Freak show

Coney Island and its popular on-going freak show

A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics, people with other extraordinary diseases and conditions, and performances that are expected to be shocking to the viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have attention-getting physical performers such as fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.

History

In the mid-16th century, freak shows became popular pastimes in England.^[1] Deformities began to be treated as objects of interest and entertainment, and the crowds flocked to see them exhibited. A famous early modern example was the exhibition at the court of Charles I of Lazarus and Joannes Baptista Colloredo, two conjoined brothers born in Genoa, Italy. While Lazarus was handsome and functioning, his parasitic brother just dangled before him in a mass of limbs from his chest. When Lazarus was not exhibiting himself, he covered his brother with his cloak to avoid unnecessary attention.^[2]

As well as crazy exhibitions, freak shows were popular in the taverns and fairgrounds where the freaks were often combined with talent displays. For example, in the 18th century, Matthias Buchinger, born without arms or lower legs, entertained crowds with astonishing displays of magic and musical ability, both in England and later, Ireland.^[3]

A freak show in Rutland, Vermont in 1941

It was in the 19th century, both in England and the United States, where freak shows finally reached maturity as successful commercially run enterprises.^[1]

During the late 19th century and the early 20th century freak shows were at their height of popularity. In the 1840s through the 1940s organized the exhibiting of people with physical, mental or behavioral rarities for profit. Although not all abnormalities were real, some being alleged, the exploitation for profit was seen as an accepted part of American culture.^[4] The attractiveness of freak shows led to the spread of the shows that were commonly seen at amusement parks, circuses, dime museums and vaudeville. The amusement park industry flourished in the United States by the expanding middle class who benefited from short work weeks and a larger income. There was also a shift in American culture which influenced people to see leisure activities as a necessary and beneficial equivalent to working, thus leading to the popularity of the freak show.^[5]

The showmen and promoters exhibited all types of freaks. People who appeared non-white or who had a disability were often exhibited as unknown races and cultures. These “unknown” races and disabled whites were advertised as being undiscovered humans to attract viewers.^[6] For example, those with microcephaly, a condition linked to mental retardation and characterized by a very small, pointed head and small over all structure, were considered or characterized as “missing links” or as atavistic specimens of an extinct race. Hypopituitary dwarfs who tend to be well proportioned and physically attractive, were advertised as lofty. Achondroplastic dwarfs, whose head and limbs tend to be out of proportion to their trunks, were characterized as exotic mode. Those who were armless, legless, or limbless were also in the exotic mode as animal-people; such as “The Snake-Man”, and “The Seal man”.^[7]

There were four ways freak shows were produced and marketed. The first was the oral spiel or lecture. This featured a showman or professor who managed the presentation of the people or “freaks”. The second was a printed advertisement usually using long pamphlets and broadside or newspaper advertisement of the freak show. The third step included costuming, choreography, performance, and space used to display the show, designed to emphasize the things that were considered abnormal about each performer. The final stage was a collectable drawing or photograph that portrayed the group of freaks on stage for viewers to take home. The collectable printed souvenirs were accompanied by recordings of the showmen’s pitch, the lecturer’s yarn, and the professor’s exaggerated accounts of what was witnessed at the show. Exhibits were authenticated by doctors who used medical terms that many could not comprehend. Freak show culture normalized a specific way of thinking about gender, race, sexual aberrance, ethnicity, and disability.^[8]

Scholars believe that freak shows contributed significantly to the way American culture views nonconforming bodies. Freak shows were a space for the general public to scrutinize bodies different from their own, from dark-skinned people, to victims of war and diseases, to ambiguously sexed bodies.^[8] People felt that paying to view these “freaks” gave them permission to compare themselves favorably to the freaks.^[9]

During the first decade of the twentieth century the popularity of the freak show was starting to dwindle.^[10] In their prime, freak shows had been the main attraction of the midway, but by 1940 they were starting to lose their audience, with credible people turning their backs on the show.^[11] In the nineteenth century science supported and legitimized the growth of freak shows, but by the twentieth century, the medicalization of human abnormalities contributed to the end of the exhibits' mystery and appeal.^[11]

The American Museum

P. T. Barnum was considered the father of modern-day advertising, and one of the most famous showmen/managers of the freak show industry.^[12] In the United States he was a major figure in popularizing the entertainment. However, it was very common for Barnum's acts to be schemes and not altogether true. Barnum was fully aware of the improper ethics behind his business as he said, "I don't believe in duping the public, but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them." During the 1840s Barnum began his museum, which had a constantly rotating acts schedule, which included The Fat Lady, midgets, giants, and other people deemed to be freaks. The museum drew in about 400,000 visitors a year.^[13]

P.T. Barnum’s American Museum was one of the most popular museums in New York City to exhibit freaks. In 1841 Barnum purchased The American Museum, which made freaks the major attraction, following mainstream America at the mid-19th century. Barnum was known to advertise aggressively and make up outlandish stories about his exhibits. The façade of the museum was decorated with bright banners showcasing his attractions and included a band that performed outside.^[12] Barnum’s American Museum also offered multiple attractions that not only entertained but tried to educate and uplift its working-class visitors. Barnum offered one ticket that guaranteed admission to his lectures, theatrical performances, an animal menagerie, and a glimpse at curiosities both living and dead.^[5]

In 1842, Barnum introduced a major hoax, a creature with the head of a monkey and the tail of a fish, known as the "Feejee" mermaid.^[14][15] The mermaid was originally purchased by an Englishman who bought it from Japanese sailors for $6,000. He then rented it to Barnum for $12.50 per week. In order to make money and to make the purchase worth it, Barnum made an entire campaign trying to prove that it was indeed a real mermaid. He distributed about 10,000 pamphlets to get people in the door. Barnum wanted them to pay, but then didn't have much to say when audiences discovered it was not a true mermaid.^[13]

Barnum followed that with the exhibition of Charles Stratton, the dwarf "General Tom Thumb" who was then 4 years of age but was stated to be 11. Charles had stopped growing after the first 6 months of his life, at which point he was 25 inches (64 cm) tall and weighed 15 pounds (6.8 kg). With heavy coaching and natural talent, the boy was taught to imitate people from Hercules to Napoleon. By 5, he was drinking wine, and by 7 smoking cigars for the public's amusement. During 1844–45, Barnum toured with Tom Thumb in Europe and met Queen Victoria, who was amused^[16] and saddened by the little man, and the event was a publicity coup.^[17] Barnum paid Stratton handsomely - about $150.00 a week. When Stratton retired, he lived in the most esteemed neighborhood of New York, he owned a yacht, and dressed in the nicest clothing he could buy.^[13]

In 1860, The American Museum had listed and archived thirteen human curiosities in the museum, including an albino family, The Living Aztecs, three dwarfs, a black mother with two albino children, The Swiss Bearded Lady, The Highland Fat Boys, and What Is It? (Henry Johnson, a mentally disabled black man).^[18] Barnum introduced the "man-monkey" William Henry Johnson, a microcephalic black dwarf who spoke a mysterious language created by Barnum. In 1862, he discovered the giantess Anna Swan and Commodore Nutt, a new Tom Thumb, with whom Barnum visited President Abraham Lincoln at the White House. During the Civil War, Barnum's museum drew large audiences seeking diversion from the conflict.

Barnum's most popular and highest grossing act was the Tattooed Man, George Contentenus. He claimed to be a Greek-Albanian prince raised in a Turkish harem. He had 338 tattoos covering his body. Each one was ornate and told a story. His story was that he was on a military expedition but was captured by native people, who gave him the choice of either being chopped up into little pieces or receive full body tattoos. This process supposedly took three months and Contentenus was the only hostage who survived. He produced a 23-page book, which detailed every aspect of his experience and drew a large crowd. When Contentenus partnered with Barnum, he began to earn more than $1,000 a week. His wealth became so staggering that the New York Times wrote, "He wears very handsome diamond rings and other jewelry, valued altogether at about $3,000 [$71,500 in 2014 dollars] and usually goes armed to protect himself from persons who might attempt to rob him." Though Contentenus was very fortunate, other freaks were not. Upon his death in 1891, he donated about half of his life earnings to other freaks who did not make as much money as he did.^[13]

One of Barnum's most famous hoaxes was early in his career. He bought a blind and paralyzed slave for $1,000. He claimed this woman was 160 years old, but she was actually only 80 years old. This lie helped Barnum make a weekly profit of nearly $1,000. This hoax was one of the first, but one of the more convincing. Barnum was a businessman and exploitation brought in business.^[13]

Barnum retired in 1865 when his museum burnt to the ground.^[18] Though Barnum was and still is criticized for exploitation, he paid the performers fairly handsome sums of money. Some of the acts made the equivalent of what some sport stars make today.^[13]

Tom Norman

Barnum's English counterpart was Tom Norman, a renowned Victorian showman, whose traveling exhibitions featured Eliza Jenkins, the "Skeleton Woman", a "Balloon Headed Baby" and a woman who bit off the heads of live rats—the "most gruesome" act Norman claimed to have seen.^[19][20] Other acts included fleas, fat ladies, giants, dwarves and retired white seamen, painted black and speaking in an invented language, billed "savage Zulus".^[21] He displayed a "family of midgets" which in reality was composed of two men and a borrowed baby.^[22] He operated a number of shops in London and Nottingham, and exhibited travelling shows throughout the country.^[19]

Most famously, in 1884, Norman came into contact with Joseph Merrick, sometimes called "the Elephant Man", a young man from Leicester who suffered from extreme deformities. Merrick arrived in London and into Norman's care. Norman, initially shocked by Merrick's appearance and reluctant to display him, nonetheless exhibited him at his penny gaff shop at 123 Whitechapel Road, directly across the road from the London Hospital.^[19][23] Because of its proximity to the hospital, the shop received medical students and doctors as visitors.^[24] One of these was a young surgeon named Frederick Treves who arranged to have Merrick brought to the hospital to be examined.^[25] The exhibition of the Elephant Man was reasonably successful, particularly with the added income from a printed pamphlet about Merrick's life and condition.

At this time, however, public opinion about freak shows was starting to change and the display of human novelties was beginning to be viewed as distasteful. After only a few weeks with Norman, the Elephant Man exhibition was shut down by the police, and Norman and Merrick parted ways.^[26] Treves later arranged for Merrick to live at the London Hospital until his death in 1890. In Treves' 1923 memoir, The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences made Norman infamous as a drunk who cruelly exploited Merrick.^[19][20] Norman counteracted these claims in a letter in the World's Fair newspaper that year, as well as his own autobiography.^[19] Norman's opinion was that he provided Merrick (and his other exhibits) a way of making a living and remaining independent, but that on entering the London Hospital, Merrick remained a freak on display, only with no control over how or when he was viewed.^[27]

Dime Museum

A different way to display a freak show was in a Dime Museum. In a Dime Museum, freak show performers were exhibited as an educational display of people with different disabilities. Men, women, and children were astonished to view them. For a cheap admission viewers were awed with its dioramas, panoramas, georamas, cosmoramas, paintings, relics, Freaks, stuffed animals, menageries, waxworks, and theatrical performances. It was the first of its kind, no other type of entertainment appealed to such diverse audiences before.^[28] In the 1870s dimes grew and grew, hitting their peak in the 1880s and 1890s, being available for all from coast to coast. New York City was the dime museum capital with an entertainment district that included German beer gardens, theaters, vendors, photography, studios, and a variety of other amusement institutions. New York also had more dime museums than any place in the world.^[28][29]

Freak shows were the main attraction of most dime museums during 1870—1900 with the human oddity as the king of museum entertainment.^[30] There were five types of human abnormalities that were on display in dime museums: natural freaks, those born with physical or mental abnormalities, such as midgets and “pinheads”; self-made freaks, those who cultivated freakdom, for example tattooed people; novelty artists which were considered freaks because of their “freakish” performances such as snake charmers, mesmerists, hypnotists, and fire-eaters; non-western freaks, people who were promoted as exotic curiosities, for example savages and cannibals, usually promoted as being from Africa.^[28] Most dime museums had no seats in the curio halls. Visitors were directed from platform to platform by a lecturer, whose role was to be the master of ceremonies. During his performance, the lecturer, also known as the “Professor,” held the audience’s attention by describing the freaks displayed on the various stages. The lecturer needed to have both charisma and persuasiveness in addition to a loud voice. His rhetorical style usually was styled after the traditional distorted spiel of carnival barkers, filled with classical and biblical suggestions. Dime Museum Freak Shows also provided audiences with medical testimonials provided by “doctors”, psychologists and other behavioral “experts” who were there to help the audience understand a particular problem and to validate a show’s subject.^[31]

As the nineteenth century ended and the twentieth began there was a shift in popularity of the dime museum and it begin its downward turn. Audiences now had a wide variety of different types of popular entertainment to choose from. Circuses, street fairs, world’s fairs, carnivals, and urban amusement parks, all of which exhibited freaks, began to take business away from the dime museums.^[32]

Circus

In the circus world, freak shows, also called sideshows, were an essential part of the circus. The largest sideshow was attached to the most prestigious circus, Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey, known as the “big one”. It was a symbol of the peak of the practice and its acceptance in American society.^[33] It was at this time that single human oddities started joining traveling circuses during the early 1800s, but these shows weren’t organized into anything like the sideshows we know until the midcentury. During the 1870s it was common to see most circuses having freak shows, eventually making the circus a major place for the display of human oddities.^[34]

Most of the museums and side shows that had traveled with major circuses were disgracefully owned during most of 1876. By 1880 human phenomena were now combined with a variety of entertainment acts from the sideshows. By 1890 tent size and the number of sideshow attractions began to increase, with most sideshows in large circuses with twelve to fifteen exhibits plus a band. Bands typically were made up of black musicians, blackface minstrel bands, and troupes of dancers dressed as Hawaiians. These entertainers were used to attract crowds and provide a festive atmosphere inside the show tent.^[35]

By the 1920s the circus was declining as a major form of amusement, due to competition such as amusement parks; movie houses and burlesque tours; and the rise of the radio. Circuses also saw a large decline in audience during the depression as economic hard times and union demands were making the circus less and less affordable and valuable.^[33]

Disability

Freak shows were viewed as a normal part of American culture in the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The shows were viewed as a valuable form of amusement for middle-class people and were quite profitable for the showmen. Some scholars have argued that freak shows were also beneficial for people with disabilities, giving them jobs and a steady income, rather than being institutionalized for of their disabilities. Other scholars have argued that the showmen and managers exploited freak show performers' disabilities just for profit.^[36]

Changing attitudes about physical differences led to the decline of the freak show as a form of entertainment towards the end of the 19th century. As previously mysterious anomalies were scientifically explained as genetic mutations or diseases, freaks became the objects of sympathy rather than fear or disdain. Laws were passed restricting freak shows for these reasons. For example, Michigan law forbids the "exhibition [of] any deformed human being or human monstrosity, except as used for scientific purposes".^[37] During the start of the 20th Century, movies and television began to satisfy audiences' thirst to be entertained. People could see similar types of acts and abnormalities from the comfort of their own homes or a nice theater, they no longer needed to pay to see freaks. Though movies and television played a big part in the decline of the freak show, the rise of disability rights was the true cause of death. It was finally viewed as wrong to profit from others' misfortune: the days of manipulation were done.^[13] However, in many places freak shows are still popular features. Today, popular network like TLC offer shows that exploit people in the same way that Barnum's museum did. Their shows like "Little People, Big World" and "My 600 Pound Life" look at the oddities of human nature and create audiences for them. This rise in demand only causes more shows to be produced, such as "The Man with a Half Body" and "I Am the Elephant Man." These modern freaks are also paid handsomely, bringing in on average $8,000 an episode. Though paid well, the freaks of the 19th Century didn't always enjoy the quality of life that this idea led to. Frank Lentini, the three legged man, was quoted saying, "My limb does not bother me as much as the curious, critical gaze."^[13]

Although freak shows were viewed as a place for entertainment, they were also a place of employment for those who could advertise, manage, and perform in its attractions. In an era before there was welfare or worker’s compensation, severely disabled people often found that placing themselves on exhibition was their only choice and opportunity for making a living.^[38] Despite current values of the wrongness of exploitation of those with disabilities, during the nineteenth century performing in an organized freak show was a relatively respectable way to earn a living. Many freak show performers were lucky and gifted enough to earn a livelihood and have a good life through exhibitions, some becoming celebrities, commanding high salaries and earning far more than acrobats, novelty performers, and actors. The salaries of dime museum freaks usually varied from twenty-five to five hundred dollars a week, making a lot more money than lecture-room variety performers.^[39] Freak shows provided more independence to some disabled people than today’s affirmative action programs. Freaks were seen to have profitable traits, with an opportunity to become celebrities obtaining frame and fortune. At the height of freak shows' popularity, they were the only job for dwarves.^[40]

Many scholars have argued that freak show performers were being exploited by the showmen and managers for profit because of their disabilities. Many freaks were paid generously, but had to deal with museum managers who were often insensitive about the performers' schedules, working them long hours just to make a profit. This was particularly hard for top performers, since the more shows these freaks were in, the more tickets were sold.^[41] A lot of entertainers were abused by small-time museum operators, kept to grueling schedules, and given only a small percentage of their total earnings. Individual exhibits were hired for about one to six weeks by dime museums. The average performer had a schedule that included ten to fifteen shows a day and was shuttled back and forth week after week from one museum to another. ^[42] When a popular freak show performer came to a dime museum in New York he was overworked and exploited to make the museum money. For example: Fedor Jeftichew, (known as "Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy") appeared at the Globe Museum in New York, his manager arranged to have him perform twenty-three shows during a twelve to fourteen hour day.^[43]

Historical timeline

Madam Gustika of the Duckbill tribe smoking a pipe with an extended mouthpiece for her lips during a show in a circus. Her lips were stretched by the insertion of disks of incrementally increasing size, similar to some earrings used today. United States, New York, 12 April 1930.

The exhibition of human oddities has a long history:

1630s

Lazarus Colloredo, and his conjoined twin brother, Joannes Baptista, who was attached at Lazarus' sternum, tour Europe.^[44]

1704–1718

Peter the Great collected human oddities at the Kunstkammer in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia.^[45]

1738

The exhibition of a creature who "was taken in a wook at Guinea; 'tis a female about four feet high in every part like a woman excepting her head which nearly resembles the ape."^[46]

1739

Peter the Great's niece Anna Ioannovna had a parade of circus freaks escort Mikhail Alekseyevich Galitzine and his bride Avdotya Ivanovna Buzheninova to a mock palace made of ice.

1810–1815

Sarah Baartman (aka "Hottentot Venus") exhibited in England and France.^[47]

1829-1870

“The Original Siamese twins” Chang and Eng Bunker were twin brothers who started performing in 1829. The Bunker brothers were conjoined twins. They stopped performing in 1870 due to Chang suffering a stroke.^[48]

1842-1883

In 1842 Charles Sherwood Stratton was presented on the freak show platform as "General Tom Thumb". Charles was suffering from Hypopituitary dwarfism; he stopped performing in 1883 due to a stroke that led to his death.^[49]

1849-1867

In 1849 Maximo and Bartola started performing in freak shows as “The Last of the Ancient Aztecs of Mexico”. Both performers had microcephaly and stopped performing in 1867 after they got married to each other.^[50]

1860-1905

Hiram and Barney Davis were presented as the “wild men” from Borneo. Both brothers were mentally disabled, they stopped performing in 1905 after the death of Hiram Davis.^[51]

1884

Joseph Merrick, exhibited as "The Elephant Man" by Tom Norman in London's East End.^[52]

1912-1935

Violet and Daisy Hilton, conjoined twin sisters who started performing at the age of four in 1912. They grew in popularity during the 1920s to the 1930s performing dance routines and playing instruments. Stopped performing in 1935 due to financial troubles.^[53]

1932

Tod Browning's Pre-Code-era film Freaks tells the story of a traveling freakshow. The use of real freaks in the film provoked public outcries, and the film was relegated to obscurity until its re-release at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.^[54] Two stars of the film were Daisy and Violet Hilton: conjoined sisters who had been raised being exhibited in freak shows.^[55]

1960

Albert-Alberta Karas^[56] (two siblings, each half man, half woman) exhibits with Bobby Reynolds on sideshow tour.

1991

Jim Rose Circus plays the Lollapalooza Festival, starting a new wave of performers and resurgence of interest in the genre.

1992

Grady Stiles (the lobster boy) is shot in his home in Gibsonton, Florida.^[57]

1996

Chicago shock-jock Mancow Muller presented Mancow's Freak Show at the United Center in the middle of 1996, to a crowd of 30,000. The show included Kathy Stiles and her brother Grady III as the Lobster Twins.^[58]

2000–2010

Ken Harck's Brothers Grim Sideshow debuted at the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Milwaukee run included a fat lady and bearded lady Melinda Maxi, as well as self made freaks The Enigma and Katzen. In later years the show has included Half-boy Jesse Stitcher and Jesus "Chuy" Aceves the Mexican Werewolf Boy and Stalking Cat. Brothers Grim toured with the Ozz Fest music festival in 2006, 2007 and 2010.^[59]

2005

"999 Eyes Freakshow" was founded, touting itself as the "last genuine traveling freakshow in the United States." 999 Eyes portrays freaks in a very positive light, insisting that "what is different is beautiful." Freaks include Black Scorpion.^[60]

2007

Wayne Schoenfeld brought together several sideshow performers to "The L.A. Circus Congress of Freaks and Exotics," to photograph sideshow folks for "Cirque Du Soleil - Circus of the Sun." In attendance were: Bill Quinn, the halfman; Percilla, the fat lady; Mighty Mike Murga the Mighty Dwarf; Dieguito El Negrito, a wildman; Christopher Landry; fireeaters; sword swallowers, and more.^[61][62]

Modern freak shows

The Black Scorpion performing in 2007

The entertainment appeal of the traditional "freak shows" is arguably echoed in numerous programmes made for television. Extraordinary People on the British television channel Five or BodyShock show the lives of severely disabled or deformed people, and can be seen as the modern equivalent of circus freak shows.^[63][64] To cater to current cultural expectations of disability narratives, the subjects are usually portrayed as heroic and attention is given to their family and friends and the way they help them overcome their disabilities. On The Guardian, Chris Shaw however comments that "one man's freak show is another man's portrayal of heroic triumph over medical adversity" and carries on with "call me prejudiced but I suspect your typical twentysomething watched this show with their jaw on the floor rather than a tear in their eye".^[65] A modern example of a traditional traveling freakshow would be The Space Cowboy's 'Mutant Barnyard' museum show or his 'Sideshow Wonderland' human oddity exhibit that he runs with his partner Zoe L'amore. 'Sideshow Wonderland' includes performers like Erik Sprague 'AKA: The LizardMan'; Donny Vomit; Heather Holliday; Jason Brott 'AKA: The Penguin Boy'; Ruby Rubber Legs; Elaine Davidson; and Jeremy Hallam 'AKA: Goliath' (Dwarf strongman).

See also

• Human zoo
• Comprachicos

References

Further reading

• Martin Monestier, Human Freaks, Encyclopedic Book on the Human Freaks from the Beginning to Today. (In French: Les Monstres humains: Oubliés de Dieu ou chefs-d'œuvres de la nature)
• Niall Richardson (2010) 'Transgressive Bodies' (Ashgate)

External links

• Showhistory.com
• Shocked and Amazed - periodical devoted to sideshow and variety entertainment
• Freaks and prodigies - Section of Monstrous.Com dedicated to freaks and prodigies
• Sideshow World - "Preserving the past... promoting the future"
• Congress of Oddities: James G. Prodigies - freakshow ephemera from the collection of artist James G Mundie
• Collection Guide to Human curiosity prints, playbills, broadsides and other printed material, 1695-1937 at Houghton Library, Harvard University