Themes in American History

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.

Comments Off on Reflection on Barnum Museum

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.

Comments Off on Losing Myself in The Lost Museum