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1839, McGuigan and Franklin Peale examined additions to the scientific
collections. “Most of it—minerals, seeds, skins of animals
of all sorts—was not exhibitable.” In 1841 William McGuigan
was appointed as a curator of the Ruben Peale’s Philadelphia Museum
Company. McGuigan became curator during a time of financial crisis.
During the fateful summer of 1842, William
McGuigan entered into the Fejee Mermaid craze. “[W]hen William McGuigan
promptly acquired a matching specimen of his own, from “a gentleman
in the city,” one may suspect that he, the expert taxidermist, made
it himself.” Even McGuigan’s promotion was similar to Barnum’s,
but also similar to the card on the MPM Mermaid. He said that it was “a
wonderful creation of man’s ingenuity … being the handy work
of the Japanese.” The result was “attracting crowds and cutting
short the fanfare built up in New York by Barnum.” With McGuigan’s
fake, the Philadelphia Museum was saved from financial ruin.
After Rembrandt Peale and Joseph Parker, two
members of the Philadelphia Museum’s Committee of Investigation,
offered a mea culpa for past sins, Titian Peale was reinstated as curator
on November 1, 1842. McGuigan later stepped down as curator and Museum
Record Book entries cease after October 28th. He had worked at the Philadelphia
Museum for fifteen years, but “had at least a small livelihood as
a taxidermist.”
In 1848, when Barnum left the dime museum business to enter the field
of musical theatre (a common practice among dime museum owners), he sold
his collections. The 1848 Sheriff’s sale catalogue lists the various
types of artifacts and curiosities purchased from the Peales. “The
Japanese Mermaid” was listed under the category “Miscellaneous
and Unidentified.” “McGuigan’s “Japanese Mermaid”
went to Kimball who already had one. Both are still extant.” The
endnote in Sellers’s book states that both are in the Peabody Museum.
The Peabody accessioned the Kimball Mermaid
in 1897, while Carrie Lamb donated another mermaid in 1928. The McGuigan
Mermaid is actually the Lamb Mermaid, which is similar to the MPM’s
Mermaid. How MPM acquired a Japanese Mermaid made by William McGuigan
has not been discovered, since the donor documentation is still missing.
Al Muchka also gave corroborating evidence that could make the Mermaid
one of McGuigan’s taxidermy. He stated that the sign in the “wonder
box” appears to be made in the 1920s , which is the same time that
Lamb donated her mermaid to the Peabody.
Due to its fascinating appearance, it could have also been in the possession
of a sideshow or carnival prior to her purchase. The same could be said
for the MPM Mermaid. The sideshow or carnival could have added the sign
at a later date. Unfortunately with sideshows and carnivals, preserving
the wonder of the animal gaff relies on the anonymity of the artist. McGuigan,
depending on his financial situation after leaving the Philadelphia Museum,
could have made a series of similar Japanese Mermaids and sold them to
sideshows and carnivals.
The Mermaid was never intended to function
as a piece of art, but as a zoological specimen. This practice of deception,
coupled with the sideshow technique of exaggeration and quasi-scientific
rhetoric, make it a challenge to document its history.
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Continuing
Traditions
The profession of making
animal gaffs for sideshows continues into the present day. In the
original form of this paper, I included examples from prominent
animal gaff artists in a Visual Appendix. As with any art form,
procuring a complete catalog of present-day artists who make Feejee
Mermaids would be a challenge.
I have chosen three gaff artists as exemplary gaff makers. Sarina
Brewer, Mark Frierson, and Juan Cabana make modern recreations of
the Feejee Mermaid. Brewer’s work is, at least aesthetically
speaking, of the highest quality (Figure 6). The work is realistic
with a Gothic intensity. It is also in high demand among sideshow
professionals. Mark Frierson’s work appears more human-like,
whereas Brewer’s appears more animal-like (Figure 7). Frierson’s
designs recall McGuigan’s mermaids while Brewer’s mermaids
bring to mind genetic manipulations that have gone awry (more Dr.
Moreau than P.T. Barnum). Juan Cabana’s (Figure 8) work is
large and also the most expensive (a six foot specimen was being
sold online for $6000). His work is highly detailed and reminiscent
of McGuigan’s mermaid, especially in the design of the head.
The Bibliography lists the websites where these mermaids can be
seen or purchased.
While this is a brief overview of the modern gaff artists, it is
important because the Fejee Mermaid has become a myth in its own
right, inspiring artists the same way mermaids inspired craftsmen
and taxidermists in an earlier era. The original Fejee Mermaid was
used by Eades to demythologize fantastic creatures to an audience
grasping the contradictions and turmoil of the Industrial Revolution,
modern gaff artists re-mythologize the mermaid, inspiring sideshow
audiences with a sense of wonder in the Digital Age where information
and answers (however dubious) are at our fingertips and science
has neutralized the spiritual and shrunk the Great Unknown.
The Perils of Hybridity
The Japanese Mermaid presents a series of challenges to the Museum.
These challenges are the perils of hybridity and they encompass
the areas of cataloging, conservation, and collections. Its hybridity,
half-simian half-fish; half-papier-mâché, half-organic;
half-zoological oddity, half-historical artifact; make otherwise
routine museological tasks more precarious.
Cataloging is a challenge because the Mermaid has three potential
areas where it could be listed: zoology, anthropology, and history.
Muchka explained that the Mermaid was in Zoology during the 1980s,
but was re-cataloged by the History Department in 1993. He also
went on to say that the Mermaid does not fit into History’s
collection policy and the Museum would not accession any similar
artifacts in the future.
Conservation presents another challenge. The presence of both papier-mâché
and fish make it difficult to preserve. Both substances have inherent
vices that make it challenging to place the artifact in an environment
optimal for both.
Collections, already briefly explained, are the final challenge.
As a cataloging anomaly and conservation challenge, it remains in
the MPM collection because of its historical significance. This
paper has been an attempt to contextualize the Japanese Mermaid
within the various strata of significance: mythology, taxidermy,
sideshow history, and its relationship to modernity. The Japanese
Mermaid, even though still more investigation needs to take place,
is a highly significant and historically pivotal artifact, worthy
of protection, conservation, and, perhaps, a return to exhibition.
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Article by Karl Wolff, master’s student in Public
History-Museum Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
During the summer of 2005 he completed an internship at
the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida.
REFERENCES
(see below)
This page last
updated August 28, 2005.
Comments?
Anything to add? Go to the showhistory.com
Bulletin
Board and post!
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Bibliography
Primary Sources
Artifacts
Milwaukee Public Museum: H53343 / 28457, “Japanese Mermaid”.
Peabody # 97-39-70/72853, “Java”, Kimball 1897.
Peabody # 28-6-60/D3257, “Japan”, Lamb 1928.
Books
O’Leary, John G., ed. Struggles and Triumphs of P.T. Barnum:
Told by Himself. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1967.
Barnum’s autobiography gives unique insights into the promotion
and troubles encountered with the Fejee Mermaid.
Correspondence
Circus World Museum. Baraboo, Wisconsin.
Elizabeth Engel
Erin Foley
Milwaukee Public Museum. Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Claudia Jacobson
Al Muchka
Susan Otto
Dawn Sher Thomae
Judith Turner
Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy.
Robert Marbury
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Christina Hodge
www.showhistory.com
D.B. Doghouse
Sideshow_World@Yahoo.com (Online discussion group)
Various members
Documents
Conservation Report: Condition/Minor Treatment. Milwaukee Public
Museum. Undated. Unsigned.
Department of History 11, (Milwaukee Public Museum: Date of entry:
9 June 1993).
Interviews
Muchka Al, Associate Curator of American and Local History/Collections
Manager, Milwaukee Public Museum. 20 April 2005.
Secondary Sources
Books
Alderson, William T., ed. Mermaids, Mummies, and Mastodons: The
Emergence of the American Museum. Washington, D.C.: American Association
of Museums, 1992.
This book is a great resource. It has one of the best color photos
of the Kimball Mermaid. The earnings of the American Museum are
charted in the back.
Bachmann, Konstanze, ed. Conservation Concerns: A Guide for Collectors
and Curators. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Boese, Alex. The Museum of Hoaxes: A Collection of Pranks, Stunts,
Deceptions, and Other Wonderful Stories Contrived for the Public
from the Middle Ages to the Millennium. New York: Dutton, 2002.
Boese’s book is an encyclopedic resource covering a wide historical
range. His account of the Fejee Mermaid is concise and accurate.
Bondeson, Jan. The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and
Unnatural History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Bondeson uses a combination of historical, medical, and cultural
sources in his account of the Fejee Mermaid. It was instrumental
in tracing the mythological roots of the mermaid as well as tracking
mermaids in museum collections.
Gould, Stephen J. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002.
The first third of Gould’s magnum opus explains pre-Darwinian
theories of development, including Cuvier, Lamarcke, and Saint-Hilaire.
It is key to understanding the scientific theories at the time,
which could have validated people’s beliefs in fossilized
mermaids.
Olalquiaga, Celeste. The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of The Kitsch
Experience with Remarkable Objects of Art and Nature, Extraordinary
Events, Eccentric Biography and Original Theory plus Many Wonderful
Illustrations Selected by the Author. New York: Pantheon, 1998.
Olalquiaga’s book is an anthropological examination of loss,
copies, and mythology. She asserts that the Fejee Mermaid represents
the fossilization of a myth in an age seduced by the glories of
technological advancement.
Ritvo, Harriet. The Platypus and the Mermaid and other Figments
of the Classifying Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1997
Ritvo’s perspective is from a zoologist’s point of view.
The interrelated stories of the Fejee Mermaid and the duck-billed
platypus yield interesting insights into the challenges of classification.
Room, Adrian, ed. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable:
Millennium Edition. London: Cassell Publishers Ltd, 1999.
This book is an updated edition of a classic text. A wealth of information
is categorized alphabetically and abundantly cross-referenced.
Sellers, Charles Coleman. Mr. Peale’s Museum: Charles Willson
Peale and the First Popular Museum of Natural Science and Art. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1980.
Sellers gives the history of the triumphs and troubles encountered
by Charles Willson Peale and his sons. It also has the most information
about William McGuigan, the famed taxidermist working for the Peales.
Semonin, Paul. “Monsters in the Marketplace: The Exhibition
of Human Oddities in Early Modern England” in Freakery: Cultural
Spectacle of the Extraordinary Body. Rosemarie Garland Thomson,
ed. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
Semonin’s article recounts the tensions between elite critics,
both religious and scientific, of the carnival and the popular imagination.
Freakery is a comprehensive anthology, exploring various topics
of “the extraordinary body” from television shows, literature,
and beyond. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Prof. Nigel Rothfels
was another contributor.
Stencell, A. W.
Seeing is Believing: America’s Sideshows. Canada: ECW Press,
2002.
Stencell’s book explores the many types of exhibition in sideshows
and is a great resource for information on animal gaffs. |
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