Gettysburg Dime Museum Part 2
Gettysburg Dime Museum Part 2 – The People
The Gettysburg Dime Museum
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
If you missed my first post about The Gettysburg Dime Museum, click here to catch up.
In Part 2, we’ll take a look at some of the “people” of the Dime Museum. Please note: I do not in any way condone the behavior, sensationalism, or the oftentimes cruel and abusive treatment that many performers suffered during the era when it was a popular form of entertainment.
Make plans to visit soon. The museum is in its final season and is open on Saturdays through November 17th from 10am – 5pm. Don’t miss this gem of a museum!
Just inside the entrance, is a representation of Joseph Merrick (whom you may be familiar with from Broadway’s The Elephant Man (and later the David Lynch film of the same name).
Joseph Merrick shares the sitting room with Daniel Lambert. Weighing in at 739 pounds when he passed away, Lambert was reportedly the heaviest man alive in the in the early 19th Century.
The gentleman for whom the term Siamese Twins was coined – Chang and Eng Bunker. The Bunker Twins lead a truly fascinating life.
Fedor Jeftichew was known during his sideshow days as Jo Jo the Dog-Faced Boy. He has been much-celebrated in popular culture and was brought to the United States by P.T. Barnum.
As he often did with his performers, Barnum fabricated a ridiculously untrue story about Jefichew’s origins and those of his father (who shared his son’s medical condition, Hypertrichosis).
Unzie the Albino was another member of P.T. Barnum’s act. Modern researchres note that perhaps he wasn’t a person with Albinism, but merely fair-skinned. In any case, he always played the Dapper Dan and loved to mix with British High Society when he could.
Check out Anita’s Notebook to see some photographs of Unzie in real life.
Humorously enough, Unzie gets a front row seat for a re-creation of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper at the museum.
Stay tuned for my third, and final, Dime Museum post. Coming Soon!
So much crazy! I wonder if he’s going to be selling some of his stuff to one of those seashore Ripley’s museums (of which I’ve been in a couple). … This is such an odd place to have in the somber town of Gettysburg, site of such a bloody battle.
I have the feeling that he may keep most of it.