Exhibition broadside, c.1845

[THE BREWSTER MASTODON] – Great American Mastodon!! Now Exhibiting at the Hall. [Newburgh, NY? 1845.]

Exhibition poster for the Brewster Mastodon; a near-perfect example of this extinct relative of the elephant, discovered in Orange County, New York. "Named for John C. Warren, the founder of a Boston-based museum where it was first displayed, the Warren mastodon fossil was discovered in a bog in Newburgh, New York, in 1845. It was the first complete American mastodon (Mammut americanum) skeleton found in the United States and remarkable for being preserved in the position in which it had died some 11,000 years ago: standing upright with its legs thrust forward and its head tilted upward ... The Warren mastodon remains one of the most complete mastodon skeletons ever found" (AMNH website). It was acquired by New York's American Museum of Natural History in 1906 and is on permanent display in the Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals.

This is a very handsome broadside telling the story of the skeleton's discovery and prior exhibition, with great emphasis on its extraordinary weight and size.

Wood-type broadside on paper, 642 x 435mm (minor offsetting, some very faint mat shadow).