Background
He was boen in Detroit, Michigan on July 4, 1847. His parentage and early childhood are obscure.
He was boen in Detroit, Michigan on July 4, 1847. His parentage and early childhood are obscure.
His boyhood seems to have been passed in poverty, with little education.
He worked his way upward and while still a very young man became connected with a circus. At one time during the Civil War he was a sutler's clerk at the front. He reëntered the circus field, and developed an extraordinary advertising talent and business capacity. In 1872 the firm of Cooper & Bailey was founded, and Bailey was soon in the front rank of his "profession. " An achievement unusual at that time was his conducting, with his show, a tour around the world, in the course of which he visited South America, India, Australia, and islands of the Pacific.
He had become a serious competitor of Phineas Taylor Barnum, but in 1881 the two showmen wisely abandoned the contest, united forces, and exhibited the combined shows in New York. He was already proprietor of the Great London Show, and in 1890 he bought the Forepaugh circus. In the united Barnum & Bailey shows he had a large part in the management. Many of the special features of note were his projects, for instance the "Ethnological Congress, " the spectacle "Nero, " and - particularly - Jumbo. This renowned and gigantic elephant was purchased by Bailey in England from the Royal Zoological Society.
His transfer to the United States excited some resentment, and the matter became for a time an "international incident. " Bailey exhibited his show in England, France, Germany, and various European countries. In Germany many thrifty citizens, having seen the parade in the mornings, declined to attend the regular performances of the circus as paying patrons; whereupon Bailey discontinued the parades for that country. In the course of his journeys he had made a considerable collection of works of art, which were placed in his house in Mount Vernon, New York.
He died suddenly at Mount Vernon, shortly after building his house.
He left the reputation of a man kind to his many employees, and decidedly more retiring than his famous partner. "Mr. Bailey never subscribed to this sentiment ['the public likes to be humbugged']. His motto was: 'Give the people the best - spare no expense in doing it -and they'll reward you' "
He was married to Ruth Louisa McCaddon of Zanesville, Ohio, who survived him; there were no children.
