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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1984)
Page 10/The Battalion/Friday, August 31,1984 P.T. Barnum Museum evokes memories of big top’ United Press International BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — P.T. Barnum’s brick and brownstone treasure has an elephant in the lobby and a mummy in the attic. The Barnum Museum, billed as the architectural wonder of the Vic torian age, still turns heads in down town Bridgeport with its bizarre do mes and towers built to show off the likes of tiny General Tom Thumb and the Bearded Lady. Nothing less could hold the mem ory of the brash and boastful former city mayor whose “Greatest Show on Earth” spirit lives on in circus tents and arenas around the world. “He didn’t mind stretching the truth,” said Robert Pelton, curator of the museum planned by the dying Barnum as a last gift to his beloved city. It opened in 1893, nearly two years after his death at the age of 80. “He did engage in hoaxes, but the end was not to take people in but to advertise. Some Yale professor called him the Shakespeare of adver tising. It became fun to be tricked or humbugged by P.T. Barnum,” Pelton said. Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers lectured in the Roman- esque-style structure, which was heavily water damaged over the years and is currently undergoing a $400,000 restoration with city and state funds. A long lost “Indian” figure will be duplicated and returned to an exte rior frieze, craftsmen are restoring the elaborate detail of terracotta work, and exhibits are being im proved and expanded. The museum, owned by the city, remains open and the public flocks to view the $1 million collection of circus and other memorabilia col lected over Barnum’s remarkable lifetime. Barnum never said there was “a sucker born every minute,” Pelton claims, but he couldn’t seem to resist one last joke on those willing to part with the price of admission. His will ordered that his bust be mounted in the main hallway so the eyes are fixed on those climbing the stairs. The eyes seem to follow a visi tor and almost twinkle if the light is right, said Pelton, a Barnum buff who grew up in the city steeped in circus legena. Barnum made Bridgeport the winter home of his circus, and plowed his fields with an elephant — but only when the New York train was passing, crammed with potential customers, Pelton said. The Barnum Museum features vintage posters, elaborate cages and wagons-and an entire miniature five- ring circus complete with children’s figures sneaking under the big top. A huge canvas proclaims: “The Great Costello — King of them all! Who actually dances on tons of glass with the naked Feet!” There are tattooed ladies and an Egyptian mummy “proven” to date from 500 B.C. “It’s real,” Pelton in sisted. The star of the show remains General Tom Thumb, born Charles Stratton in England. The midget met Barnum in 1844 and went on to marry Mercy Livinia Warren Bump, “Miss Livinia,” and win world-wide fame. Wax figures of the couple on their wedding day have a place of honor in the mu seum. Tom Thumb died at the age of 45. A picture of Jumbo, the giant el ephant killed in 1885 by a speeding freight train in Ontario, Canada, also is displayed. Jumbo’s skin went to Tufts Uni versity in Medford, Mass., and his skeleton to a New York City mu seum. The Barnum Museum makes do with “Little Bridgeport,” touted as the second elephant born in cap tivity and kept stuffed in the lobby. Phineas Taylor Barnum was born in Bethel but lived most of his life in Bridgeport, where he developed housing and industry and lived in a succession of four mansions, includ ing “Iranistan,” patterned after a residence of King George IV. He served as a state lawmaker and lost a race for Congress — oddly to another man named Barnum. P.T. Barnum also sought a U.S. Senate nomination and considered running for president on the Temperance Party ticket. Barnum claimed he became a tee totaler after his wife invited a min ister home to give him a lecture on spirits. Such was Barnum’s zeal, Pelton said, that he often demanded tenants swear to forego drink when leasing them property. Critic not happy with food value United Press International NEW YORK — As the tomato goes, so goes the peach and rutabaga unless Americans start to take more control over what they’re buying and eating. So goes the message of Fred Pow- ledge, author of “Fat of the Land,” a description and critique of the American food industry. Powledge is not thrilled with the industry’s search for “value-added” roducts that become more profita- le as they become less similar to the original. Frozen foods that bill them selves as “100 percent fresh” are an other bane, as are “fabrications” like Gourm-Egg, a 13-inch long frozen object known as a “hard-cooked egg roll product.” But the humble tomato, Powledge said, “is currently the worst possible example of what happens if we take a commodity and turn it into a man ufactured item.” The California tomato, he said, “is now perfect for shipping and har vesting. It was created at the public expense with agricultural research money.” Its only drawback, accord ing to Powledge, is that it tastes “like a damp roll of paper towels.” Powledge has been making the talk show rounds recently, urging Americans to pay attention “to the fact the food business is business and if we don’t like certain parts of it there are things we can do,” he said. Paying attention to labels is part of the strategy, Powledge said. To dem onstrate, he picked up ajar of Junior Vegetable Turkey baby food. “1 know, because I’ve looked into the matter, that if it says “vegetable turkey” that means more vegetables than turkey,” he said. The chief in gredient on the contents label, he pointed out, was water, followed by carrots, then turkey. “Someone shopping for their kid ought to be able to read a label and know if they’re getting mostly tur key, mostly vegetables or mostly wa ter,” he said. Powledge urges shoppers to “abandon faith in all selling words such as ‘natural,’ ‘improved,’ ‘new,’ and ‘fresh,’” and to regard terms like “flavored” and “food” as danger signs “as in ‘orange-flavored drink’ and ‘cheese food.’” Powledge urges consumers to buy more locally-grown produce, and ac cept the dictates of nature rather than those of the food business. “Consumers need to pay more at tention to the seasonal nature of food,” he said. “We’ve gotten into the habit of assuming we can eat peaches in February. We can if we’re willing to pay the price for transpor tation and what I think is decreased quality.” One of the things the nation “al most learned” in the last energy cri sis, he said, is that “we’re eating food at one end of country and growing it on the other. Most of the food is sold in the eastern part of the country. but grown in the West.” The distribution system is expen sive, Powledge said, costing $3,000- 4,000 to ship a truckload of produce from California to Boston. It is also becoming all-inclusive. The con sumer may understand why grapes must be shipped from California in February, he said, “but what about grapes in August? Why do the hor rid-tasting fruits still nave to taste that way, come all that distance, dur ing the local growing season as well?” The future of the food industry, he said, may be one of “increased concentration,” with less competi tion or diversity offered in every step of the process — from the farms doing the growing to the stores doing the selling. Right now consumers who live in cities like Washington D.C. and At lanta are at a disadvantage, he said, because a few very large supermar ket chains dominate retail food sales. m Voo need ^tasd^n around tne ^ and «nan^ ogVlou une upda^'Weekend accrues ^ ^e. n ' 9 r^andmovrerev.e 5131 ’ n GW 00 ' 0 '® You need f ne H°^ ° ^ ' 0 '°j^ta!nrnent ot source _ por tun\t\es, V oAore job enron'O'e- rt aet *nar V°u need """ Tnii ittHi g.< «* Vm-H, Tour spotlights Wright brothers United Press International DAYTON, Ohio —Jerry Shar key was embarrassed. Pat Ken nedy Lawford was inquiring about the Wright brothers’ home and bicycle shop and he had nothing to show her. Lawford, in Dayton several years ago on a campaign swing for her brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., appeared puzzled that the home of the Wright brothers lacked such landmarks. Sharkey explained both were moved to Greenfield Village, Mich., decades earlier as part of a big historical park. The incident, however, prompted Sharkey to realize many of the city’s existing avi ation treasures were going unrec ognized. At an economic devel opment conference in 1980, he suggested creating a self-guided tour through the city that would allow automobiles to visit places connected to the birth of pow ered flight, and promote Day ton’s aviation-connected sites. Thus was born Aviation Trail, a free-of-charge informational tour route that began windi ne through the city in 1981. 6 “Almost all the firsts of aviation are here,” said Sharkey, a former history teacher and current su- perintendent of the Monteomm County Home for the Aced “Aside from the first flight else where (in Kitty Hawk, N.C i n 1903), almost everything was done here. Dayton would be the only place that could possibly have something like this.” Sharkey believed ihe trail would encourage tourists nivm the city’s better known aviation attractions, such as the U.S. Air Force Museum, to drive through the city and see Hawthorn Hill the home Orville and Wilbur planned but only Orville occu pied, following Wilbur’s death Carillon Park, which features the Wright Flyer III, a plane they de signed and built; The Old Coun house Museum, where an exhibit <>f Wright family memorabilia is housed, and other sites. Specialist: VDTs won’t hurt unborn United Press Internationa! you’re in or I’m in where there art WASHINGTON — Pregnant lights on. women need not fear that working “As far as X-rays and uhravioki at video display terminals will harm radiation, they have been measure) their babies, nor do they need to so low as to be of no harmful level wear lead aprons for protection he said. “I certainly feel there is to against radiation, an occupational need for anything like lead aprons' medicine specialist says. Bond recently testified in Cot- Dr. Marcus B. Bond, former pres- gress that the rate of sponianeois idem of the American Academy of alMirtions for all pregnancies is Idit Occupational Medicine, said data 20 percent. Birth defects occi from studies of VDT’s have shown among 2 percent of infants, radiation emitted by the television like computer terminals is well below Because there is such a largenui the level that would cause reproduc- ber of VDT operators — 7 to 10ml live hazards. lion — it is to be expected thatduH “The only thing 1 know of coming ters of miscarriages and birthdete out of it (a VDT) would be these very would occur randomly, he said, minute amounts of radiation,” he The federal Centers for Discw said in a telephone interview. “To Control and the U.S. Army Environ put this in perspective, I would say mental Hygiene Agency found no they’re in the same general strength association between VDT use ami as the kinds of radiation in the room birth defects or miscarriages. MEMORIAL STUDENT CENTER Cafeteria - Snack Bar You get more for your money when you dine on campu.s. “Quality First” We Did It, Too! at the #1 development in town. 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