Admiral Dot
| Leopold S. Kahn | |
|---|---|
 Admiral Dot in 1875 | |
| Born | 1859 |
| Died |
October 29, 1918 (aged 59) White Plains, New York |
| Cause of death | 1918 influenza pandemic |
| Other names | Admiral Dot |
| Spouse(s) | Lottie Naomi Swartwood |
Admiral Dot (1859 – October 28, 1918), born Leopold S. Kahn, was a dwarf performer for Phineas Taylor Barnum.[1]
Biography
He was born in 1859[1] or 1863[2] in San Francisco to Gabriel Kahn and his wife Caroline. His mother had given birth to ten children, three survived. His two dwarf brothers were known as Major Atom and General Pin (1881-?). Their mother was declared insane and jailed after trying to drown General Pin when he was two years old.[3] Barnum wrote: "During the week we spent in seeing San Francisco and its suburbs [in 1869], I discovered a dwarf more diminutive than General Tom Thumb was when first I found him, and so handsome, well-formed and captivating, that I could not resist the temptation to engage him. I gave him the soubriquet of Admiral Dot, dressed him in complete Admiral's uniform, and invited the editors of the San Francisco journals to visit him in the parlours of the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Immediately there was an immense furore, and Woodward's Gardens, where "Dot" was exhibited for three weeks before going east, was daily thronged with crowds of his curious fellow citizens, under whose very eyes he had lived so long undiscovered."[2]
Starting in 1877 he performed with the American Lilliputian Companyda.[4] In the 1890s he toured with Adam Forepaugh's circus.[5]
He married dwarf Lottie Naomi Swartwood on August 14, 1892. They had two children a daughter Hazel Kahn Golden (1892-1918) and a son Gabriel Kahn (1896-1982).[1][4] He died of the 1918 influenza pandemic at his home in White Plains, New York on October 28, 1918, aged 59 years.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Admiral Dot Dying of Pneumonia" (PDF). New York Times. October 26, 1918. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
Admiral Dot, the midget whose family name is Leopold Kahn, is dying at the White Plains Hospital from pneumonia following Spanish influenza. ...
- 1 2 Phineas Taylor Barnum (1880). The Recollections of P.T. Barnum. p. 307.
- ↑ "A Midget's Demented Mother" (PDF). New York Times. July 26, 1883. Retrieved 2011-09-09.
One of Sackett's midgets came very near being drowned yesterday. The parents of the dwarfs who have shown here, Admiral Dot, Major Atom, and Gen. Pin, are named Frohm. They came here from New-York under an agreement with Sackett, and have some dispute about their pay. ...
- 1 2 "A Wedding Of Midgets. Admiral Dot Kahn and Lottie Naomi Swartwood Married". New York Times. August 15, 1892. Retrieved 2011-09-09.
Two very small people were married yesterday afternoon with much ceremony and merry-making at Victoria Hall, Lexington Avenue, near Fifty-fourth Street. They were Leopold Kahn, better known, as Admiral Dot, and Lottie Naomi Swartwood, midgets so diminutive that in their wedding garments they looked more like pretty little children than like a man and woman about to embark on the uncertain sea of matrimony.
- ↑ John Springhall (2008). The genesis of mass culture: show business live in America, 1840 to 1940. Macmillan. p. 43. ISBN 0-230-60449-8.
Dot journeyed throughout the United States and Canada, first with Barnum, then from 1877 with the American Lilliputian company. He finally toured, in the 1890s, with Adam Forepaugh's Circus.