Barnum exhibits the Feejee Mermaid

1842

The object was the torso and head of a juvenile monkey sewn to the back half of a fish, with scales and animal hair worked over the join. Moses Kimball brought it to New York in the summer of 1842 to show P. T. Barnum, who built a publicity campaign around a fictitious naturalist, 'Dr J. Griffin', supported by anonymous letters posted from Montgomery and Charleston. Griffin displayed it publicly for only about five days before it moved to Barnum's American Museum.