Haunting Museums

By John Schuster

The spectacularly successful move A Night at the Museum was a fantastic look at the off-hours wonders of the American Museum of Natural History. However, some of the real behind-the-scenes stories are more fantastic than anything a screenwriter could dream up. Haunting Museums covers these overlooked bits of history including curses, mistaken dinosaurs, conspiracy plots of the founding fathers, spectral evidence of the afterlife, and other unsettling matters on full display. Contents include: The Carnegie Sauropods, Or Bring Me the Head of Apatosaurus Louisae - the story of a dinosaur on display for close to a half a century with the wrong head. What's on that Broad Stripe with Those Bright Stars? - the quizzical mark on the flag that is known as the Star Spangled banner. The 1897 Living Eskimo Exhibit - where living people were put on display and turned over to the taxidermist for "preservation" after they died Man-eaters at the Museum: The Lions That Stopped a Railroad - the story of the Maneless lions made legendary by the movie the Ghost in the Darkness So Where is Amelia Earhart? - the exhibit at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum of the most famous missing aviatrix of all time. Along with many other entertaining and fantastic stories.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765322927
• ISBN13: 9780765322920
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Forge Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.6" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

entertaining

This is great fun as John Schuster explores some of the oddest exhibits; in many cases you will ask what were they thinking. These include the Carnegie Sauropods in which for fifty plus years experts pasted the head of a different dinosaur on the body of a different species. There is the Cardiff Giant and Lizzie Bordon B & B. At the Philadelphia Matter Museum of Medical Anomalies one can visit Grover Cleveland's mouth and then there is the infamous 1897 Living Eskimo Exhibit where people performed live and continued even after they died thanks to taxidermy. Curses abound whether they are Elgin Marbles or jewels taken from tombs while haunting are everywhere including at the Utah Museum. At times some of the entries can be verbose, but an interesting examination of the strange and uncanny on display whether it is DC, NY or Fall River. However, perhaps the strangest of all is the Darger art collection (read the artist's story to learn why). Harriet Klausner