The Lost Museum

American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/index.php

An interactive digital exhibit that explores P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, which mysteriously burnt down in 1865. It contains a database of primary digital archives, maps, secondary source analysis essays, posters, and paintings (portraits). This resource helps us explore the political, religious, and cultural history of Antebellum America.

You don’t need to know much about the time period to make sense of the information, but the website takes some time to learn how to navigate. There is no closed caption, so the videos may be inaccessible for deaf individuals.

The data is accessible in other sources, but the interactive museum is unique to this project.

A general idea of the time period in America (Civil War and post-Civil War) and more specifically, general information about P.T. Barnum and his museum.