Freak show

Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with intersex variations, those with extraordinary diseases and conditions, and others with performances expected to be shocking to viewers.

[2] A famous early modern example was the exhibition at the court of King Charles I of Lazarus and Joannes Baptista Colloredo, two conjoined brothers born in Genoa, Italy.

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.

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

[1] During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, freak shows were at their height of popularity; the period 1840s through to the 1940s saw the organized for-profit exhibition of people with physical, mental, or behavioral rarities.

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 US-American culture that influenced people to see leisure activities as a necessary and beneficial equivalent to working, thus leading to the popularity of the freak show.

[9] The collectable printed souvenirs were accompanied by recordings of the showman's pitch, the lecturer's yarn, and the professor's exaggerated accounts of what was witnessed at the show.

Freak show culture normalized a specific way of thinking about gender, race, sexual aberrance, ethnicity, and disability.

Barnum offered one ticket that guaranteed admission to his lectures, theatrical performances, an animal menagerie, and a glimpse at curiosities both living and dead.

[6] One of Barnum's exhibits centered around Charles Sherwood Stratton, the dwarf billed as "General Tom Thumb" who was then 4 years of age but was stated to be 11.

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.

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.

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.

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 [$94,699 in 2024 dollars] and usually goes armed to protect himself from persons who might attempt to rob him."

[19][20] Other acts included fleas, fat ladies, giants, dwarfs and retired white seamen, painted black and speaking in an invented language, billed "savage Zulus".

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.

For a cheap admission viewers were awed with its dioramas, panoramas, georamas, cosmoramas, paintings, relics, freaks, stuffed animals, menageries, waxworks, and theatrical performances.

[33] In the early 1800s, single human oddities started joining traveling circuses, but these shows were not organized into anything like typical sideshows until the midcentury.

[36] Ugly laws in the United States, starting in the 1860s, banned those who were "diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed" from public view—making it hard for such people to support themselves.

In an era before social safety nets or worker's compensation, severely disabled people often found that exhibiting themselves was their only opportunity to make a living.

[37][38] In the 19th century performing in an organized freak show was perceived as a "viable" way to earn a living, as opposed to begging.

The salaries of dime museum freaks usually varied from 25 to 500 dollars a week, making more money than lecture-room variety performers.

[39] 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.

For example, when 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 23 shows during a 12- to 14-hour day.

[43] 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.

People could see similar types of acts and abnormalities from the comfort of their own homes or a nice theater, and no longer needed to pay to see freaks.

"[15] The exhibition of human oddities has a long history: The entertainment appeal of the traditional "freak shows" is arguably echoed in numerous programmes made for television.

[63] Freak shows are a common subject in Southern Gothic literature, including stories such as Flannery O'Connor's Temple Of The Holy Ghost,[64] Eudora Welty's Petrified Man and Keela the Outcast Indian Maiden,[65] Truman Capote's Tree of Night,[66] and Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.