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Commentary 57 Commentary Gleason’s was one of the large-format, illustrated popular magazines. Its praise for the American Museum in 1853 showed how successful had been Barnum’s strategy of cultivating the middlebrow public. Jenny Lind and temperance drama in the Lecture Room helped his campaign. Fine-art transparencies of European cities, statues, and the innumerable cases of natural history framed the main attractions, the spectacles of the living performers, animal and human . By 1863 the museum claimed 833 separate attractions and 850,000 items in the seven ‘‘saloons’’ on the five floors. ‘‘American Museum, New York,’’ Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion 4 (January 29, 1853): 72, 73. Located at the confluence of the two great thoroughfares of the city, it is an object of great attraction, from the flags, transparencies and paintings with which its exterior is decorated. On gala days, or other occasions of public interest, it bears off the palm by the number and beauty of its decorations; its location affording the finest possible opportunity for display. . . . We know that the name of Barnum and humbug are synonymous, but dropping the Fejee mermaid, Joyce Heth, and others of that elk, we cannot but give him the credit of offering the most pleasant and attractive place of amusement on this continent. Indeed, on a visit recently, we spent between three and four hours in viewing the attractions in two rooms only of this immense establishment , and left with the most pleasing impressions. . . . The ‘‘Happy Family,’’ too, with which Barnum’s name has become inseparably connected, is another of the manifold curiosities of this wonder-awakening establishment. Here are seen animals of the most incongruous natures eating out of the same dish, resting upon the same perch, and making their beds together. Owls and doves, eagles and rabbits, cats and rats, hawks and small birds, monkeys, guinea-pigs, mice, squirrels, and a host of others, ‘‘too numerous to mention,’’ forming altogether one of the most incongruous collections ever put together. . . . [T]he Lecture Room . . . is one of the most elegant and recherche halls of its class to be found anywhere. It is fitted up in the most gorgeous style, yet so arranged as not to offend the eye with a multiplicity of ornament. All is harmonious, and there is nothing to detract from the general beauty of the whole. Of the performances in this room it is scarcely necessary for us to speak. The truth is, the public had long felt the want of a place of public entertainment in which a proper respect for the decencies and decorum of life were judiciously mingled with the broadest elements of mirth, and the refined vagaries of the most exuberant fancy. We have furnished in this lecture-room just such a place.—Every species of amusement, ‘‘from grave to gay, from lively to severe,’’ is furnished—but so judiciously purged of every semblance of immorality, that the most fastidious may listen with satisfaction, and the most sensitive witness without fear. In some measure the same influence is exercised by the American Museum, in THE DIME MUSEUM 58 New York, as is the case with the Boston Museum. Thousands, who from motives of delicacy, cannot bring themselves to attend theatrical representations in a theatre, find it easy enough to reconcile a museum, and its vaudevilles and plays to their consciences. We confess that it is very difficult for us to make a distinction between the two, when the same plays are performed, the same actors employed, and the same effect given. If well conducted, we can realize no harm from either; but, on the contrary, consider that agreeable and often instructive amusement is thus afforded to the million, at a cheap rate. There are many sound moral principles that cannot be so thoroughly impressed in any other way as by theatrical representations; the more lifelike the example, the more impressive the contrast between good and evil—and a good play always holds up vice to disgrace, and elevates virtue and the love of right. Many of the plays of modern times are as good practical sermons as were ever preached from the pulpit, and, beyond a doubt, exert quite as exalted and purifying an influence. The play of ‘‘The Drunkard,’’ as performed at the Boston Museum, not long since, doubtless exerted a strong and lasting influence in behalf of the cause of temperance, more potent than fifty lectures delivered before the same number of people upon this subject. Barnum attracted...

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