Freak Show

Freak Show PDF Author: Robert Bogdan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022622743X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This cultural history of the travelling freak show in America chronicles the rise and fall of the industry as attitudes about disability evolved. From 1840 until 1940, hundreds of freak shows 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 popular forms of entertainment. Robert Bogdan’s fascinating social history brings to life the world of the freak show and explores the culture that nurtured and, later, abandoned it. In uncovering this neglected chapter of show business, he describes in detail the flimflam artistry behind the shows, the promoters and the audiences, and the gradual evolution of public opinion from awe to embarrassment. Freaks were not born, Bogdan reveals; they were manufactured by the amusement world, usually with the active participation of the freaks themselves. Many of the "human curiosities" found fame and fortune, until the ascent of professional medicine transformed them from marvels into pathological specimens.

Freak Show

Freak Show PDF Author: Robert Bogdan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022622743X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This cultural history of the travelling freak show in America chronicles the rise and fall of the industry as attitudes about disability evolved. From 1840 until 1940, hundreds of freak shows 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 popular forms of entertainment. Robert Bogdan’s fascinating social history brings to life the world of the freak show and explores the culture that nurtured and, later, abandoned it. In uncovering this neglected chapter of show business, he describes in detail the flimflam artistry behind the shows, the promoters and the audiences, and the gradual evolution of public opinion from awe to embarrassment. Freaks were not born, Bogdan reveals; they were manufactured by the amusement world, usually with the active participation of the freaks themselves. Many of the "human curiosities" found fame and fortune, until the ascent of professional medicine transformed them from marvels into pathological specimens.

Human Oddities

Human Oddities PDF Author:
Publisher: Sura Books
ISBN: 9788185629896
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description


Human Oddities

Human Oddities PDF Author: Martin Monestier
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780806510217
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description


Very Special People

Very Special People PDF Author: Frederick Drimmer
Publisher: Citadel Press
ISBN: 9780806512532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Siamese twins, midgets, giants, bearded ladies, and hermaphrodites are among the people profiled with compassion and insight

Human Oddities

Human Oddities PDF Author: Noria Jablonski
Publisher: Counterpoint
ISBN: 9781593760847
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
A collection of short works focuses on a central theme of the human body as a landscape, in a volume that relates the experiences of such characters as separated conjoined twins, drag queens, and hospital orderlies. A first collection. Original.

Human Oddities

Human Oddities PDF Author: David Pilgrim
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Abnormalities, Human
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description


Anatomical Oddities

Anatomical Oddities PDF Author: Alice Roberts
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1398510076
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Every part of the human body has a name - and story. But how familiar are you with your arachnoid mater or your Haversian canals? Anatomical Oddities is an artistic and linguistic adventure, taking the reader on a journey to discover the hidden landscape of the human body: its crypts and caverns, gorges, islets and mountains. Along the way, we dip into the history of our relationship with the human body and the discoveries that paved the way for modern anatomy and medicine. Quirky, bizarre and beautiful, these pages feature original artworks from Professor Alice Roberts. The intricate details of the human body, the stories of people who unearthed its secrets, and the meanings of the words we use to describe it are laid bare.

Archaeological Oddities

Archaeological Oddities PDF Author: Kenneth L. Feder
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538105977
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This book is an offbeat field guide for sites in North America that reflect the rejection of the facts of prehistory and history. They are the physical equivalents of "fake news" about America's ancient past. Feder provides an entertaining summary forty sites along with the practical information you’ll need to visit these fun and fascinating sites.

Body Oddity Projects

Body Oddity Projects PDF Author: Rebecca Felix
Publisher: Lerner Publications ™
ISBN: 1541571363
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
Step away from the screen and learn science in the real world. Discover amazing tricks of the human body with these hands-on projects like optical illusions, involuntary movement, and balance challenges. Step-by-step instructions and photos guide readers through each activity and Science Takeaway sidebars explain the science behind the results. All projects use common materials found around the house.

A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities

A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities PDF Author: Jan Bondeson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501733451
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Long ago, curiosities were arranged in cabinets for display: a dried mermaid might be next to a giant's shinbone, the skeletons of conjoined twins beside an Egyptian mummy. In ten essays, Jan Bondeson brings a physician's diagnostic skills to various unexpected, gruesome, and extraordinary aspects of the history of medicine: spontaneous human combustion, colonies of snakes and frogs living in a person's stomach, kings and emperors devoured by lice, vicious tribes of tailed men, and the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal. Bondeson tells the story of Mary Toft, who gained notoriety in 1726 when she allegedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits. King George I, the Prince of Wales, and the court physicians attributed these monstrous births to a "maternal impression" because Mary had longed for a meal of rabbit while pregnant. Bondeson explains that the fallacy of maternal impressions, conspicuous in the novels of Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, and Charles Dickens, has ancient roots in Chinese and Babylonian manuscripts. Bondeson also presents the tragic case of Julia Pastrana, a Mexican Indian woman with thick hair growing over her body and a massive overgrowth of the gums that gave her a simian or ape-like appearance. Called the Ape Woman, she was exhibited all over the world. After her death in 1860, Julia's husband, who had also been her impresario, had her body mummified and continued to exhibit it throughout Europe. Bondeson tracked the mummy down and managed to diagnose Julia Pastrana's condition as the result of a rare genetic syndrome.