Large color print titled "Sleighing in New York" showing a bustling crowd of horses, sleighs, and people in front of Barnum's American Museum. The imagery is realistic but the artist has assembled the components in an imaginary style to emphasize the busy-ness of the street scene on Broadway in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The artist crafted vignettes within the picture to reference current events and depict attitudes prevalent in society. The portrait on the omnibus sleigh at the left is Zachary Taylor, who had died suddenly in the seventh month of his presidency. In the foreground, toward the right, is a sleigh with a gentleman in a tall top hat and a lady in a bonnet, loosely resembling the famed Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, whom Barnum brought to North America for a concert tour in 1850, exciting "Lind-mania" through his extensive promotion. Whether the lady is meant to be Jenny Lind is unknown, but the time period of this print, 1855, suggests that possibility. The lower righthand corner shows an African-American couple being pelted by snowballs thrown by boys at the far left. This vignette may be an allusion to or a parody of Barnum's blackface minstrel shows, or simply shows the behavior of white boys targeting black people. Elements of Barnum's famous building decor are shown here with the oval plaques painted with exotic animals, and on the balcony a group of visitors and musicians. Notably the visitors are a family with children, the type of audience Barnum actively sought, and the musicians appear to be playing wildly, a strategy Barnum used to encourage people to get away from the noise and come into the museum. This print is a color lithograph, a method in which the picture is drawn with fine crayons on a large smooth stone. Lithograph printed in colors after D. Benecke. Designed by Th. Benecke. Printed by Nagel and Lewis. Barnum's American Museum was located at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street from 1841 to 1865 until it was destroyed by a fire. Barnum re-opened at 539-541 Broadway a few months later, but that building too was destroyed by a fire in 1868. The displays in the museum ranged from dioramas of places such as Niagara falls and the American plains, various animals including whales and trained seals, wax figure tableaux, performers, theatrical performances, inventions, scientific specimens, and curious artifacts. Thousands of items were displayed. Barnum also included what were then called humbugs, similar to hoaxes but done in the spirit of fun rather than as cruel jokes. Barnum promoted these heavily, and invited the public to decide for themselves if the objects in question were authentic or not. Among the most famous was his FeJee Mermaid, an ugly creature that was half monkey, half fish, and not at all what people imagined a mermaid to look like.
