page_title: Jenny Lind tour of America, 1850–52
section_title: Arrival in New York City
hierarchical_section_title: Jenny Lind tour of America, 1850–52 / Arrival in New York City
context_page_description: The Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale", was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century. At the height of her fame she was persuaded by the showman P. T. Barnum to undertake a long tour of the United States. The tour began in September 1850 and continued to May 1852. Barnum's advance publicity made Lind a celebrity even before she arrived in the U.S., and tickets for her first concerts were in such demand that Barnum sold them by auction. The tour provoked a popular furore dubbed "Lind Mania" by the local press, and raised large sums of money for both Lind and Barnum. Lind donated her profits to her favoured charities, principally the endowment of free schools in her native Sweden.
  Lind's concerts featured a supporting baritone, Giovanni Belletti, and her London colleague Julius Benedict as pianist, arranger and conductor. Lind found Barnum's relentless commercial promotion of her increasingly distasteful, and she terminated her contract with him in 1851 under amicable circumstances, continuing to tour for nearly a year under her own management.
context_section_description: The Atlantic docked in New York on 1 September 1850. The following day, The New York Herald reported on "the spectacle of some thirty or forty thousand persons congregated on all the adjacent piers. ... From all quarters, crowds ... could be seen hurrying down towards the Atlantic's dock." So great was people's desire for a glimpse of the star that several people were "severely bruised, some came off with bloody noses, and two boys, about twelve years of age, appeared to be seriously injured. Had not the rush been checked in time, many lives would have been lost." When she set foot on American soil, Lind kissed her hand to the U.S. flag and exclaimed, "There is the beautiful standard of freedom, which is worshipped by the oppressed of all nations." She further endeared herself to the welcoming crowd by stopping Barnum's coachman from clearing a path through the throng with his whip.
  When she realised how much money Barnum stood to make from the tour, Lind insisted on renegotiating their contract. The new agreement, signed on 3 September 1850, gave her the original $1,000 per concert agreed to, plus the remainder of each concert's profits after Barnum's $5,500 concert management fee was paid. Her interest in increasing her earnings was, it seems, genuinely motivated by her determination to accumulate as much money as possible for her chosen charities, but some commentators were sceptical; one wrote:
  I'm a famous Cantatrice, and my name it is Miss Jenny,
  
  And I've come to these United States to turn an honest penny.
  To which Barnum is depicted as responding:
  We'll welcome you with speeches, with serenades, and rockets,
  
  And you will touch their hearts, and I will tap their pockets; 
  
  And if between us the public isn't skinned,
  
  Why my name isn't Barnum nor your name Jenny Lind.
  Such dissenting voices were in a minority. Lind's appeal in America was, as Barnum had calculated, due as much to her simple and virtuous personality and her generosity to good causes as to her singing. Barnum is quoted as saying "[I]t is a mistake to say the fame of Jenny Lind rests solely on her ability to sing. She was a woman who would have been adored if she had had the voice of a crow."
  Lind's first two American performances were given as charity concerts in New York City on 11 and 13 September 1850 at Castle Garden, now better known as Castle Clinton. The seats for the first were sold at auction two days beforehand; 4,476 tickets were sold at a total price of  $24,753, with the theatre "packed to its utmost capacity". The program for the concert states that the orchestra accompanying Lind consisted of 60 players. Lind's numbers that evening were "Casta diva" from Norma; a duet with baritone, "Per piacee alla Signora", from "Il turco in Italia"; a trio for two flutes and voice, to the "echo song" "Dost thou hear?", composed for Lind by Meyerbeer, from The Camp of Silesia, sung in English, "in which she performed some astonishing vocal feats that bordered on ventriloquism", and some Swedish songs. These were regular items in her tour programs, but on this occasion they were joined by a "Greeting to America", a song with words by the local poet, Bayard Taylor, set to music by Benedict. After Lind had left the platform, to tumultuous applause, Barnum took the stage and, although she had asked him not to do so, told the audience that she was taking no fee for herself and donating her entire fee of $10,000 to twelve New York charities. A reporter commented, "The deafening shouts that followed the ... speech were absolutely indescribable – many, even among the male portion of the audience, weeping with emotion."
  The blatant commercialism of Barnum's ticket auctions distressed Lind, and for the second concert and thereafter she persuaded him to make a substantial number of tickets available at two dollars for the cheapest seats and one dollar for the promenade.
caption: Castle Garden, New York, venue of Lind's first American concerts
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