Journal of the History of Collections vol. no. ( ) pp. – P. T. Barnum, Jumbo the Elephant, and the Barnum Museum of Natural History at Tufts University
Andrew McClellan
In 1883, the great showman P. T. Barnum agreed to build an eponymous museum of natural history on the campus of Tufts University, which he had served as a founding trustee. After a long career managing dime Downloaded from museums and a travelling circus, Barnum hoped to secure a positive legacy through the creation of an unambiguously serious institution. In addition to building and collections funds, Barnum supplied the Tufts museum – as well as the Smithsonian and American Museum of Natural History in New York – with exotic and valuable dead animals from his circus. Barnum brought his infl uence to bear on the latter two in order to develop his museum at Tufts. His greatest prize was Jumbo the Elephant, whose skin and bones http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ were involved in a contentious tug-of-war among the three museums following his death in a train accident in 1885.
WHEN Phineas Taylor Barnum died in , he was (AMNH) in New York, and it also sheds light on the among the best-known men in America, if not the serious aspirations and philanthropic impulses of world. During the middle years of the nineteenth cen- the great showman. If Barnum is remembered today tury, he achieved fame and notoriety as the proprietor principally as a huckster and entrepreneur who at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 of more than one incarnation of his American Mu- believed ‘ there is a sucker born every minute ’ , we seum in New York City, and in later decades he was should remember he was also a self-educated advocate widely known as the chief impresario of ‘ The Great- of temperance who preached the Victorian virtues of est Show on Earth ’ , the massive, spectacular travel- self-improvement, education, and innocent recre- ling circus and menagerie. A tireless self-promoter ation, and the two sides of his personality were recon- and media hound, he helped give shape to modern ciled above all in his creation of and support for circuses notions of celebrity and mass entertainment. Along and museums.2 Coming towards the end of his long the way, he made household names of Tom Thumb, public career, the Barnum Museum at Tufts repre- the Feejee Mermaid, Jenny Lind, and Jumbo the sented the culmination of an abiding desire to converge Elephant, among others. Much less familiar, then and the pursuits of edifi cation and entertainment. now, are Barnum’s efforts to build another museum devoted to natural history on the campus of Tufts University in the suburbs of Boston. Founded in The Barnum Museum at Tufts during the heyday of American natural history muse- Barnum’s museum was conceived as part of a cam- ums and dismantled sixty years later, the Barnum paign to expand the Tufts campus during the trans- Museum at Tufts once boasted an outstanding collec- formational presidency of the Revd Elmer Hewitt tion of zoological specimens, led by Barnum’s stuffed Capen (-). When Tufts was founded in pachyderm, Jumbo.1 The history of the formation of all functions, from library and lecture room to student this little-known institution contributes to our know- dormitory and faculty offi ces, were concentrated in a ledge of the development of natural history museums in single building on a hill offering a vista of downtown America, including the Smithsonian in Washington, Boston. The gradual addition of new residence-halls DC, and the American Museum of Natural History around a fl edgling quadrangle allowed for growth in
© The Author . Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. doi: 10.1093/jhc/fhr001 Advance Access publication 18 February 2011 ANDREW MCCLELLAN the student body, but core facilities were still lacking. uplifting public spectacles and self-promotion. Acknowledging an increasingly competitive educa- Fuelled by global exploration, positivist values, and tional environment, Capen told his trustees: ‘ We an ideology of progress, Victorian science was dedi- must be progressive and aggressive if we expect Tufts cated to the study and classifi cation of specimens, College to maintain the rank it has gained among New which museums both demonstrated and enabled. England institutions. ’3 In his inaugural address in Natural history had also become popular with the , he identifi ed a separate library, gymnasium, middle-class public, giving rise to respectable new chapel, and science building as top priorities and he hobbies such as mineral and insect collecting, bird set out to fi nd willing benefactors. In Capen ini- watching, and amateur palaeontology.9 Barnum capi- tiated a drive to raise $, for new buildings. talized on this growing interest in his New York Mary Goddard, the widow of a trustee, gave money museums (both destroyed by fi re) and later in his for a new chapel and gymnasium. In hope of funding circus and menagerie, whose educational value he a new science building, Capen reached out to P. T. trumpeted. ‘ The menagerie of wild beasts, birds and Barnum. reptiles – comprising every curious specimen of Downloaded from Barnum was an obvious target for Capen’s capital animal life from the denizens of the torrid African campaign. A life-long supporter of the Unitarian jungle to those of the Polar region – forms a study that Universalist faith with which Tufts was affi liated, will impart more valuable information in two hours Barnum had agreed to be one of the College’s found- than can be obtained from reading books on zoology ing trustees. Though his booming career prevented in a year. ’10 He was an early supporter of, and con- http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ him from attending trustee meetings and compelled tributor to, both the Smithsonian Institution in him to resign from the board after fi ve years of ser- Washington (founded ; National Museum vice, he continued to follow Tufts’s progress with opened ; National Zoo, ) and the AMNH in interest. In the meantime he had also prospered and New York (founded ). Both thanked him pub- become known for charitable giving – almost too well licly for his generous donations of animal specimens known. When Capen fi rst approached Barnum for a from his menageries.11 Perhaps in return for Barnum’s
donation of $ , for a museum housing scientifi c generosity, the Smithsonian’s secretary, Joseph at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 facilities, Barnum was reluctant in good part because Henry, recognized his American Museum ‘ as a public he feared it would unleash further solicitations and in- institution, entitled to receive . . . casts of everything cite ‘ hard feelings among heirs and poor relations.’ 4 that other public institutions received from the By May of Capen had persuaded Barnum to give Smithsonian. ’12 The respectability Barnum sought, the money but on two conditions: fi rst, the gift must but never received, from his early establishments be kept secret, even from his wife, preferably until would surely come with the creation of a university after his death; second, once his identity as donor was museum devoted to high learning and serious science. disclosed the building should ‘ be forever called the Construction of the museum proceeded quickly Barnum Museum of Natural History ’. 5 It was only once Barnum’s gift was in hand. By June of , just a matter of days, however, before the urge for self- a year after Barnum and Capen had agreed to terms, display got the better of discretion. Barnum was soon the building was ready for a dedicatory inscription. suggesting that a self-portrait should ornament the Capen proposed Latin, to which Barnum responded, entrance and that his name should go over the door. mindful perhaps of broader public interest, ‘ I have no ‘ You see the passion for display is “ strong in death ” , ’ objection to Latin but somehow for we chaps who he wrote.6 Once he had committed to the idea of an don’t understand Latin there ought to be in plain eponymous museum, he was keen to see it built as English an inscription inside or out, permanent, soon as possible – ‘ the quicker you get at it and the Barnum Museum of Natural History. ’ 13 It seems faster you drive it, the better I shall like it. Life is brevity was the compromise as ‘ Barnum fecit AD MDC- short. ’ 7 He feared the revelation of his gift would CCLXXXIII ’ was carved into the stone lintel above the ‘ open the fl ood-gate of begging letters from all parts entrance. Ill health prevented Barnum from attending of the earth but I must stand that. ’8 Commencement ceremonies at Tufts in June to in- The Barnum Museum combined Capen’s need for augurate his building in person, but he sent comments a science building and Barnum’s life-long interest in to be read, expressing hope that the museum would
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS prove ‘ another factor in the work of the College, help- ethnological material, coins, curiosities, and stuffed ing it on its high career of usefulness. ’14 birds rounded out the eclectic collection. Marshall’s Designed by the architect John Philipp Rinn (- ambition for the new museum, encouraged by Barnum, ) of the Boston fi rm Andrews, Jones, Biscoe & was to amass a comprehensive display of natural his- Whitmore, the Barnum Museum (Figs. – ), rose tory. In keeping with pre-Darwinian notions of sci- two stories above a basement level fi tted with a labora- ence, an orderly arrangement of animals and plants tory and lecture room. The ground fl oor included a would yield knowledge of and mastery over the natural library and vestibule, complete with Thomas Ball’s world. It would also reveal, as Barnum himself put it, marble bust of Barnum. The upper fl oor featured a ‘ the infi nite wisdom and power of the Creator’ . 16 In well-lighted mezzanined grand hall, feet high and other words, nineteenth-century museums of natural feet long by wide, intended for the display of history had both a scientifi c and a theological purpose natural history specimens, mostly displayed in wood ideally suited to the moral and intellectual formation and glass cabinets. On the eve of its completion the of young men and women. university magazine asserted: ‘ It will be equaled by Barnum provided funds for the museum building; Downloaded from few museums in the country either in point of size or he also helped build its collections. For years he had elegance. ’15 Together with the new chapel, also supplied dead animals from his menagerie to muse- designed by Rinn and built of local blue stone, the ums in Washington and New York. Henceforth he new museum fl anked the original college building and would do the same for his museum at Tufts. He also gave the campus an increased sense of coherence and promised that Tufts would one day get his prize beast, http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ completeness. Jumbo the Elephant.17 Because the Tufts museum had Once the building was ready for occupation, it took no means of preparing dead animals for exhibition, several months to install the varied collection. As Barnum put Marshall in touch with Henry Augustus early as the s, John P. Marshall (-), Ward, proprietor of Ward’s Natural History Establish- Tufts’s fi rst professor of geology and chemistry, had ment of Rochester, New York. Educated at Harvard, begun collecting and soliciting donations of speci- where he briefl y served as an assistant to the great sci-
mens, mostly geological, for use in classes. A purchase entist Louis Agassiz, Ward ( - ) became a at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 fund established by Mary Goddard allowed Marshall leading taxidermist and naturalist in his own right.18 to shop for minerals and fossils from dealers and col- Ward travelled widely, building his knowledge of the lectors in Europe and closer to home. Gifts of random natural world and collecting specimens for sale. His travels took him to Africa, Central America, the West Indies, Russia, and through Europe to the Middle East. He also journeyed to the American West, where he dabbled in gold mining and befriended William ( ‘ Buffalo Bill ’ ) Cody, reminding us that the business of ‘ show ’ in the nineteenth century encompassed both legitimate museum displays and Wild West extrava- ganzas. Ward was among the fi rst to recognize and foster a growing appetite for natural history collections on American university campuses and in civic museums. One of Ward’s important disciples, William T. Hornaday (-), said of him that he had done ‘ more to inspire, to build up, and to fi ll up American museums than any other ten men of his time or since his time. But for him, our American museums would never have forged ahead as they did from to Fig. . The Barnum Museum of Natural History, Tufts 19 University, Medford, Massachusetts (), c . . Photo: . ’ By his own account he assembled natural his- Barnum Collection, Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts tory collections for over American institutions, University. including numerous colleges and universities, among
ANDREW MCCLELLAN
Fig. . Gallery, Barnum Museum of Natural History, c . . Photo: Rollins Collection, Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University. Downloaded from http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/
Fig. . Specimen cases, Bar- num Museum of Natural His- tory, c . . Photo: Historical Materials Collection (UA),
Digital Collections and Ar- at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 chives, Tufts University.
them Vassar, Northwestern, Yale, Grinnell, Lehigh, museums. In addition to his own trips in search of Elmira, Earlham, Cornell, and Tufts. He also worked stock, he became a US agent for European suppliers, regularly for the AMNH and the Smithsonian, to including Deyrolle in Paris and the Blaschka brothers both of which he sent specimens and trained taxider- in Germany, famous for their glass models of plants mists, notably Hornaday and Carl Akeley (- and marine invertebrates. Another important source of ), who each went on to enjoy important careers in specimens for Ward were the circuses and menageries
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS that toured the United States – none bigger than like creatures waiting to be sold!24 Barnum evidently Barnum’s. Through taxidermy, deceased animals believed Ward was the best in the business but he was from travelling menageries enjoyed an afterlife as wary of being overcharged. He cautioned Marshall mounted museum exhibits. Soon enough museums that Ward could become ‘ too greedy ’ yet was also would employ their own taxidermists and mount their confi dent he could be ‘ bargained down to low prices own collecting expeditions, but for many years in the by shrewd Yankees. ’25 Perhaps in part to keep Ward late nineteenth century Ward operated as an essential honest, Barnum sent occasional work for Tufts to a middleman. second taxidermist, John Wallace of New York. In November Ward paid Tufts a visit with a The arrangement between Ward and Tufts was not commitment from Barnum to provide $, to start always straightforward. Though Barnum had been a collection under his guidance.20 As he did for other giving dead animals to museums since the early s, small and understaffed colleges, Ward worked closely he needed to renegotiate this agreement with his with Marshall to plan the formation of a ‘ Zoological various business partners over the years. In July of Downloaded from Cabinet ’ – in this case, one that would be ‘ more scien- , Barnum got his partners to consent once more tifi cally (systematically) complete than is any other to donate the museum animals from the menagerie collection except that of Agassiz [at Harvard] East of after they died. As he confi ded to Elmer Capen, his the Hudson. ’21 He assured Marshall that the collec- partners ‘ cared more for dollars than for science or for tion would both fulfi l ‘ the demands of systematic sci- the museum and it is only because they don’t happen http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ ence ’ and ‘ comprehend forms which make a fi ne to see dollars in our dead animals that they don’t as yet display ’ .22 Aiming to provide comprehensive service, interfere with my giving them for the benefi t of the Ward further offered to design the wall-cabinets and museum. ’26 Three years later, however, his partners to provide text labels for the exhibits. Relying on un- had come to see the dollars at stake in their menagerie impeded visual access to specimens and the accurate assets. As Barnum explained to Capen, a recent partner ordering of species and genera in relation to each and experienced menagerie man, James Cooper, was other, natural history museums were only as good as proving more
their displays and labelling. at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 . . . illiberal than my other two partners, Hutchinson & Cole – Following Ward’s visit to Tufts, Marshall returned and as Cooper has charge of the animal department, he takes with Ward to Rochester where the two men drew up pride in cutting me off from obtaining our dead animals an eighteen-page catalogue that gave precedence to free. When I get my three partners together in March next, ‘ Beasts, Birds, Reptiles and Fishes.’ 23 In addition to I shall endeavor to remedy this, especially so far as small an initial delivery of some mounted animals and animals are concerned. I own but /ths of the entire show, shells and coral pieces from Ward’s stock, a three- and not being personally with it I can’t do so much in this way. But I shall do my best.27 way arrangement with Barnum, Ward, and Tufts secured a future supply of new specimens. When ani- If peccaries and other small animals had little value mals from The Greatest Show on Earth died, the car- on the open market, extraordinary creatures could casses would be sent to Ward who would then prepare command a handsome price. Ward estimated that the and offer them to Tufts. If Tufts wanted them, the carcass of large male lion with a heavy mane could price of mounting and delivery would be taken from fetch $-, while a rare double-horned rhino was Barnum’s acquisition fund. If Tufts declined a given worth $,. In both cases, Barnum contented his specimen but Ward wanted it for his own stock, he partners and had them mounted for Tufts.28 Among would give Tufts credit towards future work. For the animals that came to the Barnum Museum via example, in when he received a camel from Ward in the s and early s, besides the large Barnum, he wanted $ to prepare it or offered Tufts a lion and double-horned rhino, were other species of $ credit; for a small red kangaroo, he asked $ or carnivorous cats and monkeys; camels, llamas, and offered a further $ credit. If neither Tufts nor Ward bears; tapirs and anteaters; elks, antelopes, hyenas, had need of a given animal, no credit would be offered; and hartebeest; a kangaroo, giraffe, peccary, coati, Ward informed Marshall that should he receive, say, cassowary, porcupine, and ostrich.29 a peccary from Barnum he could offer Tufts nothing Marshall was grateful for what Barnum provided, because he already had thirty-three of the stuffed pig- but at the same time he wanted to remind the world
ANDREW MCCLELLAN
‘ the primary intention of our museum is the instruc- Marshall duly sent a list of desiderata – including tion of our students rather than the amusement of the plants of the western United States, fossils and min- sight-seeing public. ’30 Barnum’s menagerie by design erals, invertebrates, and archaeological materials – had more in common with a curiosity cabinet than a and followed with a visit to Baird in the autumn of modern teaching collection. Ward called the Barnum . As Marshall later recalled, the audience with Museum’s ‘ series of rarer exotic animals the fi nest in Baird did not go well: America ’ but a teaching museum needed more than 31 I did not feel very enthusiastic over the results of my visit. exotica. Marshall was happy to give Barnum’s ‘ pets While Prof. Baird was apparently cordial, he did not offer to . . . a kind of immortality in the museum he has so give me any information in regard to what the Smithsonian generously created for us ’, yet he hoped to balance or National Museum had for exchange. It seemed that they donations of rare creatures with acquisitions more had found out at Washington the best way how not to do it. relevant to routine pedagogy – everyday fl ora and A remark made by Prof. Baird showed how little he appre- ciated your effort to found the Barnum Museum. ‘ What fauna that no curiosity seeker would pay to see. At
need is there, ’ he said, ‘ of another Museum near Harvard Downloaded from times Marshall also wrestled with the showman’s College. ’ He could not understand that such a Museum natural tendency to favour visual effect over utility: would enlist the sympathies and efforts of a large class in ‘ Evidently Mr. Barnum prizes mounted skins above our country, besides being a most useful factor in a College mounted skeletons. I want more skeletons. ’32 education, that every college must have its Nat. History col- lections on its own ground and not two or three miles dis- To meet the Museum’s need for more prosaic but 38
tant. http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ pedagogically useful specimens, Barnum brokered another triangular deal, this one involving his men- Barnum was disappointed by the Smithsonian’s agerie, Tufts, and the Smithsonian in Washington. As ‘ meanness ’ and decided that since ‘ Prof. Baird can- mentioned above, Barnum had had an arrangement to not or will not carry out his promises’ he would supply the Smithsonian with dead animals from the henceforth send all dead animals from the menagerie early s. Following the creation of the Tufts mu- to Ward in Rochester for the Tufts museum. Beyond seum, he asked for something in return for his gifts. the snub, Barnum had no time to play go-between: ‘ I want this matter simplifi ed so that I need not here-
In March of , Barnum informed Elmer Capen at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 that he would soon be seeing the Smithsonian’s secre- after be often bothered with details of skins and tary, Spencer F. Baird (-), and ‘ expect to get bones. ’39 In hope of settling matters, he asked Mar- him to present duplicates to your Museum as some off shall to send him a list of specimens, which he would set to the many dead animals which I present to his then forward to Baird with another clear reminder of institution. ’33 Baird soon confi rmed in writing that he what the Smithsonian stood to lose should his wishes would be happy to provide specimens ‘ in return for not be met.40 the many favors you have rendered the Smith- Evidently the favourable results Barnum antici- sonian. ’34 A year passed without further exchange of pated were not forthcoming. In the summer of letters – or specimens. Alarmed by the diminished Tufts received a shipment from Washington, but it fl ow of animals to Washington, Baird wrote an im- was much smaller than expected – ‘ the small collec- ploring letter to Barnum: ‘ May I not put in another tion rec’d from them did not occupy one twelfth the plea for the National Museum in connection with the space that I reserved for them ’ , Marshall reported, animals that die in your great Menagerie? We have and moreover included unnecessary duplicates.41 enjoyed your favor in this respect for so many years Marshall allowed there might have been a misunder- that the cessation has been a source of serious con- standing, that the Smithsonian curators could have cern. ’35 Barnum assured Baird he had no intention of confused the Tufts order with that of another college, cutting off the Smithsonian, and reiterated his plan to since ‘ Country academies get collections similar to the donate Jumbo, but he also made clear his desire to one sent us, by making application through the repre- help ‘ my little pet museum at Tufts. ’36 At the same sentatives in Congress from their districts. ’42 But the time, Barnum wrote to Tufts, underscoring the le- problem was not easily resolved. Over the next two verage he had over the Smithsonian, and urged Mar- years correspondence back and forth reveals further shall to go in person to Washington to select objects misunderstandings, delays, and growing irritation on for the Barnum Museum.37 all sides.
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS
Eventually brought to task by Barnum, William gether with ‘ the exact name, locality and depth of Hornaday at the Smithsonian pleaded ignorance, each specimen given.’ Hornaday wanted it under- apologized for the confusion, and set about satisfying stood, ‘ This is the best collection of invertebrates ever Tufts’s requests. In May he informed the impa- sent out from here, and it would cost at least $ to tient showman that he had just dispatched a ‘ fi rst duplicate it.’ 48 This time the delivery was as good as class ’ set of mineral duplicates and stone implements, promised and Barnum happily reported to Hornaday ‘ the best collection the museum has ever sent out, ’ that he had received from Marshall ‘ a glowing de- and that a second shipment of invertebrates would scription of the specimens which you have sent to the soon follow, complementing the one sent two years Barnum Museum. I thank you and Prof. Goode and earlier, which included specimens ‘ such as are never the Smithsonian and National Museum for these furnished to institutions applying through members contributions.’ 49 of Congress. ’43 Unfortunately, this new consignment Barnum and Marshall were at last satisfi ed, yet also proved somewhat disappointing. Marshall wrote Barnum’s relationship with the Smithsonian had been Downloaded from to Hornaday’s superior at the Smithsonian, George irrevocably damaged. A year before his death, he told Brown Goode (-), that the minerals and arte- Hornaday: ‘ I confess that I have felt that the National facts were mostly ‘ duplicates of what we already Museum did not contribute as much as she easily have ’, though they would prove ‘ useful for purposes could, and ought, toward the Tufts Museum. ’50 The of instruction ’ .44 Marshall’s tepid response infuriated Smithsonian would not be the last museum to feel the http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ Hornaday. He wrote to Goode: ‘ Mr. Marshall is sting of an unrequited donor who holds out on a pre- offensively critical and without any cause whatsoever. cious gift. For many years, Barnum felt a patriotic ob- Evidently nothing less than the universe will satisfy ligation to help the Smithsonian, supplying animals, him. He deserves to be brought up this time with a and taking part in early plans to create a national zoo. round turn, and put on the defensive from this time It was long his intention to give the National Museum on. ’45 Choosing a more diplomatic course, Goode his prize elephant, Jumbo, the most famous animal in reached out to Barnum. In the spring of further the world. In the late nineteenth century, Jumbo was
requests from, and shipments to, Tufts followed, but equal (if not superior) to the Mona Lisa in terms of at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 these elicited yet more mild complaints about the public interest, and correspondence with Barnum quality and preparation of samples, which brought never failed to mention Washington’s desire to ac- Hornaday to a boil.46 Bypassing Goode, he wrote in- quire the celebrated beast. In the end, the Smithso- temperately to Barnum: nian’s inadequate courtship of a mighty patron cost it I must say I am very sorry that Professor Marshall is so ill a unique gift. pleased, indeed, I might even say disgusted, for that is what his tone clearly implies, with what we have sent to your Mu- seum. Seriously, Mr. Barnum, I do not think we can ever please him with anything, and hereafter it will be a matter of Jumbo the Elephant indifference whether he is pleased or not with what we The story of Jumbo has been often told and needs 47 send. only brief summary here.51 Captured as a young ele- Barnum sent the letter to Marshall with a personal phant in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in , he was note: ‘ Take this coolly. Don’t refer to it. Whom the acquired by the Jardin des Plantes in Paris before Gods wish to destroy they fi rst make mad. Guess being sent to England in in an exchange with the Hornaday will help us yet. ’ Zoological Society of London. In the years following, Sure enough, once mollifi ed by Barnum and per- Jumbo grew to be the largest elephant in captivity and haps reined in by Goode, Hornaday was once more became the crowd favourite of the London Zoo. For encouraged to cooperate. In March , a signifi cant children – including those of Queen Victoria and the consignment was sent to Tufts, which included large young Winston Churchill – no visit to the Zoo was and small casts of fi sh species, an ancient Assyrian in- complete without a ride on his back (Fig. ). But not scription, Native and Central American artefacts, a long before he was sold to Barnum in , Jumbo meteorite, and marine invertebrates collected by had begun to show signs of aggressive and potentially the new marine research vessel USS Albatross , to- dangerous behaviour (symptoms of what is know in
ANDREW MCCLELLAN Downloaded from http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/
Fig. . Jumbo with riders, c . . Photo: Archives, Tufts University, Medford, MA. elephant circles as ‘ musth ’ ). Fearing a public catas-
trophe, zoo authorities accepted Barnum’s handsome at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 offer to purchase the elephant for $,. The sale Fig. . ‘ How Jumbo crossed the Ocean ’ , Harper’s Young People , triggered huge public outcry and controversy in April . Britain, which Barnum, ever the master of public relations, turned to great advantage. The story of Jumbo’s exodus from London and arrival in New with a mysterious ailment that caused him to lose York was serialized in the press ( Fig. ) and much energy and weight. With his prognosis uncertain, hyped by the showman. By the time Jumbo joined Barnum contracted with Ward to give immediate pri- The Greatest Show on Earth, he was already a house- ority to mounting his remains if and when he should hold name on both sides of the Atlantic. perish. ‘ I shall have my managers understand that if By virtue of his unrivalled size and celebrity, Jumbo we lose Jumbo (which Heaven forbid!) you must be remained the star attraction of the circus until his ac- telegraphed to immediately, and hope you will lose no cidental death in a collision with a train in St Thomas, time in saving his skin & skeleton. ’52 Barnum shrewdly Ontario, on September . No stranger to a anticipated that even in death Jumbo could be a valu- business setback or loss of animal life in his men- able attraction in his travelling show. agerie, Barnum made plans to ensure Jumbo’s post- And so Ward was ready when news came of Jum- humous fame almost as soon as he came to America. bo’s accident in Canada. In fact, he may have been Though Jumbo was a healthy twenty-one-year-old especially well prepared since just two weeks before elephant when he crossed the Atlantic in , the his death the circus had passed through Rochester stresses of captivity, constant rail travel and perform- and Jumbo’s keeper, Matthew Scott, had confi ded in ance in an alien climate, not to mention the rudimen- Henry Ward’s cousin, Frank, that ‘ he does not think tary state of veterinary medicine, made the longevity that he will live long, that it is now nearly a year since he of circus animals unpredictable. After his second year has been able to lie down. ’53 In any event, two days after on tour, in the autumn of , Jumbo came down Jumbo’s death, Barnum wired Ward: ‘ Go ahead, save
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS
Fig. . Jumbo killed in St Thomas, Ontario, Canada by a GTR. freight train, September . Photo: Historical Materials Collection (UA), Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University. Downloaded from http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/
skin and skeleton . . . Have not doubt you will fi nish Rochester, hoping to prime public curiosity for the both for Exhibition. ’54 With the season coming to upcoming season. By all accounts, Jumbo was as an end, it was decided that Jumbo’s mounted hide and popular dead as alive and he travelled with the circus skeleton would both accompany the circus when it set through Barnum’s triumphant return to London in at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 out on tour the following spring. the winter of -. Ward worked furiously through the winter, aided Even as Barnum calculated Jumbo’s posthumous by a young Carl Akeley, who went on to a successful worth in the years leading up to the fatal train colli- career at the Field Museum in Chicago and at the sion, he expected public interest eventually to wane AMNH, where he designed the great room of African and all the while gave thought to a permanent home mammals that now bears his name (see below). Fol- for his great elephant beyond the circus. As early as lowing advice from Spencer Baird, Barnum wrote to July , a year after Jumbo’s acquisition and only Ward encouraging him to increase Jumbo’s height two months after committing to build the Barnum during stuffi ng. ‘ It will be a grand thing to take all ad- Museum, he got his partners to agree to give Jumbo to vantage possible in this direction, ’ wrote Barnum. Tufts once he died.58 Whether Tufts would receive ‘ Let him show like a mountain! ’55 The purpose of Jumbo’s skin or skeleton he did not say – perhaps it taxidermy was to perpetuate in death the appearance had yet to occur to him that he might have two Jum- of life; typically, it involved (re)presenting a given bos to dispose of. A year later he wrote to Spencer specimen in the best possible condition, free of blem- Baird: ish (including unsightly bullet holes) and in the prime my manager and self think Jumbo’s skin or skeleton should 56 of life. While Jumbo was alive, Barnum had always go to your Institution, you taking your choice, and then the prevaricated on the subject of his actual size, allowing ‘ Barnum ’ Museum at Tufts College take the other . . . P.S. imagination and rumour to infl ate estimates.57 Once We hope however that Jumbo may yet live many years, but dead and stuffed, a defi nitive reckoning was unavoid- think it as well to decide now as ever where he shall be dis- 59 able, so Barnum leapt at the chance to enhance his tributed when he ceases to breathe. dimensions for posterity. Jumbo’s mounted hide and Barnum believed his great trophy belonged in a na- skeleton ( Figs. – ) were fi nished by late February tional museum. He also thought it especially fi tting and Barnum orchestrated a media event in that an animal that fi rst achieved fame in Great Britain
ANDREW MCCLELLAN
Fig. . Jumbo’s hide at Ward’s Natural Science Establish- ment, Rochester, NY, . Photo: Department of Rare Books and Special Collec- tions, University of Rochester Libraries. Downloaded from http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/
. Fig. Jumbo’s skeleton at at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, Rochester, NY, . Photo: Depart- ment of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Libraries.
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS should fi nd a home in an institution created with a you induce Barnum to give American Museum bequest by a Briton, James Smithson.60 “ Jumbo ” ? ’67 By December it had been decided that the As it happened, Barnum could not be induced to Smithsonian would get the skeleton and Tufts the break his word to Tufts and in the spring of mounted hide.61 Though Barnum reaffi rmed his com- Jumbo’s mounted hide was delivered to the Barnum mitment to both institutions over the years, his mind Museum and installed in the vestibule next to the was not fi rmly settled on several scores. First, Barnum founder’s bust ( Figs. – ). His massive size and rigid kept both museums waiting. The stuffed Jumbo had posture required the removal of the front steps and great value to the circus – Barnum estimated ‘ it is the doorframe to get him in; while the work was done, worth $, or more per year for exhibition in our he was staged for photographs outside.68 The compli- show ’ – and neither museum could expect delivery so cated process was repeated when he went to London long as it brought in good money.62 Second, he enter- in the autumn, but upon his return to Tufts in tained various business propositions that threatened he was permanently installed. to trump all promises. More than once, Barnum and Barnum’s commitment to the Smithsonian proved Downloaded from his partners explored the possibility of selling the less secure. Despite frequent assertions that Jumbo mounted elephant to buyers in London; one rumour belonged in Washington, the entangled dealings with suggested the British Museum (Natural History) Tufts caused a change of heart. His partners evidently might be interested.63 As late as , thought was favoured New York over the capital and by the spring given to creating a permanent museum in New York of Barnum was ready to go with the majority. In http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ affi liated with the Greatest Show, with Jumbo as a key late April he wrote to Jesup that he and his partners exhibit.64 And when Barnum was fi nally willing to had a ‘ tacit understanding that you shall have the fi rst part with skeleton and skin, he retained the right to chance for Jumbo’s skeleton. ’69 Soon thereafter he reclaim them for further ventures. Indeed the circus began sharing his views with relevant parties. In May borrowed both Jumbos for its London run in , he told John Marshall of pressure from the AMNH to and no sooner was the mounted hide back at Tufts donate specimens and added: ‘ entre-nous the Smith-
than Barnum wrote to Marshall: ‘ glad you have Jumbo sonian has behaved so shabbily I hope Jumbo’s skel- at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 again. Perhaps he will remain always, but as he speaks eton will go to the NY Institution. ’70 In July, after the all languages he may possibly in future years go circus had passed through Rochester, Henry Ward around the world. ’65 Lastly, by the mid s, Barnum informed Marshall that Barnum had called and had developed competing loyalties to three museums – expressed ‘ grave doubt about sending the skeleton to his museum at Tufts, the Smithsonian, and the Smithsonian. ’71 Finally in December, Barnum visited AMNH in New York – and after Jumbo’s death he the AMNH and let it be known publicly that the skel- wavered on which two would receive his prize objects, eton would not be going to Washington after all but notwithstanding his stated commitments. Never was rather to the New York museum.72 Jumbo went on a gift more tentatively given. display in New York in April (Fig. ) and the In a confi dential letter sent to Albert Bickmore at exultant president of the museum invited Barnum to the AMNH two weeks after Jumbo’s accident, Henry come and see it for himself: ‘ I think you will be sur- Ward wrote that, while the Smithsonian was in line to prised & thoroughly pleased when you see his skel- get the skeleton, Barnum had been eton; it has been fi nely mounted, both as regards the body and the pedestal. ’73 The skeleton accompanied . . . sensibly affected by the call to put the stuffed Jumbo eventually in your great museum. It is possible – this is only the mounted hide to London in September but Bar- my surmise , – that he wishes that he had promised to you num’s partner, James Bailey, promised it would re- before to Tufts College. He cannot now fairly change (and I turn by April, ‘ possibly to remain at the American think him a very fair man) without giving them a quid pro Museum forever. ’74 66 quo . Possibly he may be induced to do that. Notwithstanding the loan to the AMNH in , Ward offered his help and he may well have lobbied the Smithsonian remained confi dent Barnum would Barnum on behalf of the New York museum before keep his word and give the skeleton permanently to that time. In the previous year, the AMNH presi- the National Museum. Hornaday had worked hard to dent, Morris Jesup, had appealed to Ward: ‘ Can’t keep Barnum and Tufts happy and clearly hoped
ANDREW MCCLELLAN
Fig. . Moving Jumbo into the Barnum Museum, . Photo: Historical Materials Collection (UA), Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University. Downloaded from http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/
Fig. . Jumbo in the Barnum Museum, c . . Photo: Rollins Collection, Digital at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 Collections and Archives, Tufts University.
earlier grievances would be forgotten. So, it seems, it us from New York to the effect that Jumbo’s skel- came as an unwelcome surprise to learn in March eton, which you promised us years ago, is “ positively that the skeleton would probably stay in New to go to the American Museum of Natural History ” York after all. ‘ During the last week I have been at New York, to remain permanently, when the great much disquieted – and so has Professor Goode, ’ show returns from Europe. Surely this is not true. Hornaday wrote Barnum, ‘ by a rumor that has reached What says the King of Showmen?’ 75 Barnum replied
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS
Fig. . Jumbo at the Ameri- can Museum of Natural His- tory, . Photo: American Museum of Natural History, New York. Downloaded from http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/
elliptically, ‘ I felt and still do that a great National Not surprisingly, donations from the Smithsonian Museum situated in the Nation’s Capital is the most came to an end. proper place for Jumbo’s skeleton’ , 76 but this fell Over time, the collection of animal specimens aged short of a promise to give and Hornaday correctly and grew less useful to instruction in the life sciences. Marshall’s retirement in slowed further expan- surmised Barnum’s intent. He wrote to George at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 Brown Goode that he was sure ‘ the National Mu- sion and his successors on the faculty came to the uni- seum will never get Jumbo’s skeleton’ owing to frus- versity with new and different intellectual interests. trations generated by Tufts’s ‘ utterly insatiable ’ The Barnum Museum was completed on the cusp of a demands.77 After Barnum’s death in April , the revolution in scientifi c inquiry that, in the words of Smithsonian reviewed the relevant correspondence historian Stephen Conn, ‘ drew natural history into only to determine that the showman had been careful new areas of research, away from morphology and to- ward genetics, from whole organism biology into cel- to hedge his offer with enough qualifi cations to deter lular biology’ , and consequently ‘ from museum halls efforts to make a legal claim on the skeleton.78 into university labs’ . 80 At the Tufts museum, the two new wings Barnum intended for further specimens The Barnum Museum: later years were indeed used instead for classrooms and labora- tories. Furthermore, as a museum display, the Tufts The Tufts museum continued to prosper after Bar- collection was gradually rendered old fashioned by the num’s death in . Barnum gave the University a evolution in taxidermy practice from static single further $, to build two new wings on the Mu- specimens to dynamic habitat groups and dioramas. seum and new gifts were added to the collection. In the s, while still an apprentice under Ward, The triangular arrangement with Ward survived William Hornaday pioneered multi-fi gured groups in into the s. Following Barnum’s death, his simulated environments that recalled original habitats. partner, Bailey, wanted to end the deal but was evi- Robert Schufeldt’s government-sponsored Scientifi c dently talked into carrying on for a while longer by Taxidermy for Museums( ) commended the trend Marshall, and perhaps also by Ward who pointed for creating ‘ the look of life.’ 81 Hornaday’s fellow ap- out that it seemed a ‘ great pity that the skins and prentice at Ward’s, Carl Akeley, would set a new skeletons’ of lost animals ‘ should be put to no use’ . 79 standard of verisimilitude and shift the emphasis
ANDREW MCCLELLAN in museum displays defi nitively from taxonomy to wrote to Barnum’s eldest grandson: ‘ I propose to animal behaviour and ecology in his celebrated hall of move everything except Jumbo and the bust of Mr. African mammals at the AMNH, completed in Barnum, re-decorate and furnish the room attract- 82
after his death and named after him (Fig. fi g ). The ively . . . I want to make this room a permanent me- remarkable centrepiece of a travelling herd of ele- morial to P. T. Barnum as a notable fi gure in American phants shows how far he had brought the art of taxi- life and fi nance and as a benefactor of Tufts College. ’85 dermy since his early work on Jumbo in . The Barnum Museum became Barnum Hall, Jumbo In Russell Carpenter joined the biology fac- was restored, and freed of association with other ulty and took over the Museum. In the following year natural history exhibits he gained a stronger profi le as he decided to clear the building of its animal collec- the ‘ insignia and symbol of Tufts, ’ according to Car- tion and re-design the vestibule as a shrine to Barnum penter.86 While the skeleton at the AMNH retained and Jumbo. The Museum had been closed to the value as a type specimen of the African bush elephant public for some years and he believed the space could (Loxodonta Africana rothschildi ), the mounted Jumbo at be more effectively utilized. ‘ Fifty years of sunlight, Tufts became the beloved companion of undergradu- Downloaded from moths and the ravages of time have not dealt too ates, who posed with him for photographs and dropped
kindly with some of the specimens ’ , he wrote. ‘ The pennies in his trunk for good luck in exams ( Fig. fi g ) . lions have faded to a tawdry blondness, the zebra has Jumbo stood tall on the Tufts campus until a fi re stripes only on his shady side, and the giraffe split his destroyed the Barnum building and its contents on an seams some time ago. As a collection for public exhib- April night in . The morning after the fi re, an em- http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ ition, it served its purpose for many years but I feel ployee entered the smouldering ruins and swept Jumbo’s that its usefulness has passed. ’83 ashes into an empty peanut butter jar. Today, those As the animal specimens declined in value, Jum- ashes, still housed in their makeshift urn, are brought out bo’s iconic stature steadily grew. Of course, Jumbo to inspire the college athletic teams that bear his name. had always been more than just another animal spe- Jumbo enjoyed (endured) a remarkable life and cimen. From the fi rst, he was set apart in the entrance afterlife, which took him from the savannahs of East 84
as a popular attraction and showpiece. Carpenter Africa to captivity and fame in the zoos of Paris and at Tufts University on March 7, 2012
Fig. . Akeley Hall of African Mammals, American Museum of Natural History, New York, s. Photo: American Museum of Natural History, New York.
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS
Notes and references For an overview of American university natural history museums, see Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, ‘ Museums on campus: a tradition of inquiry and teaching ’ , in Ronald Rainger, Keith R. Benson and Jane Maienschein (eds), The American Development of Biology (Philadelphia, ), pp. -. Kohlstedt does not include Tufts in her appendix: ‘ Buildings established for scientifi c study on selected campuses, - ’ . Barnum has been well served by two modern biographies: Neil Harris, Humbug. The Art of P. T. Barnum (Chicago, ); A. H. Saxon, P. T. Barnum. The Legend and the Man (New York, ). Quoted in Russell E. Miller, Light on the Hill. A History of Tufts College - (Boston, ), p. . P. T. Barnum to Elmer Capen, October . Tufts University Archives [hereafter TUA], MS Box , folder
: (/). Barnum told Capen that he recently arrived home Downloaded from from travels to fi nd ‘ nearly a peck of begging letters ’ and had also drawn attention from St Lawrence University, another Unitarian Universalist institution. Barnum to Elmer Capen, May . TUA, MS Box , folder : (/).
Barnum to Elmer Capen, May . TUA, MS Box , http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ folder : (/). This and some other letters quoted in this article are reproduced in A. H. Saxon (ed.), Selected Letters of P.T. Barnum (New York, ), p. . Ibid. Barnum to Elmer Capen, June . TUA, MS Box , : [/]. Fig. . Tufts students with Jumbo, c . . Photo: Melville Lynn Barber, The Heyday of Natural History - (New Munro Collection, Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts York, ).
University. P. T. Barnum, Struggles and Triumphs: or, The Life of P.T. at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 Barnum , ed. George S. Bryan (New York, ), vol. II , p. London and Barnum’s peripatetic American circus, a . fatal train accident in Canada, and fi nally to posthu- For an overview of his contributions to natural history and mous celebrity as museum piece, college mascot, and involvement with museums, see John Richards Betts, ‘ P. T. Barnum and the popularization of natural history ’ , Journal of byword for anything of great size. Perhaps no animal the History of Ideas no. (), pp. -. illustrates more dramatically the range of ‘ journeys or Barnum to William T. Hornaday, April , Smithsonian passages that some wild animals make between the Institution Archives, Washington, RU Box . contested terrain of “ nature ” and “ culture ” – from Barnum to Elmer Capen, June . TUA, MS Box , those spaces and conditions in which their lives are : [/]. largely their own concerns and lived apart from us, to Ibid. For full text, see Saxon, op. cit. (note ), pp. -. the differently confi gured spaces and conditions that Tuftonian no. (), p. . The magazine failed to note that the design was much indebted to the Boston Society of arise when we . . . bring them out of their spaces and Natural History, which had opened in . See Sally Gregory into our human “ cultural ” world. ’87 Kohlstedt and Paul Brinkman, ‘ Framing nature: the formative years of natural history museum development in the United States’ , in Alan Leviton and Michele Aldrich (eds), Museums Address for correspondence and other Institutions of Natural History: Past, Present, and Future, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences Andrew McClellan, Dean’s Offi ce, Tufts University, Ballou Hall, Supplement (), pp. -. Medford, MA , USA. [email protected] Barnum to Elmer Capen, June . TUA, MS Box , : [/]. For full text, see Saxon, op. cit. (note ), pp. –. Keith Benson points out that academic natural Acknowledgements history, congruent with Barnum’s own views, ‘ often made a more overt connection between the study of the I would like to thank Christa Clarke, Neil Harris and the an- wondrous artifacts in nature and the American version onymous referee for this journal for their helpful comments on of natural theology; that is, one studied nature to observe earlier drafts of this paper. signs of a beneficent creator who designed the harmonious
ANDREW MCCLELLAN
natural world.’ Keith R. Benson, ‘ From museum research Barnum to Elmer Capen, March . TUA, MS Box , to laboratory research: the transformation of natural : [/]. history into academic biology’ , in Rainger, Benson and Spencer F. Baird to Barnum, June . TUA, MS Box Maienschein, op. cit. (note ), p. . , : [/]. Barnum to Elmer Capen, July . TUA, MS Box , : Spencer F. Baird to Barnum, April . TUA, MS Box [ / ]: ‘ I am determined you shall have “ Jumbo ” & such other , folder . specimens as I can spare – when you get the building ready – and when Jumbo dies. ’ Barnum to Spencer F. Baird, April . Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington [hereafter SIA], RU Box On Ward, see Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, ‘ Henry A. Ward: the . Barnum further noted that Baird’s predecessor, Joseph merchant naturalist and American museum development’ , Henry, had offered to supply Barnum’s American Museum Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History with specimen duplicates, recognizing it as ‘ a scientific no. (), pp. -. Further facts about his life are institution ’ . He hoped that offer might now be extended to provided by: Robert G. Koch, ‘ Henry A. Ward’ , Crooked Lake Tufts. Review (December ). http :// crookedlakereview . com / Barnum to Elmer Capen, October . TUA, MS Box articles / _ / de / koch . html . , : [/]: Baird ‘ feels indebted to me – and especially Quoted by Kohlstedt, op. cit. (note ), p. . as he is to have skeleton of Jumbo. ’ The Annual Report of the Downloaded from Barnum to Elmer Capen, November . Henry Ward Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, Papers. University of Rochester Library [hereafter URL]. ), p. , notes that ‘ For a number of years the Institution has been indebted to the proprietors of the menageries of the Henry Ward to John Marshall, November . TUA, country for the contribution of animals’ , the most important MS Box , :. being that of ‘ Messrs. Barnum, Bailey, and Hutchinson ’ . Ibid. The Smithsonian archives also has a list of animals presented
http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ Henry Ward to Barnum, November , . TUA, MS by Barnum in - , which includes baboons and other Box , :. The Tufts archives has two lists of specimens monkeys; an Indian elephant, leopard, and cheetah; a llama, supplied by Ward in , listing some animals and zebra, kangaroo, and a few antelope. RU Box . shells and pieces of coral. TUA, MS Box , folder . John Marshall to Barnum, April . TUA, MS Box Henry Ward to John Marshall, January and February , : . It is evident from correspondence that Ward had also . TUA, MS Box , :. complained about Baird and the Smithsonian. John Marshall to Henry A. Ward, December . Ward Papers, URL. Barnum to Elmer Capen, February . TUA, MS Box , : [/]; Barnum to John Marshall, July . Barnum to Elmer Capen, November . TUA, MS Box TUA, MS Box , : [/]. Barnum’s suspicions are hard , : [ / ]. to justify in view of the fact that Ward twice went bankrupt Barnum to John Marshall, February . TUA, MS Box at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 and typically sold close to dealer costs and was often bargained , : [/]; Barnum told Marshall he expected ‘ favorable lower; see Kohlstedt, op. cit. (note ), p. . results’ from his intervention. In March, Marshall sent Barnum a list of desiderata, mostly East Coast invertebrates ‘ which Barnum to Elmer Capen, November . TUA, MS Box , : [/]. would be most valuable for purposes of instruction.’ John Marshall to Barnum, March . SIA, RU , Box . Barnum to Elmer Capen, January . TUA, MS Box , : [/]. John Marshall to Barnum, April . TUA, MS Box , :. Barnum to John Marshall, January ; January . Ibid. TUA, MS Box , : [/]. William T. Hornaday to Barnum, May . SIA, RU inventory of animals received from Barnum. TUA, MS Box . An earlier letter from Hornaday, dated March Box , folder . The Museum continued to receive gifts , stated: ‘ I am really shocked at the discovery that you from other donors as well. Some of these gifts were sizeable, have a feeling that we are disposed to refuse duplicates to including a large set of stuffed birds and animals from the Lady the Barnum Museum at Tufts. If this is true, ‘ some one has Members of the st Universalist Church of Boston in . blundered, ’ and I wish to know all about it . . . The offi cers After the Museum presented separate annual reports, of this Institution have by no means forgotten the many & complete with yearly gifts, as appendices to the President’s valuable favors we have received from you.’ RU Box . published annual reports. A subsequent letter from Hornaday of April details Annual Report of the President of Tufts College, - (Boston, the measures he had taken to fi ll Marshall’s order, expressing ), p. . Marshall voiced his concerns from the outset, regret if offence had been caused. Five days earlier, Goode noting that Barnum’s fi rst offerings were ‘ unnecessarily strong had told Hornaday that the Smithsonian would honour in the monkey, bat and anteater families ’ and hoping in time the arrangement between Baird and Barnum to ‘ give a ‘ to purchase what other things are more needed just now for considerable amount of material in exchange to the Barnum purposes of instruction. ’ John Marshall to Henry A. Ward, Museum of Tufts College.’ George Brown Goode to William November . Ward Papers, URL. Hornaday, April . TUA, MS Box , folder . Henry A. Ward to Barnum, May . TUA, MS Box , John Marshall to George Brown Goode, August . SIA, :. Ward also remarked that the vertebrate collection ‘ takes RU Box , folder . rank with the best museums in the country. ’ William Hornaday to George Brown Goode, August . John Marshall to Henry A. Ward, January . Ward SIA, RU Box , folder . Hornaday included a draft Papers, URL. of an angry letter which he suggested Goode should send to
P . T . BARNUM, JUMBO, AND THE BARNUM MUSEUM AT TUFTS
Marshall. The letter Goode did send Marshall was a good deal Barnum to Morris K. Jesup, September . American tamer. Perhaps Marshall felt bad for appearing ungrateful, for Museum of Natural History (hereafter AMNH), Central Barnum wrote to Hornaday on August : ‘ Prof. Marshall Archives, Administrative Files. writes me in great ecstasy over the beautiful and useful presents Barnum to Spencer F. Baird, September : ‘ We have which Secretary Goode and yourself have graciously sent to the been called from London for a price for skin and skeleton, Barnum Museum. ’ SIA, RU Box . by a Naturalist there. My partners think it is for the John Marshall to Barnum, April ; Barnum to William British Museum and they evidently have some idea that Hornaday, April . SIA, RU Box . Marshall the skeleton may be sold for a large price when its public wrote to Barnum that Tufts would like casts of Assyrian exhibition is finished in our show.’ SIA, RU, Box ; antiquities, duplicates of the ‘ fine invertebrates collected Barnum to John Marshall, December : ‘ We came by the Albatross’ , and ‘ a set of good fossils and rocks very near selling Jumbo here [in London] but the chances collected & determined by the U.S. Geological Society.’ are he will get back to the College in the spring.’ TUA, MS He complained that the plants received in were hastily Box , : [/]. prepared, the Indian artefacts duplicates of what they Barnum to John Marshall, April . TUA, MS Box , already had, and the set of rocks and minerals ‘ from the : [/]: ‘ it grows more and more probable that before next Territories’ received earlier from Washington ‘ very poor.’ Christmas we shall open a Museum here, wherein we must
He added: ‘ Prof. Hornaday knows perfectly well what else place the skin and skeleton of Jumbo. This I cannot help for in Downloaded from is needed. ’ that case the greater benefi t will swallow the smaller one. ’ William Hornaday to Barnum, May . TUA, MS Box Barnum to John Marshall, March . TUA, MS Box , : [/]. , : [/]. William Hornaday to Barnum, March . TUA, MS Henry A. Ward to Albert Bickmore, October . AMNH, Box , : [/]. A list of gifts received is included in Central Archives, Administrative Files. the Annual Report of the President of Tufts College, - http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ Morris K. Jesup to Henry A. Ward, September . Ward (Boston, ), pp. - . Papers, URL. Barnum to William Hornaday, May . SIA, RU Getting Jumbo into the museum at Tufts required extraordinary Box . effort. The ,-pound stuffed hide was first carried by Barnum to William Hornaday, April . SIA, RU horse-drawn cart from the local railway station but then Box . hauled up the hill by some fi fty Tufts professors and students For the story of Jumbo, see Paul Chambers, Jumbo. The and a host of neighbourhood boys. Jumbo was too big to fi t Greatest Elephant in the World (Hanover, NH, ); W. P. through the door, requiring the removal of the stone steps, Jolly, Jumbo (London, ). some of the brick fl ooring, and the wooden door frame. TUA, MS , Box , folders , . Correspondence between
at Tufts University on March 7, 2012 Barnum to Henry A. Ward, October . Ward Papers, Henry Ward and John Marshall in October contains URL. further details about maneuvering Jumbo into the museum. Henry A. Ward to John Marshall, August . TUA, MS Ward Papers, URL. Box , : . Saxon, op. cit. (note ), p. . Barnum to Henry A. Ward, September . Ward Barnum to John Marshall, May . TUA, MS Box , Papers, URL. The idea of preparing both skin and skeleton : [/]. for exhibition evidently came from Barnum’s associates, see Saxon, op. cit. (note ), p. . Henry A. Ward to John Marshall, July . TUA, MS Box , :. Barnum to Henry A. Ward, September . Ward Papers, J. A. Allen to Morris K. Jesup, December . AMNH, URL. Central Archives, Administrative Files. On the idealizing function of taxidermy, see Hanna Rose Morris K. Jesup to Barnum, April . AMNH, Central Shell, ‘ Skin deep: taxidermy, embodiment, and extinction in Archives, Letterpress Book , pp. -. In the letter, Jesup W.T. Hornaday’s Buffalo Group’ , in Leviton and Aldrich, op. acknowledged that Jumbo was on loan and would place cit. (note ), pp. -. a notice to that effect on the pedestal, but hoped ‘ such an Before and after his death, there were confl icting reports interesting subject will not be required to be removed by about Jumbo’s height, but it seems he stood just under you for a very long time to come.’ Barnum had come to feet. Mounted on his pedestal by Ward he measured feet the museum in March to confi rm loan details; Barnum to ½ inches. See Walter Guest Kellogg, ‘ How big was Jumbo? ’ , Morris K. Jesup, March . AMNH, Central Archives, Circus Scrap Book (April ), pp. -. Administrative Files. Barnum to Elmer Capen, July and July . TUA, MS James Bailey to Jennes Richardson, telegram, September Box , : [/]. See note above. . AMNH Central Archives, Administrative Files. Barnum to Spencer F. Baird, June . SIA, RU, Box . William Hornaday to Barnum, March . TUA, MS In June of , while in discussions with Baird about the Box , : [ / ]. creation of a national zoo in Washington, Barnum offered to Barnum to William Hornaday, April . SIA, RU, lend Jumbo occasionally. Barnum to Spencer F. Baird, June Box . . SIA, RU , Box , Barnum fi le. William Hornaday to George Brown Goode, April . Barnum to Spencer F. Baird, December . SIA, RU, SIA, RU, Box . The memo is marked ‘ R.I.P. ’ In a Box . follow-up memo of June , Hornaday noted: ‘ Evidently
ANDREW MCCLELLAN
the Museum will never get Jumbo’s skeleton, notwithstanding See Stephen Christopher Quinn, Windows on Nature. The Mr. Barnum’s promises in the matter.’ Great Habitat Dioramas of the American Museum of Natural ‘ Memorandum to Mr. Goode ’ , April . SIA, RU, History (New York, ). Box . The memo cites a letter of September in Russell Carpenter to C. Barnum Seeley, July . which Barnum told Baird: ‘ It is my full intention that the TUA, MS , Box , folder . Also Russell Carpenter to Ward Smithsonian shall receive Jumbo’s skeleton in due time as a Cruickshank, March . TUA, MS , Box , folder , in gift . I may not perhaps be able to carry it out – for I don’t own which Carpenter recalls the sad state of the animals when he quite half of the show & I shall have one or two new partners. ’ arrived. It was decided that the Harvard museum nearby could satisfy student needs, as Spencer Baird had suggested in the Frank Ward to John Marshall, March . TUA, MS beginning. Some of the animals were sent to decorate Perry’s Box , :. No specimens from Ward’s are listed after Tropical Nut Houses of Belfast, Maine and Seabrook, New . In - the Barnum Museum welcomed a donation Hampshire in ; others were used as landfi ll in construction of deceased animals from Bostock’s Animal Arena, which of college playing fi elds. were prepared for exhibition by a janitor who doubled as a taxidermist. Annual Report of the President of Tufts College, Two weeks before Jumbo died, John Marshall had written - (Boston, ). to Henry Ward: ‘ I should not consider the Barnum Museum complete without this noble animal. It would be the Stephen Conn, Museums and American Intellectual Life,
greatest ornament that we could place in the vestibule near Downloaded from - (Chicago, ), pp. , . Also Keith Benson: Mr. Barnum’s bust. ’ John Marshall to Henry A. Ward, ‘ beginning in the s and continuing through the end of the September . Ward Papers, URL. century, biology moved beyond the museum. First into nature . . . and then into the university laboratory. ’ Benson, op. cit. Russell Carpenter to C. Barnum Seeley, July . TUA, (note ), p. . MS , Box , folder . Quoted by Shell, op. cit. (note ), p. . On taxidermy also Ibid.
see, Rachel Poliquin, ‘ The matter and meaning of museum Garry Marvin, ‘ Perpetuating polar bears: the cultural life of http://jhc.oxfordjournals.org/ taxidermy ’ , in ‘ Constructing nature under glass ’ , in Samuel dead animals ’ , in Bryndis Snaebjornsdottir and Mark Wilson J. M. M. Alberti and Christopher Whitehead (eds.), Museum (eds), nanoq: fl atout and bluesome. A Cultural Life of Polar and Society no. (), pp. -. Bears (London, ), p. . at Tufts University on March 7, 2012