Word: barnumism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After this pre-emptory investigation, Barnum proceeded to prepare his audience. Letters from various parts of the country suddenly began to arrive at New York newspapers, describing daily life in Montgomery, Charleston and Washington. Coincidentally, these letters all mentioned the anticipated arrival of a certain Dr. Griffin, from the Lyceum of Natural History in London, bringing with him a remarkable curiosity. Also coincidentally, the letters were all sent by close personal friends of P.T. Barnum...
Soon thereafter, Levi Lyman, alias Dr. Griffin, checked into a hotel in Philadelphia on Barnum's payroll. After a few days he invited his landlord to inspect the mermaid. The landlord, greatly excited, urged the British doctor to let a few of his friends, including several reporters, have a look at it. And, as Barnum smugly notes in his autobiography, everyone was convinced that it was a genuine article, "nor is this to be wondered at, since, if it was a work of art, the monkey and fish were so nicely conjoined that no human eye could detect the point...
...gentle Dr. Griffin was at last persuaded to bring his specimen to New York, but he refused to let it be shown at any museum. In the meantime, Barnum had three woodcuts made up, all picturing mermaids as the public imagined them; not unlike beautiful Ariel in "The Little Mermaid." He offered three New York newspapers these woodcuts, explaining that Dr. Griffin was not going to allow the mermaid to be exhibited. The papers, each believing it had an exclusive copy of the woodcut, proudly printed it in their Sunday editions. Barnum also made up 10,000 little pamphlets with...
...seems that Dr. Griffin could not resist the exhibition after all the hype, and agreed to show the mermaid at Concert Hall for one week only. By chance, after this week, the mermaid moved to the AmericanMuseum, where Barnum welcomed it with an 18-footflag of a beautiful mermaid. Barnum dismissed allthis as a "ploy" to attract people to his museum.His carefully-planned publicity campaign workedwell; museum receipts almost tripled, and themermaid was off to tour the country...
...Barnum brought the feejee mermaid to Charlestonin the 1840s, and played right into the hands ofNott and his contemporaries. Nott used themermaid, and many of Barnum's other oddities, toshow that the human species can diverge. Themermaid, which he professed to be genuine, provedthat this half-human was of a different species,as were the different races. The mermaid wascaught up in the intense debate over the unity ofthe human species...