The Franklin Museum opened in 1835. According to an article on the Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) website, it was profitable:
“until the Panic of 1837 scared off its fashionable audience, forcing the struggling theatre to change its policy to melodrama at reduced rates. It became the Little Drury, adding German-language and minstrel productions.”
At a later date, its name was changed back to the Franklin Museum, and in February 1850, advertisements for the establishment started appearing in New York City newspapers.
Live Entertainment
During that time, a visit to a “museum” wasn’t what one might expect. Instead of artworks hanging on walls or artifacts in display cases, there was live, and often risqué, entertainment. The IBDB notes that the Franklin Museum featured “‘living statues,’ which were ladies wearing very little clothing.” It added that “in the 1840s, the outcry against shows of this type led to the Common Council closing any offending houses. The Franklin shuttered in 1854.” As you will see, 1854 wasn’t the end of the Franklin Museum or the “Model Artists” shows.
An article titled “Suppression of the Model Artists” was published in the March 24, 1848, issue of the New York Daily Herald. It advised readers that “at length public opinion and moral sentiment have carried the day. The model artists are suppressed for the present.” It added that a grand jury had indicted all such shows and that the owners of the establishments “have been arrested and imprisoned, and will be tried, and convicted, and exposed, and pardoned, and patronized, and start again fresh and clean.”
Model Artists Shows
Model Artists shows featured attractive young women wearing little or no clothing. Today, I imagine they would be referred to as strip shows, girlie shows, or something of the sort. The shows were popular in England during the 1840s, but apparently, they were better regulated and less provocative than their American counterparts.
The Franklin Museum, which at the time was located at 175 Chatham Square, was one of the New York City theaters that featured model artists. Their first advertisements appeared in 1850, and most of them described various acts, including
“a troupe of ‘Model Artistes,’ comprising some of the best-formed women in the world, together with ‘Female Juggling,’ ‘Female Arab Girls,’ ‘Female Minstrels,’ ‘Burlesque Comic and Fancy Dances,’ with a chaste variety of performances to be found at no other place of amusement in New York.”
The price of admission was 37½ cents for stage seats, 25 cents for box seats, and $2 for private boxes.
Theatrical Productions
Although Model Artists shows were undoubtedly the mainstay of the Franklin Museum, other shows were also featured. For example, in September 1853, “the greatest production yet” of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was advertised. Another ad in the same newspaper offered Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Model Artists at the usual prices every night until further notice.
In 1854 the Franklin Museum relocated to 17 and 19 Bowery, and in November its ads stated that its establishment was open for the season. It claimed to be “the only one in the United States where the Model Artists are exhibited.” While that might have been true, other theaters were advertising burlesque shows in the same newspaper issues, and I imagine they were similar to the Model Artists shows.
Advertising Counterstamps
The museum moved again in 1856, this time to 127 Grand Street, and began circulating counterstamped coins. Examples on an 1807 quarter and on 2-real coins dated 1778, 1793, and 1797 are listed as number 28140 by Gregory G. Brunk in American and Canadian Countermarked Coins, a catalog published in 1987.
such as this 1778 Charles III example. Admission to a box seat to see a performance of
27 young ladies in 14 living pictures was 25 cents.
(Photos: David Schenkman [token] & New York Daily Herald)
The wording on the counterstamps is ADMIT/TO THE/MODEL ARTIST’S/127 GRAND ST./NEAR B-.WAY. In the 4th edition of the Standard Catalog of United States Tokens, 1700-1900, author Russell Rulau lists the pieces as NY 583, 583A, and 584, and adds 1782 and 1820 to the known dates of 2 reales. Curiously, he lists two minor varieties, one that renders the last word as B‘WAY, while on the other, it is B-.WAY. The illustrations of the varieties are both the latter type, and it seems unlikely that two punches would have been made. A search of Heritage Auctions and Stack’s Bowers Galleries archives turned up counterstamps dated 1779, 1784, and 1790 on 2 reales. All are the B-.WAY type, making me wonder if the other variety actually exists.
Popular Means of Promotion
During the mid-19th century, counterstamping coins was a popular means of advertising, and for good reason. Once a punch with the desired wording was prepared, a merchant could stamp any coins that came through his establishment. He would then put them back into circulation, where the advertisement would be read by many people.
While some types of businesses might stamp any coin they received, the counterstamps of some entertainment venues stated that they were good for admission, so they would only stamp coins of that denomination. The price of a box seat at the Franklin Museum was 25 cents, which explains why nearly all the known counterstamps are on 2 reales or quarters. The recipient of one of the coins might think he had received something special, but he could also enter the theater with a coin of the same denomination without a counterstamp. The fact that all but one of the known Model Artist’s counterstamps are on 2-reales coins is a good indicator of the extent to which Latin American coins circulated in the United States before the Civil War and, to some degree, even later.
Concert Saloons
The last newspaper advertisements I found for the Franklin Museum were in July 1860. By early 1862, its owner was operating several concert saloons in New York, and in June, he started placing ads in Baltimore newspapers for George Lea’s Melodeon on East Baltimore Street. He later returned to New York, and on January 28, 1867, the New York Times reported his arrest, along with 60 patrons of his “Oriental” concert saloon, during a surprise raid. The article stated that “he will be remembered by the New-York people as the exhibitor of model artists in the Old Franklin Museum” and that
Baltimoreans will recognize him as the manager of the infamous place known as the “New Idea,” kept by him during the war, over the Baltimore Street Bridge, where United States soldiers were entertained [for] slight expense.
There were no further mentions of the man, except for a brief one in a June 22, 1887, New York Times article, the subject of which was another theater manager. About George Lea, the reporter wrote that he “virtually gave the New York public female minstrelsy in conjunction with his vivid exhibitions of anatomy.”
During the mid-19th century, counterstamping coins was a popular means of advertising.
Le Botaniste
I sent a draft of this article to my friend Greg Bennick, whose column “Counterstamp Corner” is a regular feature in the Token and Medal Society’s TAMS Journal. In his response, Greg included a photograph of the building at 127 Grand Street (shown above), which is now the home of Le Botaniste, a restaurant he frequents when in New York City. He added, “In 1856 the upstairs floors were leased by George Lea for his “tableaus” aka the Model Artist Museum.”
I welcome readers’ comments. Write to me at P.O. Box 2866, La Plata, MD 20646. If a reply is desired, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
A version of this article appears in the March 2025 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).