Seeing the Elephant: Constructing Culture in Britain and the United States after Jumbo

Essay Excerpt

"On 25 January 1882 the Commercial Intelligence section of The Times reported the sale for £2000 of a twenty-one-year-old African elephant standing more than eleven feet high at the shoulders. The elephant’s name was Jumbo. His purchaser’s name was Phineas Taylor Barnum. The vendor was the Royal Zoological Society. Jumbo (whose behaviour had become less predictable as he reached sexual maturity) was to be moved from his quarters in the Royal Zoological Gardens and transported to the United States where he would perform in Barnum, Bailey and Hutchinson’s circus. Public response to this disclosure was initially muted. Following reports that Jumbo had refused to enter the crate intended to convey him to the docks, however, the trickle of adverse comment swelled to a flood of protest. A letter to The Times on 21 February expressed ‘disgust’ at Jumbo’s sale to ‘an American showman’."