Barnum's American Museum
Barnum's American Museum, Entertainment museum at Broadway and Ann Street, Manhattan, US
Barnum's American Museum was a five-story building at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in Manhattan that displayed taxidermy animals, wax figures, and live creatures. The structure contained multiple exhibition halls, a basement aquarium, and a lecture hall where theatrical performances also took place.
Barnum acquired the former Scudder museum in 1841 and continuously expanded the collection with new attractions and performers. A fire destroyed the building in July 1865, and another blaze destroyed his second museum just three years later.
The name reflected Barnum's ambition to display American culture comprehensively in one location. Visitors gathered in social spaces that functioned as popular meeting spots, particularly for middle-class women seeking public gathering places.
The museum once stood where part of the Financial District now sits and can only be explored through historical records and surviving photographs today. A virtual reconstruction allows visitors to view the exhibits online from anywhere.
During the fire, some monkeys and snakes escaped through the windows and fled into the streets of Lower Manhattan. Many onlookers initially mistook the burning wax figures for living people and attempted to rescue them from the flames.
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