Admiral Dot
carte de visite photograph, 4 x 2.5 inches, circa 1871
photographer: E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., 591 Broadway, New York
In 1870, Phineas Taylor Barnum traveled with friends by train across the western United States.
In San Francisco, a German named Gabriel Kahn offered the showman his dwarf son, Leopold. Barnum
was quite taken with the little fellow, whom he said was "a dwarf more diminutive in stature than
General Tom Thumb was
when I found him." Barnum promptly signed up Leopold under the new name of
Admiral Dot, otherwise known as the the El Dorado Elf because he was such "a valuable nugget".
Later that autumn, after several more excursions (including a buffalo hunt in Kansas organized
by General George Custer) Barnum entered into a new partnership and a major business venture:
P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Circus. Barnum considered this project to
be the reincarnation of his dear American Museum, but on wheels. Admiral Dot was prominently featured
in the museum tent alongside some of Barnum's best known old friends, including
the giantess Anna Swan, bearded woman
Annie Jones, Zip the "What is It?", and
conjoined brothers
Chang and Eng Bunker, recently emerged from retirement.
This museum tent, seperate from the menagerie and main performance tents, marked the beginning of
the sideshow as we know it. Patrons flocked there to see the greatest human curiosities and
latest mechanical wonders and waxworks - all for an extra fee.
As early as 1872, Barnum had already coined the phrase "The Greatest Show on Earth", and now referrred to his circus
as P. T. Barnum's Great Traveling World's Fair, as is the case on this pitchcard. At the time, Admiral Dot was touted as being
sixteen years old, twenty-five inches tall, and a mere nineteen pounds. At least initially, Dot appeared on stage with his mother.
carte de visite photograph, 4 x 2.5 inches, circa 1870
photographer: Brooks' Photograph Rooms, 724 Arch Street, Philadelphia
Admiral Dot's career lasted for approximately the next twenty years, despite the fact that as he
aged and grew taller he was soon eclipsed in size by smaller performers such as Major Atom, with
whom he occasionally performed. Not one to rest on his laurels, Dot developed a stage persona
that at one time saw him billed as "The Smallest Character Actor in the World". During the
1880's, Dot traveled with the Locke & Davis Royal Lilliputian Opera Company, which was populated by other famous little
people such as the Magri brothers and and Colonel Speck.
carte de visite photograph, 4 x 2.5 inches, circa 1870
photographer: Gihon & Thompson, 812 Arch Street, Philadelphia
By the turn of the century, Leopold Kahn had settled in White Plains, New York, with his
twenty-six-inch-tall wife Lottie Swartwood (a fellow performer in the opera company) and
their two normal-sized children. Seeking respectability, Dot joined the Elks, sang with the
town choir, and opened the Admiral Dot Hotel. The citizens of White Plains named the admiral
honorary chief of the fire department, but unkindly referred to his business
establishment as the Hotel Pee Wee (which, ironically, burned to the ground in 1911). Admiral
Dot died of influenza in his home in White Plains on 28 October 1918, aged 54 years.
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