One man and five bricks – Bridgeport Connecticut Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin

Today, the Bridgeport Connecticut Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin remembers just one of the genius marketing ideas of PT Barnum with his “Brick Man.”

First, the Boston Evening Transcript of April 28, 1891 included a brief description, and below Mr. Barnum describes his idea in more detail.

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Barnum’s “Brick Man.”

As an illustration of one of Barnum’s ingenious methods of attracting attention to his museum may be mentioned the incident of the “brick man.”

One day a man applied for alms to Barnum, who was sitting in the ticket office.

To the inquiry as to why he did not go to work, the mendicant replied that he would gladly do so at a dollar a day, if he could find employment.

Barnum gave him twenty-five cents to get his breakfast, and told him to return and he would give him a dollar and a half a day and easy work.

When the man returned, Barnum gave him five bricks, and told him to place one in front of the museum, another on the corner of Vesey street, a third at the corner of Fulton, on the St. Paul’s Church side, and the fourth on the east corner of Fulton.

Returning then to the museum, he was to take up the first brick, and replace it with the fifth, and then continue his rounds, putting down one brick and taking up the other each time.

He was enjoined to answer no questions, and to seem not to hear, and that at the end of each three-quarters of an hour he was to pass into the museum, look around at the curiosities for fifteen minutes, and then resume his rounds with the bricks.

Barnum says that the man played his part to perfection, and his eccentric conduct caused a great crowd to gather about the museum.

Many of theses of course, went into the museum to seek some explanation as to the purpose of the “brick man.”

This was kept up for several days until the police requested his withdrawal, because such crowds lingered about the museum that traffic was interrupted.

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In his book, Dollars and Sense, Or, How to Get on, The Whole Secret in a Nutshell, published in 1890, Phineas Taylor Barnum wrote this description of his “Brick Man” marketing ploy.

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I think I thoroughly understood the art of advertising, not merely by means of printer’s ink, which I have always used freely, and to which I confess myself so much indebted for my success, but by turning every possible circumstance to my account.

It was my monomania to make the American Museum the town wonder and the town talk.

I often seized upon an opportunity by instinct, even before I had a very definite conception as to how it should be used, and it seemed, somehow, to mature itself and serve my purpose.

As an illustration, one morning a stout, hearty-looking man came into my ticket office and begged some money.

I asked him why he did not work and earn his living? He replied that he could get nothing to do, and that he would be glad of any job at a dollar a day.

I handed him a quarter of a dollar, told him to go and get his breakfast and return, and I would employ him at light labor, at a dollar and a half a day.

When he returned I gave him five common bricks.

“Now,” said I, “go and lay a brick on the sidewalk, at the corner of Broadway and Ann street; another close by the Museum; a third diagonally across the way, at the corner of Broadway and Vesey street, by the Astor House; put down the fourth on the sidewalk, in front of St. Paul’s Church, opposite; then, with the fifth brick in hand, take up a rapid march from one point to the other, making the circuit, exchanging your brick at every point, and say nothing to anyone.”

“What is the object of this?” inquired the man.

“No matter,” I replied; “all you need to know is that it brings you fifteen cents wages per hour. It is a bit of my fun, and to assist me properly you must seem to be as deaf as a post; wear a serious countenance; answer no questions; pay no attention to any one; but attend faithfully to the work, and at the end of every hour, by St. Paul’s clock, show this ticket at the Museum door; enter, walking solemnly through every hall in the building; pass out, and resume your work.”

With the remark that it was “all one to him, so long as he could earn his living,” the man placed his bricks, and began his round.

Half an hour afterward, at least five hundred people were watching his mysterious movements. He had assumed a military step and bearing, and, looking as sober as a judge, he made no response whatever to the constant inquiries as to the object of his singular conduct.

At the end of the first hour, the sidewalks in the vicinity were packed with people, all anxious to solve the mystery.

The man, as directed, then went into the Museum, devoting fifteen minutes to a solemn survey of the halls, and afterward returning to his round.

This was repeated every hour till sundown, and whenever the man went into the Museum a dozen or more persons would buy tickets and follow him, hoping to gratify their curiosity in regard to the purpose of his movements.

This was continued for several days — the curious people who followed the man into the Museum considerably more than paying his wages — till finally the policeman, to whom I had imparted my object, complained that the obstruction of the sidewalk my “brick man.”

This trivial incident excited considerable talk and amusement; it advertised me; and it materially advanced my purpose of making a lively corner near the Museum.

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The Bridgeport Connecticut Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin shows with an artist’s image of the “Brick Man” from PT Barnum’s book, Dollar and Sense.

Bridgeport Connecticut Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin