Anna Swan, the seven foot tall Nova Scotia giantess, one of Barnum's American Museum's main attractions.. Image Source: lostmuseum.cuny.edu
New York City is known today as one of the entertainment capitals of the world. This all started in the 19th century when sources of entertainment began to pop up all around the city from Central Park in midtown Manhattan to Coney Island in Brooklyn. One of the most curious and controversial sources of entertainment within this time period was P.T. Barnum’s American Museum located in lower Manhattan. Barnum’s museum housed lots human attractions: FeeJee the mermaid, Chang and Eng the Siamese Twins, and Anna Swan the Novia Scotia giantess, among others. The museum also offered educational exhibits including wax recreations of moments in history. What I found to be most remarkable, was that one of the main “attractions” Anna Swan, a woman of seven feet tall, gave lectures on human giants in history on the top floor of the museum. Not only, did she have the courage to stand in front of crowds being looked at as a human abnormality and deal with the snide remarks that inevitably arose but she also had the pride to want to educate the visitors on people just like her and how they had made their impact on history. She truly was one of the most significant attractions at the museum.
Personally, I found www.lostmuseum.cuny.edu to be a provoking historical tool. While the abundance of flash made the website lag a bit, the interactive interface helped me probe a little deeper into some of the exhibitions. I almost always found myself clicking the archive button to find out more after reading the little summary that initially pops up. The archive and classroom menu options were what I found to be the strongest parts of the website. There were a lot of external links that helped me gain more information and the archive was a lot easier to navigate than the museum itself. The weakness I found was having to navigate left and right throughout the floors, I think that contributed to a lot of the lag.