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    Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
    Unavailable
    Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
    Unavailable
    Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
    Ebook485 pages6 hours

    Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit

    By Robert Bogdan

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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 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, becoming the celebrities of their time, until the ascent of professional medicine transformed them from marvels into pathological specimans.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateDec 10, 2014
    ISBN9780226227436
    Unavailable
    Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit

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    Reviews for Freak Show

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      A fascinating, respectful look at the history of freak shows, and probably the best book on the subject I have yet to come across. It's also one of the best books I've ever read for a sociology class, and I've re-read it several times for fun.
    • 3/5
      This book is a pretty academic treatment for the history of freak shows in circuses, carnivals, and other venues. Much of the information concerns categories of “curiosities” as well as telling the story of several individual performers. I might have been expecting a slightly more sensational account of the freak culture, but that was my mistake. Bogdan handles the subject with the dignity and respect it deserves.
    • 3/5
      This book is a pretty academic treatment for the history of freak shows in circuses, carnivals, and other venues. Much of the information concerns categories of “curiosities” as well as telling the story of several individual performers. I might have been expecting a slightly more sensational account of the freak culture, but that was my mistake. Bogdan handles the subject with the dignity and respect it deserves.