Education: Lesson Details

Study Guide: Activities and Procedures

HOMEWORK
Read the following essays and primary documents. Be prepared to discuss the accompanying questions.

Background Essay: What Was A Museum In Antebellum America?

Background Essay: Public Amusements In An Era Of An Emerging Middle Class

Annotated & Abridged Document:
The Life Of P.T. Barnum

1.) What did Barnum do for a living prior to his purchase of the American Museum? How might have his experiences prepared him for his future career?

2.) What was the Fejee Mermaid? How did Barnum obtain it? How was it "sold" to the public?

3.) How does Barnum describe the American Museum and the changes he brought to it? What kind of institution was it? Make a list of today's institutions that do what the American Museum did?

4.) How did Barnum find Charles Stratton? How was he marketed? Are there similarities between the campaign to promote the Fejee Mermaid and the one to promote Tom Thumb?

5.) Was P.T. Barnum a liar? Is it fair stretch the truth? How much? Do today's advertisers employ some of Branum's methods?

Annotated & Abridged Document:
An Illustrated Catalogue And Guide Book To Barnum's American Museum

1.) What kinds of exhibits were available to be seen at the American Museum? In which ones does disability play a role? How were they promoted?

2.) How do various kinds of difference come together at the American Museum?

3.) How does Barnum market the American Museum, especially in paragraph 26? Why?

4.) What does the exhibition of people at the American Museum say about how Americans viewed disability in the middle of the nineteenth century? How is disability notable when it has a role in display and presentation?

Annotated & Abridged Document:
Sketch Of The Life, Personal Appearance, Character And Manners Of Charles S. Stratton, The Man In Miniature, Known As General Tom Thumb, And His Wife, Lavinia Warren Stratton; Including The History Of Their Courtship And Marriage, With Some Account Of Remarkable Dwarfs, Giants, & Other Human Phenomena, Of Ancient And Modern Times, And Songs Given At Their Public Levees
Annotated & Abridged Document:
Mrs. Tom Thumb's Autobiography
Annotated & Abridged Document:
Some Recollections: The Story Of My Marriage And Honeymoon
Annotated & Abridged Document:
Our Trip Around The World: Another Chapter From My Autobiography
Artifact: General Tom Thumb And P.T. Barnum
Artifact: Fight Between Gen. Tom Thumb And the Queen's Poodle
Artifact: Wedding Scene
Artifact: The Promenade
Artifact: The Reception
Artifact: At Home
Artifact: Mr. And Mrs. Gen. Tom Thumb With P.T. Barnum, Commodore Nutt, And Minnie Warren
Artifact: Tom Thumb's Residence

DISCUSSION
Discuss the primary documents in class, stressing the connections between the primary sources and the introductory background essays. Students can be asked to sort or classify the exhibits at Barnum's American Museum and to discuss why exhibits of people created so much "curiosity."

WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Students design a broadside or brochure promoting the American Museum to a nineteenth-century public. The promotion should focus on some aspect of human difference and connect with its audience in historically plausible ways. Student may also write an anaylsis of their poster explaining how and why it would appeal to a nineteenth-century audience.

Bibliography

Bogdan, Robert, Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988).

Dennet, Andrea Stulman, Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America (New York: New York University Press, 1997).

Harris, Neil, Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973).

Reiss, Benjamin, The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death and Memory in Barnum's America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).

Saxon, A.H., P.T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989).