P T Barnum and the Feejee Mermaid

P T Barnum was the greatest showman in 19^th century America. His methods of making money were not always “above board” and the episode of the “Feejee Mermaid” is an example of how he could make a fortune by hoaxing the general public.

Dr Griffin arrives in town with a mermaid

The story – insofar as it concerned the American public – began in the summer of 1842 when a British naturalist called Dr J Griffin arrived in New York with what he claimed was a dead mermaid that he had obtained on the Pacific island of Fiji. This was forever after known as the “Feejee Mermaid”.

When the gentlemen of the press arrived at the hotel where Dr Griffin was staying (having been tipped off in advance) he reluctantly showed them the specimen. However, they had no pictorial proof with which to persuade their editors to splash the story.

Enter P T Barnum, who visited every paper in town and produced detailed engravings of a beautiful bare-breasted mermaid – which actually looked very unlike the specimen held by Dr Griffin. The papers printed the story, each having been convinced by Barnum that they were getting an exclusive story.

The mermaid goes on show

It was not long before Dr Griffin was giving lectures about his discovery, after which the mermaid found its way to Barnum’s “American Museum” where it proved to be a huge attraction – aided in no small part by the free publicity that Barnum had been able to engineer.

The Feejee Mermaid went on tour before returning to the Museum. It remained on show for the next 20 years – either at Barnum’s Museum or that of his fellow exhibitor Moses Kimball, who was based in Boston.

It eventually disappeared in the 1860s, possibly as the result of a fire at the American Museum. However, by that time P T Barnum had made a fortune from what was a very clever piece of trickery.

So what was the Feejee Mermaid?

There have been many theories about what “mermaids” are, in terms of what people down the centuries have mistakenly called mermaids. Candidates have included manatees, seals and dolphins. However, it also known that strange “creatures” have been created for religious purposes, in southeast Asia, by joining the body of a primate to that of a large fish. This is almost certainly what the Feejee Mermaid was.

The chain of ownership of the specimen ended with Barnum, who saw a way of cashing in by taking the American public and press for a ride.

“Dr Griffin” was not a naturalist, or British, but a hired associate of Barnum named Levi Lyman. The whole affair was hyped from the start with letters to the papers about the “discovery” and the distribution of engravings of a far more attractive creature than was actually to be seen in Dr Griffin’s care.

Put a fake “mermaid” in the hands of a master publicist with very few (if any) scruples, and the result is bound to be huge sums of money leaving the pockets of a credulous public and entering those of the faker and publicist!

© John Welford