American Museum

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre | 1996 | 700+ words | Copyright

American Museum, New York, on the south-east corner of Broadway and Ann Street, Broadway showplace opened by P(hineas) T(aylor) Barnum (1810–91) in 1841 which by 1849 had become a theatre with a good stock company and some visiting stars. In 1850 it was enlarged, reopening with an excellent company in Sedley-Smith's melodrama The Drunkard, which had a record run. Barnum sold the theatre in 1855, but in 1860 was able to buy it back. Plays were gradually ousted by freaks, baby-shows, and boxing contests until in 1865 the building was burnt down. On 6 Sept. Barnum opened a New American Museum, also on Broadway, which Van Amburgh took over with his menagerie in 1867. Plays were evidently still being given there, however, as it was during a run of a dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin that in 1868 the second museum was burnt to the ground; it was never rebuilt.

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PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "American Museum." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "American Museum." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-AmericanMuseum.html

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "American Museum." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-AmericanMuseum.html

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