It seems that Dr. Griffin could not resist the exhibition after all the hype, and agreed to show the mermaid at Concert Hall for one week only. By chance, after this week, the mermaid moved to the AmericanMuseum, where Barnum welcomed it with an 18-footflag of a beautiful mermaid. Barnum dismissed allthis as a "ploy" to attract people to his museum.His carefully-planned publicity campaign workedwell; museum receipts almost tripled, and themermaid was off to tour the country.
EVOLUTIONARY MERMAIDOLOGY
Perhaps the most controversial episodein the mermaid's odyssey was in Charleston, SouthCarolina. Charles Darwin had recently publishedhis Origin of Species, which aroused muchdebate among naturalists and the public alike. Thetheory that the human species evolved from monkeysdisturbed our collective arrogance.
Race science became a hot topic. A debatesurfaced questioning whether the human race wasone species or many. Some well-known scientistswere convinced that there was, in fact, no unityin the human race. The differences between people(Black, white and Indian being the maindistinctions drawn by scientists at the time) weretoo great to encompass the same species, theytheorized. A Scottish judge and "dabbler inmetaphysics," Lord Kames (1696-1782), had remarkedthat the differences between races could hardly beaccounted for by environment. He held that whites,Blacks, and Indians were inherently differentspecies. Had he not 'known' that God created onlyone single pair of the human species, he mighthave believed that "God created many pairs of thehuman race, differing from each other bothexternally and internally; that he fitted thesepairs for different climates, and placed each pairin its proper climate." But, religious man that hewas, Kames rejected this theory.
Dr. Josiah Nott, a respected physician in the1840s, who was then considered one of the foundersof the American school of anthropology, tookKames' hypothesis further. He asserted that Blackswere of a different species, and called mixed-racepeople 'hybrids.' He warned against intermarriagebetween white and Black, predicting it would bringthe fall of both 'species.'
Barnum brought the feejee mermaid to Charlestonin the 1840s, and played right into the hands ofNott and his contemporaries. Nott used themermaid, and many of Barnum's other oddities, toshow that the human species can diverge. Themermaid, which he professed to be genuine, provedthat this half-human was of a different species,as were the different races. The mermaid wascaught up in the intense debate over the unity ofthe human species.
At the same time, a Lutheran cleric and amateurnaturalist named John Bachman targeted the mermaidand denounced it as a fraud as part of his attackagainst Nott. Backed by other naturalists, heargued that the mermaid was simply the body of amonkey sewn to a fish, and that it wasanatomically inaccurate. The mermaid, encased inglass, was not allowed to be examined, sobelievers in the mermaid accused the naturalistsof taking authority in a matter which they hadnever submitted to scientific examination. Themermaid, or rather Barnum's business, suffered agreat deal during this time, and Barnum wiselydecided to bring the mermaid back to New York.
Barnum, as his biographer A. H. Saxon says,"encouraged people to be skeptical. That's how hegot people in." Saxon continued laughingly,"Mermaids were believed to be hybrids. All Barnumdid was present the oddities, and said, 'Here, youlook at it, you decide.'"
After contemplating a law-suit against Bachman,Barnum instead decided to bring the Mermaid backfor one last exhibit. He used the controversy tohis advantage and prepared the followingcleverly-worded advertisement:
Barnum also persuaded a Universalist ministerto preach a sermon about man's arrogance inassuming that he knows all about the laws ofnature. The preacher delivered his sermon andspoke of the shallow philosophy of man whobelieves that he knows all about the earth and itscreation.
Barnum did not, in fact, bring the Mermaid backout on exhibit, but rather handed it over toKimball. He was on to better, if not bigger,things with his discovery of a certain two-foot,five-year old...General.
THE MERMAID MATRICULATES. OR DOES SHE?
The feejee' mermaid stayed in the BostonMuseum for the next 40 years. In 1897 it wasdonated to