Word: diorama
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Story. America's "Awkward Age," depicted to perfection- 1840-1850, the days of hair-oil and Ascot ties-of paternal editorials in the Press and family albums in the Home-of P. T. Barnum and his "industrious fleas," his "Anatomical Venus," his "Magnificant Moving Diorama of the Funeral of Napoleon Bonaparte," his educated dogs, his Albinos, his questionable "Fejee Mermaid" (which turned out to be a gruesome object "made from parts of a monkey and a fish, and purchased from a Japanese sailor who must have had a great deal of time on his hands")-the days of elegant...
...museum was the embryo of the circus " side show." " Curiosities natural and unnatural ": the Feegee Mermaid, the diorama of Napoleon's funeral, the negro who had cured his skin of " color" and who predicted the fading out of slavery, cannibals and grotesque sea monsters, beauty shows and the Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself were only some of the sensations propagated by the " master of monstrosities...