Jun 12 2011 09:43 pm
Posted by Crystal Garris under June 13 Assignment
A Wild “Ride”
There’s always that moment when you wish you were around for something that is no longer there. Well, with our amazing technology, we are able to actually travel back in time to be there. One of the ways we can is with The Lost Museum website, a virtual tour of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. We are able to explore the museum floor by floor, room by room, by using only the internet. With the mouse being your tour guide, and graphics so good as to have life like rats running across the floor, you are in for a wild ride. However, I found my ride to be somewhat of a interesting yet confusing one. Only confusing in the sense that I felt there was no theme to the museum and there was a little bit of any and everything going on from room to room. What I found most interesting though, was the etiquette slideshow in the lecture room.
The Lecture Room
This tells me that in 19th century New York City, although there was a great amount of diversity, there was also social norms that had to be followed. There were “rules” of how society should behave as a whole and it seems as though that was part of the entertainment. However, it also looks to me as though this shows separation of the economic statuses. Looking at the slides, there seemed to be higher class people, well dressed with furs and top hats, in theaters, etc., which makes sense as to why they were mandated to learn certain etiquette. As a whole, I feel as though this is a great historical tool because it shows the diversity but yet the separation of society at the time and the different types of entertainment and information that was shown then to how present day museums are. For example, we have different museums for different things but in there, everything was combined into one.