“M” is for Mermaid Controversy

Popular culture and pre-Darwinian history collided in January 1843 when P.T. Barnum’s notorious “Feejee Mermaid” made its way to South Carolina after several months of controversy and acclaim in New York. The three-foot “mermaid” [actually a gruesome forgery cobbled together form a monkey torso and the bottom half of a fish] was exhibited in Charleston with several other curiosities. The local press lined up on opposite sides of a heated and complex debate about the exhibit’s authenticity. The Rev. John Bachman, one of the city’s most noted naturalists labeled it a “Humbug” and ridiculed the exhibit and the gullibility of the Charleston public. The controversy pitched back and forth until Barnum’s representative was forced to spirit the Feejee Mermaid away before it could be destroyed by angry residents.