P. T. Barnum, Jumbo the Elephant, and the Barnum Museum of Natural History at Tufts University
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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. W HEN 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.