The Lost Museum Research Paper

The Lost Museum

Entertainment and art has always been an American past time, people are very curious beings and what better entertainment is there than exploring the lives of other people? The entertaining showman, Phineas Taylor Barnum made this possible when he opened his own museum in 1841. The American Museum was located in New York City and quickly became an extremely popular place for all kinds of people to visit to be dazzled by the amazing and unknown. The exhibits were full of facts and fantasy that was exceedingly amusing to all Americans of the mid-1800’s. Barnum’s famous hub of chaos was forced to close down due to the colossal fire in New York City on Thursday, July 13th, 1865. During the twenty years the five story building stood there, it became the most visited place in America displaying the most interesting things in the world (American Social History Productions).

After examining the intricate exhibits and artifacts from the American Museum it is clear that people were entertained by a variety of shows, competitions, animal & people displays, scientific discoveries

These signs expressed concern for women and children and their safety (Picture Gallery). P.T. Barnum was an intelligent man, the people were interested in the unknown and peculiar, so that is exactly what he provided in his American Museum while still being respectful to the social norms of this period in America. Although like almost every businessman, he would lie or over exaggerate about his marvels knowing that most of it was all a hoax. When talking about the FeJee Mermaid in his autobiography, The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself, 1855, Barnum admits to writing and publishing creditability for the mermaid in three different posts, pretending to be other people, to prevent people of thinking that mermaid was a hoax. (Barnum,