Participant Info

First Name
Betsy Golden
Last Name
Kellem
Affiliation
Independent Scholar
Website URL
www.drinkswithdeadpeople.com
Keywords
Barnum, Circus, Media Studies, Law, Intellectual Property, Oddities, Museums, Public History
Additional Contact Information

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Historian and attorney, currently at work on a book about P.T. Barnum’s impact on modern popular culture.

Over more than a decade in practice as a media and technology lawyer, I have been interested (as Barnum was) in mass media and how we regulate and consume it. I’ve taught at Yale University and the University of Connecticut School of Law; regularly write for public outlets about law, history and media (with special attention to their weirder aspects); and blog regularly at Drinks With Dead People.

Recent Publications

The 19th-Century “Golden Hours” Convention Brought Young Readers Together to Meet Their Literary Heroes, Smithsonian, March 9, 2018

The Greatest Showman: The True Story of P.T. Barnum and Jenny Lind, Vanity Fair, December 22, 2017

In 1859, a Murderous Congressman Pioneered the Insanity Defense, Narratively, September 12, 2017

The Dramatic Courtroom Demo Designed to Expose Arsenic Murders, Atlas Obscura, May 26, 2017

How P.T. Barnum Helped the Early Days of Animal Rights, The Atlantic, May 10, 2017

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Expertise by Geography
United States
Expertise by Chronology
19th century, 20th century
Expertise by Topic
Law, Museums, Public History