On Seeing and Not Seeing P. T. Barnum’s Beluga Whales

Abstract: By the time P. T. Barnum unveiled his live beluga whale exhibit at the American Museum in 1861, whales had long been a pervasive, though largely invisible, presence in American life through the countless goods produced from their bodies. As animals, however, whales had grown increasingly exotic. Decades of unrestrained slaughter had engendered a stark decline in local whale populations. Barnum capitalized on this exoticism, circulating advertisements that promised museumgoers a sensational encounter with a live whale, but such encounters often proved elusive. Despite Barnum’s efforts to heighten the visibility of his whales, the animals themselves were upstaged by the technological innovations that enabled their capture, transport, and exhibition. Building on the work of Antoine Traisnel, this article examines the various levels of mediation shaping (mis)perceptions of Barnum’s beluga whales to explore the condition whales had come to occupy in capitalist modernity.