This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
[SIDESHOW] Entrance Pass to The Tammany Museum. New York: J. Harrisson/J. Buel, 1796. Double-sided entrance ticket to the Tammany Museum, the recto completed in ink for one “Elijah Cock,” and his family with text around an embossed central seal; the verso unaccomplished, and with the text “Admit Brother ________ to the Museum and Wax-Work.” With two different printers and different dates of publication on each side. 2 ½ x 3 5/8”. Uniform browning, but very good overall. Rare. See Exemplars, p. 325. Established in New York by the Tammany Society in 1793, the museum was erected in the same building where America’s first Supreme Court convened. The “American Museum,” as it was known, was created as a monument to relics of American history, along with curiosities of nature and art. In 1795 complete control of the museum was relinquished to Gardner Baker. The first keeper of the collection, his name appears on this ticket. To broaden the appeal of the attraction, Baker expanded its purview, including displays of International artifacts, wax figures, a small menagerie, and a host of freakish curiosities, as well. In the process, he not only laid the groundwork for P.T. Barnum, who would come to own the museum in 1841, but perhaps unwittingly established the idea of what would become the American sideshow.