From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joice Heth (c.1756 – February 19, 1836[1])
was an African
American slave who was
exhibited by P. T.
Barnum with the claim that she was the 161-year-old nursing
"mammy" of George Washington.
Biography
Little is known of Heth's earlier life. The promoter R. W.
Lindsay introduced her as the nurse of former President George
Washington, but lacking success sold her in her old age to the
upstart Barnum.[2]
She was toward the end of her life, blind and almost completely
paralyzed (she could talk, and had some ability to move her right
arm)[3] when
Barnum started to exhibit her on August 10, 1835, at Niblo's Garden
in New York City.[2][4]
As a 7-month traveling exhibit for Barnum, Heth told stories about
"little George" and sang a hymn.[5] Eric
Lott claims that Heth earned the impresario $1,500 a week, a
princely sum in that era.[6]
Barnum's career as a showman took off.[7] Her
case was discussed extensively in the press. Because doubt had been
expressed about her age Barnum announced that upon her death she
would be publicly autopsied. She died the next year; probably her
actual age at the time of her death was no more than 80 years.[1][4]
Public
autopsy
Barnum engaged the service of a surgeon, Dr. David L. Rogers,
who performed the autopsy on
February 25, 1836, in front of fifteen hundred paying spectators in
New York's City Saloon. When Rogers declared the age claim a fraud,
Barnum insisted that the autopsy victim was another person, and
Heth was alive, on a tour to Europe. Later Barnum admitted the
hoax.[2]
See also
Notes
- ^ a
b
Museum of Hoaxes.
- ^ a
b
c
Harriet A. Washington (2006).
Medical Apartheid. New York: Doubleday. p. 86ff. ISBN
0-385-50993-6.
- ^
Benton
- ^ a
b
The University of Virginia American Studies page on Heth
- ^
The University of Virginia American Studies page on Heth cites this to
Phineas T. Barnum, Barnum's Own Story ed. Waldo R. Browne.
(Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1972) 49.
- ^
Lott 1993.
- ^
"P.T. Barnum", Britannica Eleventh Edition mentions the
claim to have been nurse of George Washington and lists his
exhibiting her as the first significant event in Barnum's
career.
References
- "P.T. Barnum", Encyclopædia
Britannica Eleventh Edition.
- Joel Benton. Life of Phineas T. Barnum. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1576.
, Edgewood
Publishing, 1891. Accessed 3 December 2007. The most detailed of
these accounts, including information about Barnum's purchase of
Heth, a detailed description of her appearance, how Barnum
exhibited her, etc.
- Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the
American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press,
1993. ISBN 0-19-507832-2. p.76–78
- Joice Heth, Museum of
Hoaxes. Accessed online 8 April 2007.
- Joice Heth, part of a
University of Virginia American Studies Department site about
Barnum. Accessed online 8 April 2007.
External
links
Wikis
Quiz
Search
