Themes in American History

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The “Roaring Twenties”  was an era of great economic growth, prosperity that emphasized the  social, artistic, and  cultural  diversity in the city. It was an era of new inventions, discoveries that led New Yorkers to experience new technologies, entertainment, mass media, that brought changes in life style and culture of the people living in the city as well as the people living outside the city by giving hope of getting prosperity and wealth.

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With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, came a reformation of American culture. It was only a matter of time before new technology too over the world. New Yorkers saw it coming; however, they were not aware of how quickly it would revolutionize the country. By the 1920s, the New York was fl0urishing beyond belief. Goods were now advertised by people trying to sell them. Production of those goods increased. This mass-consumer culture which characterized the United States (Chudacoff 186) was centered in New York. “Leisure activities were another type of consumption mostly supported by city dwellers. A mania for sports, movies, and music gripped every city. Passionate interest in sports had been building since the late nineteenth century. In 1923, 300,000 fans attented the six-game Wold Series of baseball between the New  York Yankees and New York Giants” (Chudacoff 186). Baseball became a popular sport and was practiced by most people  in sandlots, beaches, tennis courts and golf links. In addition, motion pictures drew large crowds as it became a popular attraction with an average attendance of 110 million people per week in a nation with a population roughly over 120 million people.

One of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game, Babe Ruth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People crowd New York City's Warners' Theatre for the showing of Don Juan.

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The entertainment industry took advantage of Americans increased leisure time and income during the 1920s. As people celebrated postwar prosperity with indulgence in entertainment.  Movie change the form of entertainment. When the “talkies” was available. The motion pictures with sound. Movies presented audiences with spectacular sets that they could only dream about. In the 1920s, there were 20 Hollywood studios, and the demand for films was greater than ever and it is the greatest output of films in America; it is about 800 film releases in a year. Also, movies were a very inexpensive form of entertainment. By 1922, almost every community in America had at least a 100-seat movie theater for total 40million people go to watch movie every week.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79i84xYelZI

The video above shows an example of the type of silent movies viewed during this time period.

The 1920s are greatly known for the entertainment developed during the time period. People had more free time and began spending this time several different types of leisure activities. People began watching sports especially baseball as well as boxing. Some even became involved in sports such as tennis baseball and golf (Chudacoff & Smith 217). The movie business continued to expand as more and more people began too visit theaters. For example about 110 million people visited the movies in a week when the population of the U.S. was only about 120 million (Chudacoff & Smith 217). Music advanced and flourished as Jazz became increasingly popular (Chudacoff & Smith 218). Radio allowed listeners to hear a wide variety of things from music to the news to advertisements about retail products that convinced them to go out and buy them (Chudacoff & Smith 218). This modernized the city by making it a thriving entertainment center with a wide variety of things to do during peoples free time. These developments brought forth the technologies of entertainment in the future that lead to inventions such as the television.

Picture of Babe Ruth who was an important figure in baseball during the 1920s

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The city, not the farm, had become the place of national experience. By 1920, four-fifths of the country’s African Americans living outside the South lived in the cities. During the 1920s, urbanization took place on a wider front than ever before. Maturing industrial economies increased the populations of many areas, particularly steel, oil, and automobile centers. Social and cultural diversity continued to be a unique quality of urban life that distinguished cities most sharply from the relative homogeneity of rural and small-town social relations. Leisure activities were another type of consumption mostly supported by city dwellers. In 1923, 300,000 fans attended the six-game World series of baseball between the New York Yankees and the New York Giants. The increase of show business paralleled the rise of sports, maturing with the growth of cities. In the 1920s motion pictures also attracted huge crowds. During 1927-1929, weekly movie attendance reach an estimated 10 million people when at that time nations total population was just over 120 million and total weekly attendance to church was under 60 million. Movies helped to popularize urban culture as nation culture by showing scenes involving diverse city people. In 1920s radio also brought the new world of entertainment and advertising directly into urban homes.

Suburban expansion in the 1920s owed much to the automobile and its related industries. Real estate interests, the construction industry, the auto rubber, and oil industry joined automobile owners in pressing for new roads to facilitate high-speed travel. The building of expressways and parkways encouraged still more suburban migration. In 1920, the growth rate of suburbs exceeded that of the cities for the first time. Many were residential communities for the upper and the middle classes, and others were industrial and mixed-use suburbs where factory workers constituted a fifth or more of the population. 1920s was also witnessed the country’s first suburban shopping center. Due to all of these developments in the 1920s helped the cities to become modern.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmqc_wJN4_M&feature=related

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I am unsure if Barnum’s American Museum would be a fair indication of the definition of entertainment in the 19th century, but what I am sure of is the fact that is was very popular. Personally, I was not sure what to expect. I had already heard about some of the “attractions” at the museum – such as the 25 inch midget and the mermaid from Fiji – and was very curious to get to the site. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed at what I discovered on the website – it did give me a lot of information about the attractions at the museum but lacked a certain “wow” factor, which I am certain was what made the museum very popular. But from an educational point of view, the online museum hits all the right marks. The archive is very informational and entertaining. The image I posted is a perfect representation of Barnum’s Museum to me. Even though it is in the 19th century, I think it was perceived as a colorful place to visit, with weird and larger than life attractions. The total tickets sold will also support the tag of the Peoples Favorite,  even though it is very clear that the museum had its fair share of critics.

With the introduction of the NY Herald in 1835, the culture in NYC was already changing. People were now being intrigued and entertained by reading about murders, suicides and rapes. I am uncertain if Barnum seen this culture change as the perfect opportunity of open the museum in NYC or he would have done it either way, but NYC was now rapidly expanding and accepting to new means of entertainment. I think from an historic point of view the website does a good job giving the viewer all the information it had in a fun method, but visually and interactively it could use a lot of improvement. Continue Reading »

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Barnum’s American Museum was located at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in New York, from 1841 to 1865. The museum was mysteriously burnt at that time and the Lost museum was recreated to have people in modern time to visit and experience culture in the 19th century through website.  The museum offered both strange, and educational attractions.

Barnum opened his museum  to create a place where families could go for wholesome, affordable entertainment, but his success drew from the fact that he knew how to entice an audience. At its peak, the museum was open fifteen hours a day and had as many as 15,000 visitors a day. The museum was a spectacular place for people coming to enjoy it in 19th century.  People came to this place with their families and socialize with other people.  The cultural history of New York was people gathered in one place and watch other people’s show and share their opinions with each other while they were exploring the museum.

In my opinion, the strength about the website as a historical tool like Lost museum is that it helps people to experience and have more understanding about the historical facts that were really exist and greatly affected people but been destroyed. The weakness was it was mimicking the historical event, the accuracy would be affected.

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What the lost museum tells about entertainment is the rapid increase of many forms of social activities during the 1900’s that has shaped and still continues to impact NYC.  After the American Revolution, people again settled down in NYC and sought out forms of amusement and there was one particular person who provided it.  P. T. Barnun was a businessman that was a prominent figure that molded the entertainment industry by providing many venues such as a museum, circus, aquariums, and musical theathers. 

As I continued to explore the museum, I could not help but focus on the social issues on display in the lecture room of the museum, that involved race and immigration.  During the 1900’s there seems to be tension between races and the growing concern of the immigrant population. 

P. T. Barnum’s hoaxes and his forms of entertainment still impacts NYC and all of the US.  What amazes me is that it has contined to evolve.

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The Lost Museum provides a very informative source to understand the 19^th century of America. The website is not only about one aspect. It includes American history and the entertainment of 19^th century. The best part of this museum is provides a huge numbers of picture, animation and copies of old document. It makes this virtual museum feels like I’m walking into an actual museum.

In the Waxwork room on second floor, I find some information about automaton. The 19^th century is an industrialized age. The time before the advent motion picture and electronic devices become popular. Automaton was the most advance technology entertainment at that time. In that period of time automaton has been largely produced for different purposes. One of the usages is entertainment. People fascinated in advance technology and like to see different automaton perform. In the picture below show an Automaton Chess Player. It was the most famous automaton of all time. The reason why it is so famous is because it is not only automaton chess playerimitated human behavior. It appeared to be a thinking machine to make the best decision and win chess experts and European royals. It fascinates audiences about how its operation.

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The tour of The Lost Museum was a very informative experience. I didn’t really know what to expect when I entered, but as I progressed and explored all the three floors I came out with a decent sense of the history of New York City. It wasn’t really like the museums nowadays, but it had a very good feel of what a typical 19th century museum would be like.

The one thing I found that was attention grabbing was the presentation on “The Great Fires of New York City.” The American Revolution ended with a fire in the city destroying many buildings and injuring people. Many more fires followed till the mid 1800s. The firefighters were the main heroes in these situations. They had the hardest, most dangerous jobs. Until the late 1800s, being a firefighter was voluntary, but after the Barnum Museum burned in the fire the legislature made changes and firefighters were then paid.

In addition to the presentation on the fires in NYC, I thought the portrayal of what entertainment was like in NYC in the past was very interesting too. Nowadays, entertainment means tv, movies, sports, etc. In the 1700 and 1800s, I learned that entertainment for them mainly were plays that acted out domestic dramas. Many people went and watched people perform live on stage for entertainment, for example “The Drunkard or the Fallen Saved.”

With its strengths, the museum came with weaknesses as well. The museum had very small floors. It could use addition of floors to spread things out and inform people more about the history of NYC. Also, some of the information was very vague. Many things could have been explained more for a better understanding.

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The Barnum Museum is a display of the rich historical art of the 19th century. The virtual tour is so realistic that it’s almost like being there in person. The entertainment during that era was a combination of music, drama, literature and art. The introductory music to the virtual tour of the museum was upbeat and soulful. Entertainment in the 19th century New York was class segregated. The thriving entertainment industry had a lot to offer to its audience such as theatre, circuses and exhibition. The upper class New Yorkers enjoyed Italian Opera.
The museum mostly consists of wax statues of human and animals. It also has a display of paintings and weapons. Each and every artifact displayed, comes with information describing it making it easier for its viewer to understand and relate to it. The museum has three levels: the first level, second and third. When I clicked on the first floor I entered into P.T Barnum’s office. By clicking on the images a detailed caption appears with all the relevant information. The second floor consists of all the wax works, paintings and weapons of the 19th century New York. The third floor was called the ‘lecture Room’ or the theatre where Shakespeare’s dramas were held. The museum is actually a portrayal that the 19th century New Yorkers loved entertainment. Even though it was class segregated each class enjoyed the entertainment that was available to them.
The museum was destroyed by fire in 1865 but Barnum quickly reopened a second one in a different location and unfortunately it was destroyed as well. Barnum’s American museum was the only place where immigrants, native-born, working class and middle class, men and women could come together.

Barnum used this image to advertise his controversial 1842 exhibition of the FeJee mermaid. Once inside the American Museum, visitors were doubtless surprised by the actual appearance of the so-called mermaid; the astonishment engendered by such misleading promotion came to be an expected part of the American Museum experience. A similar image of a bare-breasted mermaid with flowing hair adorned an eight-foot high color banner on the outside of New York's Concert Hall, where the mermaid debuted before transferring to the American Museum

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Exploring The Lost Museum was a very interesting experience. It took me quite a while to be able to learn how to navigate through this virtual museum. On one hand, this website is interactive and keeps you involved in exploring the website the way you want to. You can start exploring from the ground floor or from the 3^rd floor and it’s up to you to pick what you want to read about. On the other hand, it takes too long to figure it out how to use this virtual museum as a historical tool and I wish they would simplify and incorporate table of contest on each floor. Overall, it helped me to understand the events and entertainment that was popular at that time in NYC and how P. T. Barnum’s American Museum was a highlight for many visitors in mid-nineteenth-century in New York City.

I found this picture in Waxworks Room on the second floor. This picture represents one of the things that I have learned through the website. It helped me to learn that although President Lincoln invited African American men to serve in Union Army, they were still at disadvantage and were underpaid and treated as inferiors.  

At the end, The Barnum museum taught me about entertainment in 19th century in NYC. This was a time when Tom Thumb and the original Siamese Twins were highly popular for entertainment. According to the website, “Much of what made the enterprise so remarkable was carried on by Barnum’s circus. Among the items on display were the farcical, unconvincingly cobbled together “FeJee Mermaid” and very real, majestic whales.  Lectures on religion and abolition took place in the museum’s theater.” This shows us that New Yorkers were entertained in various ways even in the days without TV or Digital World that our generation is consumed by entirely and sees it as almost the only way to be entertained or taught.

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Barnum Museum consists with an extensive collection related to P.T Barnum. It tells lots of things about culture, entertainment, and history of the United States, especially focused on the period of 19th century. Barnum museum is very strange as well as educational attrations in 19th century. The museum tells an era of invention and discovery with significant developments in the fields of science and technology. The skeleton of the horse, the picture of the brain in the museum tells the educational attraction in the area of science. Where as, the 32lb. Howitzer, and the Draft Wheel shows that the new invention on technology. On top of that, the museum also tells that there was a huge development on the photograph. Photography seems able to capture more detail and information than traditional medium such as, paiting and sculpting. Even many advances in photographic glass plates and priting were made in 19th century.  

  New York City has been always the city the of cultural diversity. People from all over the world come to the New York City for a better life and opportunities. Similarly, the museum also tells about the cultural history of New York City. The City is not only important for the trade but also central attraction for music, theater, and visual arts. Many artists have been drawn into the city because of the growth of theater industry. During 19th century, there was a great change in American theater which resulted tremendous growth in population espically in cities on the East Coast. People had more lesiure time and better standards of living, and they looked to the theater to provide entertaiment – laughter, glitter and sentimentality. Even during from 19th century the actors were considered as a quite socially respectable images.

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Ad for whales and hippopotamus

The Lost Museum shows many exotic and bizarre things that entertains people in 19th century in New York city. It also reminds me of Ripley’s Believe IT or Not. For Barnum, who is an American entertainer and business man, his museum is one of remarkable achievement of entertainment culture of the  United States. One of objects in the Lost Museum that grabs my attention is the advertisement flier of wales and hippopotamus. In 19th century, there were no zoos or other place that people could go and see gigantic or nonnative animals. At this point, in 1861, Barnum shows two live white whales to the public in his American museum. It was a great sensational event that was the beginning of not only a common zoo but also circus.

This 3D museum is a great tool that makes a motivation to learn each object of the history. Even though I had so much fun with touring the Lost Museum, I felt little uncomfortable with the screen size that is a tiny small window view. Other than this, I think it is good experience to know more American entertainment system.

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Fire lecture film ironic since museum was burnt down

When I first visited “The Lost Museum” I got bored and I was not interested. Truthfully, the ground floor did not really capture my attention. So, I decided to move up to the second floor and check out if there was something more entertaining. I was impressed based on what I saw on the second and third floor. I was also surprised to see that this museum was different. It actually had a wide variety of exhibits ranging from those that dealt with history, science, and entertainment. The lecture film about fire caught my attention. I thought it was a little funny and ironic that this museum included a lecture film about fire as both Iranistan (Barnum’s mansion) and Barnum’s American Museum burned down. It was also interesting to see the amounts of fires that destroyed New York City and how fires were such a big problem for the city of New York.

“The Lost Museum” showed me something very important about entertainment in 19th century NYC; that it is not much different than entertainment today. The “freak show” aspect of the museum reminded me of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum in Manhattan. The wax figures in the waxworks room on the second floor were similar to Madame Tussauds wax museum also in Manhattan. Many people in New York City visit both of these museums for entertainment purposes probably the same way others visited The Barnum Museum in New York City in the 19th century.

I thought the interactive aspect of this website was a very effective tool to choose to include. It makes the visitors feel like they are in a actual museum. It is as if they are able to walk through it, move up levels and it keeps your attention and interest. The strength of this website is its ability to depict a form of entertainment in the 19th century and show how similar it is to forms of entertainment today. It also informs the visitors of the website about several different historical facts such as the assault on Charles Sumner by Preston S. Brooks (which actually happened). In my opinion, I feel they should have attempted to make the ground floor more interesting or for it to contain more interesting facts as it would impress the viewers and keep  them in the website to continue o to the other floors so they could learn more.

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P.T Barnum’s Museum was burned down in 1865 and “The Lost Museum” became a website that gave people the chance to discover what the museum was all about. If your not much of a online computer person, you would have trouble navigating through the website.

I felt like I was Sherlock Holmes trying to solve a mystery. There was much to explore in this virtual museum. This museum was a place where families could go for entertainment. The way the museum attracted people was through a combination of having a zoo, lecture hall, wax museum, theater and a freak show. During this time, it was vital development of American popular culture. What stood out to me was the image below. It is the original “FeJee Mermaid” (a monkey’s head and torso combine with half of a fish) and it was originally brought in the Museum in 1842. It’s purpose was to be attractive and appealing to Americans’ fascination.

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The lost museum is a perfect place for knowing important information about the history of New York City in the 19^th century. When I went inside the museum through website music was playing for a short time which was interesting. There are pictures which signify the history of New York City culture in that period. While exploring I found a poster which promoted museum as an educational place. Barnum promises an attraction that is “as amusing as it is instructive”. The Drunkard is one of the most perfect and real pictures of life ever placed before the public. The Drunkard was written in 1844 by William H. Smith. The Drunkard, or, The Fallen Saved is presented with the moral message of temperance. This poster gives step by step and in detail about drinking alcohol. The Drunkard drew large audiences and helped Barnum attract “respectable” middle class women to his museum in an era when theatre attendance had been the sole province of working-class men. At the end of the poster instructions are given that intoxicated drinks are not allowed inside the museum.

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My visit to the website of the Lost Museum was like a walk through a carnival maze with eyes closed and hands reaching forward. I suppose it is appropriate for P.T. Barnum’s museum. After opening the home page, I clicked “explore the museum”, music blaring through my speakers, Flash animation rotating images of what the museum floor plan popped up. I clicked on each image, as my cursor turned into a question mark. I click the question mark and VOILA! Another page opens which provides further information on the image. It took me quite some time to navigate the website and find particular information. I would have much more appreciated a simpler table of content and clearer instructions. There is literally a web-page dedicated to how to use the website, and that’s never good. What I did learn from the Barnum museum, is the elaborate forms of entertainment that were available in the 19th century NYC. This was a time before movies were even invented, however PT Barnum found ways to use technology and stagecraft to entertain people. These included “lantern slide shows, cosmoramas, and panoramas that presented images in new ways.” As seen in this image- in his program of amusements, Barnum listed a company of dwarfs, a mammoth fat infant, a beautiful circassian girl and glass blowers.

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