General Tom Thumb (Charles Sherwood Stratton), Lavinia Warren | General Tom Thumb's miniature wedding album

General Tom Thumb (Charles Sherwood Stratton), Lavinia Warren

Somebody's Luggage: Miniature souvenir wedding album of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren. New York: Matthew Brady, [ca. 1863]

Brass locket (27 x 20 x 10 mm) with 12 albumen print portraits in six accordion-hinged, concertina-style folding brass frames (23 x 20 mm). Locket is shaped as a suitcase, with "Somebody's Luggage" engraved on the lid. A few prints a little faded; wear and patina consistent with age.

A deluxe souvenir sold on the occasion of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren's wedding in 1863. Born in 1838, Charles Sherwood Stratton, known by his stage name General Tom Thumb, became one of P.T. Barnum's most famous performers. Barnum contacted Stratton before he was five years old, and shortly after he toured both the United States and Europe. While his stature was initially his draw—he was 25 inches tall—Stratton became famous for his wit, charm, and his talents as an actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. He was so beloved that the announcement of his wedding to Warren was front-page news for days, eclipsing news of the Civil War, and cartes-de-visites of the wedding by Matthew Brady sold by the thousands. Warren was also an acclaimed performer at Barnum's American Museum, and appeared in the silent film The Lilliputians Courtship. After the wedding their fame grew even greater, and the couple were invited by President Abraham Lincoln to the White House. 

The engraving, "Somebody's Luggage," shares the title of a story by Charles Dickens, published the previous year.

REFERENCE:

Magic, p. 118; "Somebody's Luggage (Miniature Wedding Album of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren)," The Cleveland Museum of Art