a suitcase and titled Somebody’s Luggage, depict the wedding of Charles Sherwood Stratton and Lavinia Warren. Stratton, better known by his stage name ‘General Tom Thumb’, was an associate of famous entertainer P.T Barnum who had acquired Stratton at the age of either four or five, as Charles’ dwarfism was something Barnum would be able to market.

Stratton became one of a number of Barnum’s ‘human exhibits’ and took part in Barnum’s  tours; even appearing in front of Queen Victoria in 1844. Taking great pleasure in performing, Stratton quickly took the stage, learning to sing, dance, and do impressions, which ensured his place as one of Barnum’s most profitable entertainers. In particular, he became famous for his impressions of Napoleon. Barnum described him as “an apt student with a great deal of native talent and a keen sense of the ludicrous”.

The wedding of Stratton to Lavinia Warren took place in 1864. By this point the couple were the most famous people with dwarfism in the world. As is the case with celebrity today, there was international interest in attending and learning about their wedding. In spite of the wedding taking place concurrently with the height of the American Civil War, news of the wedding was so in-demand that it was able to knock the raging war off the front page of newspapers.

Taking place in Grace Church, an Episcopal cathedral in New York, with a reception in the Metropolitan Hotel, the wedding was extremely lavish and marketed as a ‘Fairy Tale’ wedding, with Barnum charging guests $75 to attend the event which had attracted thousands of curious people. As people in the UK had less access to the Stratton’s wedding, during the tour to London in 1866, Barnum took advantage of this perfect merchandising opportunity and, amongst other things, sold the Somebody’s Luggage locket.

Inside the locket are 12 portraits of the couple in various poses. Several feature sister of the bride and bridesmaid, Minnie Warren, and best man George Washington Morrison ‘Commodore’ Nutt. Other photos include a portrait where Stratton is dressed as Napoleon and another where he is sat in a regular size chair to emphasise his diminutive stature. Even more problematically, another photo shows Warren holding a baby, a publicity stunt entirely orchestrated by Barnum as although the Thumbs were childless, he believed that integrating a baby into their story would create a more compelling narrative, bringing in more profit.

 When the first child grew larger than the Thumbs, it was replaced by another, younger baby to maintain the illusion of continuity. While Stratton and Barnum maintained a long-term friendship, the heavy marketisation of the wedding, and forced inclusion of a baby in wedding photos, are indicative of Barnum’s treatment of his touring ‘human exhibits’. In spite of the marketing and merchandising by Barnum, Stratton said of his wedding that “It is true we are little, but we are as God made us, perfect in our littleness. We are simply man and woman of like passions and infirmities with you and other mortals. The arrangements for our marriage are controlled by no showman”.

Although Stratton’s wealth enabled his to pay for his sisters’ educations and gave him the option to retire early, he continued to perform late into his life. Mat Fraser, a thalidomide-impaired actor working today, comments “Here’s the thing that non-disabled people tend to forget: you do your show and a thousand people think you’re fantastic, you walk out the stage door and some fella’s staring at you on the street again… Of course you want to be back on the stage, it’s a delicious power that I wouldn’t know what to do without.”

. By the time Stratton stopped performing, he owned a home in New York and another, specially adapted, home in Connecticut, and he was even wealthy enough to bail Barnum out of financial difficulty in 1855. After his sudden death in 1883 at the age of 45, a life-size statue of Stratton was constructed and placed atop his gravestone at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Connecticut, and Lavinia Warren was buried next to him 35 years later.

 The legacy of Stratton continues, not only through his reputation as an entertainer and businessman that rivals that of Barnum, but also through his many film portrayals. First appearing in the 1934 film, The Mighty Barnum featuring George Brasno as Stratton, the entertainer has been portrayed in seven different films, the most recent of which being Sam Humphrey’s turn in the 2017 musical film The Greatest Showman. As a result, the iconic image of Stratton dressed as Napoleon and his reputation as an incredible performer are still recognised today.

Further Reading

Hawkins, Kathleen, ‘The real Tom Thumb and the birth of celebrity’, BBC, 25th November 2014, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-30034409

Rebecca Smith, ‘Selling Celebrity in the 1860’s with ‘Somebody’s Luggage’, 21st January 2014, Science + Media Museum, https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/tiny-19th-century-photographic-souvenir-of-tom-thumbs-wedding/

‘Somebody’s Luggage’, V&A Museum,https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O158197/somebodys-luggage-locket-unknown/

‘P.T. Barnum’, Greg Jenner, Prof. Benjamin Reiss, Emma Nagouse, Charlotte Potter, You’re Dead to Me, BBC Sounds, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09fgcnm

V&A Museum. Somebody’s Luggage.https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O158197/somebodys-luggage-locket-unknown/

Science + Media Museum. Selling Celebrity in the 1860’s with ‘Somebody’s Luggage’. Rebecca Smith. https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/tiny-19th-century-photographic-souvenir-of-tom-thumbs-wedding/

BBC. The real Tom Thumb and the birth of celebrity. Kathleen Hawkins. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-30034409