Barnum's American Museum

“ We don’t mean that as a specimen of the genus homo Barnum is very different from other specimens who have gained notoriety and success; but simply as an embodiment of the very best representative type of a shrewd, enterprising, wide awake American, who has achieved an immense success in his specialty as the greatest amusement caterer of the nineteenth century. Through two disastrous conflagrations his immense museum collection in New York, however, the accumulations of half a century, were in a single day almost entirely swept out of existence. ”

“ But Barnum had found his vocation, that of showman, and after a few unsuccessful ventures, bought Scudder's American Museum, in New York City,page 304 and started out on a brilliant career. It is interesting to note that the museum which Barnum purchased consisted in part of the curios collected years before by Charles and Rembrandt Peale. Barnum added to it, was indefatigable in securing curiosities, really created the art of modern advertising, and it was his proudest boast that no one ever left the museum without having got his money's worth. ”

“ I was careful to keep up the excitement, for I knew that every dollar sown in advertising would return in tens, and perhaps hundreds, in a future harvest, and after obtaining all the notoriety possible by advertising and by exhibiting the mermaid at the Museum, I sent the curiosity throughout the country, directing my agent to everywhere advertise it as “From Barnum’s Great American Museum, New York.” The effect was immediately felt; money flowed in rapidly and was readily expended in more advertising. ”

“ We, indeed, agree with the editor of The New York Independent, who, in an article drawn out by the burning of the American Museum, says: “Mr. Barnum’s rare talent as a speaker has always been exercised in behalf of good morals, and for patriotic objects. No man has done better service in the temperance cause by public lectures during the past ten years, both in America and Great Britain, and during the war he was most efficient in stimulating the spirit which resulted in the preservation of the Union, and the destruction of Slavery.” ”

“ At the end of six months, the whole establishment, including the splendid gallery of American portraits, was removed to the American Museum and I immediately advertised the great card of a “Double attraction” and “Two Museums in One,” without extra charge.
A Museum proper obviously depends for patronage largely upon country people who visit the city with a worthy curiosity to see the novelties of the town. As I had opened a dramatic entertainment in connection with my curiosities, it was clear that I must adapt my stage to the wants of my country customers. ”

“ Such an exhibition is perfectly practicable now to any one who has the capital and tact to undertake it, and a sure fortune would follow the enterprise.
On the 13th of October, 1860, the Prince of Wales, then making a tour in the United States, in company with his suite, visited the American Museum. This was a very great compliment, since it was the only place of amusement the Prince attended in this country. Unfortunately, I was in Bridgeport at the time, and the Museum was in charge of my manager, Mr. Greenwood. ”

“ It was almost impossible for a stranger to leave New York without visiting the American museum, the property of Phineas Taylor Barnum. The history of this very remarkable man is now well known, even in England, where the publication of his 'Autobiography' has been a nine days' wonder. It is said that 60,000 copies were sold at New York in one day, so successful has he been in keeping himself for ever before the public eye. It is painful to see how far a man whose life has been spent in total disregard of the principles of truth and integrity should have earned for himself popularity and fame. ”

“ Spooner should rebuild the establishment; but a highly profitable business connection with the Adams Express Company prevented him from doing so.
While my Philadelphia Museum was in full operation, Peale’s Museum ran me a strong opposition at the Masonic Hall. That enterprise proved disastrous, and I purchased the collection at sheriff’s sale, for five or six thousand dollars, on joint account of my friend Moses Kimball and myself. The curiosities were equally divided, one-half going to his Boston Museum and the other half to my American Museum in New York. ”

“ I have never waited for my trees to grow, if money would transplant them of nearly full growth at the start.
The years 1848 and 1849 were mainly spent with my family, though I went every week to New York to look after the interests of the American Museum. While I was in Europe, in 1845, my agent, Mr. Fordyce Hitchcock, had bought out for me the Baltimore Museum, a fully-supplied establishment, in full operation, and I placed it under the charge of my uncle, Alanson Taylor. ”

“ THE president and directors of the “New York Museum Company” not only failed to buy the American Museum as they confidently expected to do, but, after my newspaper squib war and my purchase of the Museum, they found it utterly impossible to sell their stock. By some arrangement, the particulars of which I do not remember, if, indeed, I ever cared to know them, Mr. Peale was conducting Peale’s Museum which he claimed was a more “scientific” establishment than mine, and he pretended to appeal to a higher class of patrons. ”

“ More than almost any other living man, Barnum may be said to be a representative type of the American mind.
I very soon secured by lease the premises, numbers 535, 537 and 539 Broadway, seventy-five feet front and rear, by two hundred feet deep, and known as the Chinese Museum buildings. In less than four months, I succeeded in converting this building into a commodious Museum and lecture room, and meanwhile I sent agents through America and Europe to purchase curiosities. ”

“ If you get the woman with horns, let American newspapers & correspondents understand that you had a big race for her with European showmen & that the price paid for her was immense. Remember to find every avenue for publicity of the fact that an agent of Barnum's Museum is in the East seeking curiosities. ”

“ BARNUM'S AMERICAN MUSEUM. ——After months of unwearied labor, and spending NEARLY TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS NEARLY TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS NEARLY TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS
in capturing and transporting them from that part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence nearest Labrador, the Manager is enabled to offer his visitors
TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, TWO LIVING WHALES, a male and a female. ”

“ Of course, the matter soon appeared in the papers and went the entire rounds of the press in this country and even in Europe, and it was everywhere announced that P. T. Barnum, “Proprietor of the celebrated American Museum in New York”—and here is where the advertisement came in—had introduced elephants upon his farm, to do his plowing and heavy draft work. Hundreds of people came many miles to witness the novel spectacle. ”

“ CHAPTER XV. AT HOME. PARTNERSHIP WITH TOM THUMB—VISIT TO CUBA—IRANISTAN, HIS FAMOUS PALACE AT BRIDGEPORT—AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCES—BARNUM'S GAME-KEEPER AND THE GREAT GAME DINNER—FRANK LESLIE. One of Barnum's principal objects in returning to America at this time was to insure the permanence of his "American Museum." He had a lease of the property, which had yet three years to run. But he wanted to make sure of it after that term had expired. Mr. Olmsted, the former owner, was now dead, and It was not certain that the new proprietor would renew the lease. ”

“ Indeed, soon after I began to exhibit Joice Heth, I had entrusted her to an agent and had entered upon my second step in the show line. The next venture, whatever it may have been in other respects, had the merit of being, in every essential, unmistakably genuine. I engaged from the Albany Museum an Italian who called himself “Signor Antonio” and who performed certain remarkable feats of balancing, stilt-walking, plate-spinning, etc. He had gone from England to Canada, and thence to Albany, and had performed in other American cities. ”

“ With these Montagne sympathized, and to them he hired his rooms, when the day approached for celebrating the repeal of the Stamp Act. The patriots purchased a small house at the corner of Broadway and the Bowery road (where Barnum's American Museum now stands) , named it Hampden Hall, and that was their place of assemblage during the four years preceding the bursting forth of the storm of the Revolution.—See Holt's Journal (supplement) , No. ”

“ It was a source of unfailing interest to all country visitors, and New York to many of them was only the place that held Barnum’s Museum. It was the first thing—often the only thing—they visited when they came among us, and nothing that could have been contrived, out of our present resources, could have offered so many attractions unless some more ingenious showman had undertaken to add to Barnum’s collection of waxen criminals by putting in a cage the live Boards of the Common Council. We mourn its loss, but not as without consolation. ”

“ One hundred and fifty employees were thrown out of work at a season when it would have been difficult to get anything else to do. That was the most important consideration. Then, too, Barnum felt that a large city like New York needed a good Museum, and that his experience of a quarter of a century in that direction afforded the greatest facilities for founding another establishment of the kind. ”

“ Or even if none of these things or creatures existed, we could trust to Barnum to make them out of hand. The Museum, then, is only a temporary loss, and much as we sympathize with the proprietor, the public may trust to his well-known ability and energy to soon renew a place of amusement which was a source of so much innocent pleasure, and had in it so many elements of solid excellence. ”

“ Barnum's Museum now lives only in the past. Its successor, known as Wood's Museum, is situated at the corner of Twenty-ninth street and Broadway. But at the time of my story the old Barnum's stood below the Astor House, on the site now occupied by those magnificent structures, the Herald building and the Park Bank. Hither flowed daily and nightly a crowd of visitors who certainly got the worth of their money, only twenty-five cents, in the numberless varied curiosities which the unequaled showman had gathered from all quarters of the world. ”

“ He can’t draw so much as two pair of my oxen can, and he costs more than a dozen pair.”
“You are mistaken, friend Thompson,” I replied with much gravity; “that elephant is a powerful animal; he can draw more than forty yoke of oxen, and he pays me well for bringing him here.”
“Forty yoke of oxen!” contemptuously replied the old farmer; “I don’t want to tell you I doubt your word, but I would just like to know what he can draw.”
“He can draw the attention of twenty millions of American citizens to Barnum’s Museum,” I replied. ”

“ Barnum.” Supposing the gentleman had business with me, I looked up from the paper. “Is this Mr. Barnum?” he asked. “It is,” I replied. He stared at me for a moment, and then, throwing down his ticket, exclaimed, “It’s all right; I have got the worth of my money”; and away he went, without going into the Museum at all!
In November, 1847, we started for Havana, taking the steamer from New York to Charleston, where the General exhibited, as well as at Columbia, Augusta, Savannah, Milledgeville, Macon, Columbus, Montgomery, Mobile and New Orleans. ”

“ Butler and Greenwood signed an agreement to sell and deliver to Barnum on the following Saturday their entire good-will and interest in the Museum collection. This fact was thoroughly circulated, and blazing posters, placards, and advertisements announced that "Barnum is on his feet again." It was furthermore stated that the Museum would be closed for one week, opening March 31st, under the management and proprietorship of its original owner. It was also promised that Barnum would address the audience on the night of closing. ”

“ I believe that no other man in America possesses the desire and facilities which I have in this direction. I have, therefore, taken steps, through all my agents in Europe and this country, which will enable me to put upon the road, early in April, the most gigantic and complete travelling museum, menagerie and hippodrome ever organized.
It has been asked whether I will build up a large museum and menagerie in New York. Well, I am now nearly sixty-three years of age. I can buy plenty of building sites and get plenty of leased lots for a new museum; but I cannot get a new lease of life. ”

“ He afterwards told Barnum that he first derived his idea of becoming a showman from this day at Warwick, and Barnum's talk about his doings and adventures in the business.
They visited that same day Kenilworth and Coventry, in which latter place Barnum discovered the exhibition known as the "Happy Family," about two hundred birds and animals of opposite natures, dwelling in one cage in perfect harmony. He was so delighted with it that he bought it on the spot, and hired the manager to accompany the exhibition to New York, where it became a famous feature of the Museum. ”

“ Strangers would look at this great pictorial magazine and argue that an establishment with so many animals on the outside must have something on the inside, and in they would go to see. Inside, I took particular pains to please and astonish these strangers, and when they went back to the country, they carried plenty of pictorial bills and lithographs, which I always lavishly furnished, and thus the fame of Barnum’s Museum became so wide-spread, that people scarcely thought of visiting the city without going to my establishment. ”