Robert Bogdan
Author
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Pub. Date
1990, c1988
Language
English
Description
From 1840 until 1940, freak shows by the hundreds crisscrossed the United States, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, exhibiting their casts of dwarfs, giants, Siamese twins, bearded ladies, savages, snake charmers, fire eaters, and other oddities. By today's standards such displays would be considered cruel and exploitative the pornography of disability. Yet for one hundred years the freak show was widely accepted as one of America's most...