The Lost Museum is a website dedicated to the contextualization of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. The site was developed by George Mason’s Roy Rosenzwieg Center for History and New Media and the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning. The Website is an interactive exhibit and archive that gives insight on the Antebellum South and P.T. Barnum’s Museum. The Interactive exhibit has you acting as a private detective for P.T. Barnum trying to figure out who burned down his museum. Their are several clues giving you insight to the suspect’s including P.T. Barnum himself.
The website itself is several years out of date, this is no ones fault to be sure. However, it does make the website feel like I am looking at a Digital Artifact. The websites layout it is good with clear to read links to different pages and the introduction video is nice, and it is accessible for viewers who are deaf as their are captions toggle-able on the bottom of the page. The About Us page is very insightful into who funded and created the website, it also has links that bring you to the specific part of the page you wish to look at.
The archive of the website leaves a lot more to be desired. The archive page has lots of blank space, so much so that it distracts from the text. The way to search for specific entries is not bad, and if you can figure out how to work it then its pretty alright. It allows you to browse by exhibit, theme, and what type of document that you are looking for in relation to the museum.
“The Lost Museum.” The Lost Museum, 2015. https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/.
