copyright paul kane 2007 all rights reserved
This picture was inspired by Dr. Doolittle's Pushmepullyou; however, I'm afraid it looks more like a Perot-saurus!
I find the idea of a Creation Museum historically interesting. Anyone remember the Cardiff Giant?
According to R. J. Brown:
P. T. Barnum is ... affiliated with the famous quote "There's a sucker born every minute." History, unfortunately, has misdirected this quotation. ...
From 1866 until 1868 Mr. George Hull, of Binghamton, New York studied archeology and paleontology. Over this period of time Hull contemplated how to pull off a hoax. It seems that many an evangelist at the time had been preaching that there were giants in the earth...
Hull ... hired a stone cutter named Edward Burghardt to carve a giant ...
The giant finished, Hull then had the figure shipped by rail to the farm of William Newell, his cousin, located near the town of Cardiff, New York. In the dead of night, Hull, Newell and his oldest son buried the giant between the barn and house. They were instructed to say nothing about it and that Hull would let them know in about a year of what the next stage was.
.... Newell hired two laborers to dig a new well near his home. Newell directed them to the exact spot he wanted the well dug ... Sure enough, well into the day, the two laborers rushed up to the house to announce their discovery: a giant turned to stone! ...
News of this amazing discovery spread throughout the valley ...
About ten days after the discovery, and about the time the Cardiff Giant, as the papers had named it, started receiving national attention, Hull sold two-thirds interest in the giant for $30,000 to a five-man syndicate in Syracuse, the head of which was a banker named David Hannum ...
Barnum wanted the giant to display himself while the attraction was still a hot topic of the day. ... Barnum hired a crew of workers to carve a giant of his own. Within a short time, Barnum unveiled HIS giant and proclaimed that Hannum had sold Barnum the original giant and that Hannum was now displaying a fake! ... It is at this point that Hannum -- NOT BARNUM -- was quoted as saying "There's a sucker born every minute." ...
It's right and appropriate that Barnum should come into this. It was Barnum, I believe, who established the first successful museum in this country:
P.T. Barnum's American Museum, located from 1841 to 1865 at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in lower Manhattan, has been long recognized by historians as a pivotal institution in the development of nineteenth-century urban culture. For a twenty-five cent admission, visitors viewed an ever-revolving series of "attractions," from the patchwork Fejee Mermaid to the diminutive and articulate Tom Thumb. But the Museum also promoted educational ends, including natural history in its menageries, aquaria, and taxidermy exhibits; history in its paintings, wax figures, and memorabilia; and temperance reform and Shakespearean dramas in its "Lecture Room" or theater. Foreshadowing trends in American commercial amusement, the Museum was the first institution to combine sensational entertainment and gaudy display with instruction and moral uplift.
We don't think of museums this way today (thank goodness), for the most part, but - in a way - the Creation Museum sounds like a kind of throwback, mixing science and fantasy, entertainment and 'moral instruction'.
It might not be surprising to know that "Its designer, Patrick Marsh, used to work at Universal Studios in Los Angeles."
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More on the Creation Museum.
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P.T. Barnum also (supposedly) said:
Every crowd has a silver lining.
Is the Creation Museum looking for the silver lining, or 'spiritual' lining, or both? One way or another, I suspect its success or failure will depend on how entertaining it is.