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Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. Origins of the Sideshow
Early Roots
The Fair and Beyond
Beginnings of the Modern Circus
Barnum the Showman
The Greatest Show
Carnivals and More
2. On the Midway
Creating the Midway
Concessions
Games
Rides and Amusements
Sideshows
3. The Ten-in-One
The Banner Line
The Bally Platform
On the Inside
The Blowoff
4. Human Oddities: Large and Small
Giants
Fat People
Living Skeletons
Dwarfs
Midgets
5. Human Oddities: Between a Half and Two
Siamese Twins
One-and-a-Halfs
Armless and Legless Wonders
6. Other Human Oddities
"Animal" People
Hirsute Women--and Men
And More
7. Anatomical Wonders
Contortionists
India-Rubber People
Special-Effects Performers
Mr. Anatomical Wonder
8. Created Oddities
Tattooed People
Pierced Ones
Other "Made" Oddities
Gaffed Oddities
Gaffed Acts
9. Working Acts
Fire-eaters
Sword Swallowers
Phenomenal Ingesters
Human Pincushions
Blockheads
Other Torture Acts
Electric Marvels
Snake Charmers
Knife Throwers
10. Illusions
Magicians
Psychic Marvels
Torture Box Illusions
Living Heads
Headless People
Floating Lady
Gorilla Girl
Girl in the Goldfish Bowl
Other Illusions
11. Animal Shows
Menageries
Single-Animal Acts and Exotics
Freak Animal Exhibits
Flea Circuses
12. Curios
Pickled Exhibits
Other Preserved Exhibits
Bogus Creatures
Other Curios
13. The Egress
References
Index
Illustrations
1.1. Ancient Roman "circus"
1.2. Wood engraving advertising Astley's "Scenes of the Circle"
1.3. P. T. Barnum
1.4. Barnum's American Museum
1.5. Barnum's Fejee Mermaid
1.6. Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth
1.7. White City
1.8. Syracuse (N.Y.) Fair, circa 1910-1920
1.9. Button advertising a 1915 Missouri carnival
2.1. Workman dismantles a Ferris wheel
2.2. Ferris wheel is collapsed and hauled away
2.3. Concession worker
2.4. Cotton candy concession
2.5. Slum prizes
2.6. Chalk (plaster) prizes
2.7. Plush prizes
2.8. Old cat rack figure
2.9. Ferris wheel at 1893 world's fair
2.10. Ferris wheel at 2004 Erie County (New York) Fair
2.11. Merry-go-round
2.12. Roller coaster
2.13. Wave Swinger ride
2.14. Ghost Mansion combines rides and fun house
2.15. Palm-reading machine
2.16. Age and weight guesser
2.17. Carnival Diablo, a typical trailer-housed grind show
2.18. Sideshow at the Hagenbeck & Wallace Circus
2.19. Giant Al Tomaini beside a normal-sized man
3.1. Banner line, 2004
3.2. Banner line, including ticket booth
3.3. Bobby Reynolds strikes a pose
3.4. Banner of Major John the Frog Boy
3.5. Banners by Johnny Meah
3.6. Banners by Johnny Meah
3.7. Poobah the Fire-eating Dwarf on the bally platform
3.8. Outside talker
3.9. Poobah the Fire-eating Dwarf, Ginger the Snake Charmer, and Ward Hall
3.10. Giant J. G. Tarver
3.11. Oversize ring sold as pitch item
3.12. Advertisement for "Giant snake eating frog"
4.1. Austrian giantess Mariedl with her sister
4.2. Carnival giant beside a midget
4.3. Giants Anna Swan and Captain Martin Van Buren Bates get married
4.4. Fat lady
4.5. German fat lady Jlona
4.6. Fat lady Happy Jenny
4.7. Pitch card of fat lady Miss Peggy
4.8. Fat man Bruce Snowden
4.9. Banner advertising fat man Bruce Snowden
4.10. Living skeleton Claude Seurat
4.11. John Shouse, the "Stone Man"
4.12. "Little Pete" Terhune with the author
4.13. Terhune eats fire
4.14. Midget Charles Decker
4.15. The Famous Lilliputian Company
4.16. Wedding of midgets Charles Stratton ("General Tom Thumb") and Lavinia Warren, 1863
4.17. General and Mrs. Tom Thumb
4.18. Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren with a borrowed baby
4.19. Advertisement for "World's Smallest Woman"
5.1. The Biddenden Maids, the earliest known English conjoined twins
5.2. Chang and Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese twins"
5.3. Millie-Christine, the "United African Twins"
5.4. The Galyon conjoined twins
5.5. Perumal, with his parasitic twin Sami
5.6. Laloo
5.7. Eli Bowen, legless wonder
5.8. Mademoiselle Gabriel, the "living half woman"
5.9. Half-woman Jeanie Tomaini and her husband, giant Al Tomaini, at their Giant's Tourist Camp
5.10. Mademoiselle Tunison, armless wonder
5.11. Prince Randian, the "Caterpillar Man"
6.1. "Alligator" man suffering from ichthyosis
6.2. "Leopard" child
6.3. Hunchback midget, advertised as a "frog boy"
6.4. Grady Stiles Jr., the "Lobster Boy"
6.5. Bearded lady Grace Gilbert
6.6. Percilla the Monkey Girl and the Alligator Man
6.7. One of the Sacred Hairy Family of Burmah
6.8. The Seven Sutherland Sisters
6.9. Microcephalics
6.10. Albino
6.11. Albino
6.12. Bill Durks, known as the "Two-Faced Man" or the "Three-Eyed Man"
6.13. Grace McDaniels, the "Mule-Faced Woman"
7.1. Nineteenth-century contortionist
7.2. Contortionist the Great Zella
7.3. Elastic-skinned man
7.4. "Popeye" Perry
7.5. Melvin Burkhart, the "Man without a Stomach"
8.1. Japanese illustrated man
8.2. Tattooed woman
8.3. "Totally Tattooed" banner
8.4. Lorett Fulkerson, the "Tattooed Lady" (front view)
8.5. Lorett Fulkerson, the "Tattooed Lady" (back view)
8.6. Iron-tongued wonder
8.7. Genuine monster-mouthed Ubangi savages
8.8. Circassian beauty
8.9. Circassian beauty
8.10. Josephine-Joseph, the "Double-Bodied Half Woman, Half Man"
8.11. Strongman hoists a dumbbell
8.12. Banners for wild-woman Eeka, circa 1970s
8.13. Banners for Eeka, 2001
8.14. "Wildman" single-O
9.1. Ivan Chabert, the "Fire King"
9.2. The author walks barefoot over hot coals
9.3. "Fire Eater" banner
9.4. Blowtorch stunt
9.5. The author demonstrates fire eating. Step 1: the proper angle
9.6. Step 2: using the wet tongue
9.7. Step 3: closing the mouth
9.8. Step 4: exhaling
9.9. The author demonstrates trailing
9.10. Poobah the Fire-eating Dwarf performs alongside the outside talker
9.11. Nineteenth-century engraving of a sword swallower
9.12. Nineteenth-century Scientific American illustrates the sword blade inside the body
9.13. Floram Marchand, seventeenth-century "human fountain"
9.14. Human pincushion pushes a pin through his arm
9.15. Human pincushion shows buttons sewn to his chest
9.16. Zamora the Torture King
9.17. "Human Blockhead" banner
9.18. Eddie the Blockhead pounds a screwdriver into his nose
9.19. Torture queen Bambi demonstrates ladder-of-swords feat
9.20. Physicist David Willey walks barefoot on broken glass
9.21. "Electric Chair Lady" banner
9.22. Sketch of snake charmer
9.23. Snake charmer Millie Nevello
9.24. Gaffed knife-throwing act
9.25. Advertisement for vaudeville knife-throwing act
10.1. Hall & Christ's Wondercade
10.2. "Escape Artist" banner
10.3. Booklet of mentalist Leona LaMar
10.4. Mitt camp offering palmistry
10.5. Mitt camp offering psychic readings
10.6. "No Middle Myrtle" banner
10.7. Box with mirrors conceals the young lady's midriff
10.8. Bobby Reynolds exhibits a blade box
10.9. Decapitation trick
10.10. Secret of the decapitation trick revealed
10.11. Living-head illusion
10.12. Spidora illusion
10.13. Headless-girl illusion
10.14. Advertisement for headless Hollywood starlet
10.15. Floating-lady illusion
10.16. Pepper's ghost illusion
10.17. Girl-in-the-fishbowl illusion
10.18. Living half-lady illusion
10.19. Talking-head illusion
10.20. Half-woman illusion
11.1. Traveling menagerie
11.2. Serrano, the psychic horse
11.3. "Giant Rat" single-O
11.4. Banners from Freaks of Nature and Pet Zoo
11.5. Five-legged cow
11.6. Preserved exhibits in freak animal sideshow
11.7. Single-Os "World's Largest Pig," "Giant Alligator," and "Smallest Horse"
11.8. Acme Miniature Circus, with trained fleas
11.9. Tongue-in-cheek warning sign
11.10. "Professor" Gertsacov uses a magnifying glass to view his tiny performers
12.1. Bobby Reynolds with his two-headed pickled punk
12.2. "Real Human 2 Headed Baby" exhibit
12.3. Dufour and Rogers's "Real Two-Headed Baby" show at Chicago's Century of Progress
12.4. Pickled punks or rubber fakes (bouncers)?
12.5. Mummy
12.6. Two-headed goose
12.7. Bobby Reynolds, the author, and a "shrunken" friend
12.8. Fiji Mermaid exhibit
12.9. Fijii Mermaid
12.10. "Jenny Haniver," a manufactured mermaid
12.11. Jackelope
12.12. "Alien Bodies" grind show
12.13. Alien, made of clay
12.14. Gangster cars
12.15. Cardiff giant
13.1. Ward Hall
13.2. Chris Christ
13.3. Sideshows by the Seashore at Coney Island
13.4. Advertisement for Todd Robbins's Carnival Knowledge
13.5. Bill Browning mural of broken-down show truck
Acknowledgments
In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am grateful to the following for assisting me in various ways: Robert A. Baker, Timothy Binga, D. J. Grothe, Gena Henry, Sandy Lesniak, Linda Lotz, Rob McElroy, Vaughn Rees, and Ed Summer.
Like other authors, I appreciate the understanding and patience of friends and family, especially the love of my life, Diana Harris; my beautiful daughter, Cherette Roycroft; my son-in-law, Randy Roycroft; and my grandsons, Chase and Tyner.
Preface
Like Robert Ripley of "Believe It or Not!" fame, I have always been attracted to the odd and the curious. Growing up in a small eastern-Kentucky town, I rarely missed the visiting solo acts--armless wonders or bullwhip artists--who performed at the local ball park. I paid admission to countless magic, hypnotism, and spook shows, not to mention animal and juggling acts, that played at the school auditorium or the local theater. And I must have attended every carnival and circus that came around. Once, in the mid-1950s, my father and I even visited the state fair and its big sideshow. I can still recall being dazzled by the fire-eater, whose feats helped light a boy's interest.
In 1969 I worked as a magic pitchman in the carnival at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE). It was there that I met El Hoppo the Living Frog Boy and witnessed Atasha the Gorilla Girl, who transformed from beauty to beast before the eyes of frightened spectators (see Nickell 1970). Over the next three years I worked as a magician, learning the secrets of conjuring that lay behind many sideshow performances and illusions. During summers I was resident magician at the Houdini Magical Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The Falls' Clifton Hill--with its street vendors and attractions such as Ripley's and Tussaud's and Frankenstein's museums--was rather a carnival itself.
When I was not at Houdini's, I spent the remainder of the year performing on the school circuit as Janus the Magician, Mister Twister the Magic Clown, or Mendell the Mentalist. Each fall, I visited the CNE midway. There I saw--or, more accurately, studied--such sideshow exhibits as the bullet-riddled auto of Bonnie and Clyde, a Sasquatch frozen in a block of ice, animal freaks, and such human oddities as the famous Siamese twins Ronnie and Donnie. I also caught the short acts of fellow magicians, at least one of whom recognized me in the crowd and acknowledged my presence with a wink.
During travels in Europe, Asia, and North Africa in 1970 and 1971, I beheld various street acts, including nighttime fire-breathing and Houdini-style escape performances in Paris, a "dancing" bear in Istanbul, a little old wandering conjurer at the Pueblo Español in Barcelona, and a snake charmer and other entertainers at the Medina in Marrakech.
During the summers of 1975 and 1976 I was in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, dealing blackjack in Diamond Tooth Gertie's casino. I also operated a crown-and-anchor game--that is, a wheel of fortune like those on carnival midways. I even created an appropriately carnivalesque spiel: "This train leaves for Lucky Land! Hurry, hurry, last call for winners! Poor man's roulette, just half a buck to bet! It must be down to win!"
In short, I've spent much of my life investigating carnivals, particularly sideshows. Even during my years of graduate work and teaching (1979-1995) and my subsequent work as a full-time paranormal investigator with Skeptical Inquirer magazine, I maintained that interest. I often stopped by a roadside carnival or struck off on a weekend to visit a big fair within driving distance. For the past few years, however, recognizing their endangered status, I have more energetically studied these one-time mainstays of circuses and carnivals.
I have met such legendary showmen as Bobby Reynolds and Ward Hall, the last of a vanishing breed, and have been permitted behind-the-scenes access to their shows. My colleague, Skeptical Inquirer managing editor Benjamin Radford, who shares my interest, accompanied me on several trips to interview Reynolds, Hall, Hall's partner Chris Christ, and others, as well as to meet sideshow notables such as Poobah the Fire-eating Dwarf.
At one time or another I have petted five-legged cows, inspected trick boxes like the one used for NoMiddle Myrtle, witnessed human pincushions (painfully up close), and posed for pictures with snake girls. I have also examined shrunken heads (both real and fake), chatted with sword swallowers and electric girls, obtained the autographs of sideshow notables (including celebrity fat man Harold Huge), and taken closeup photos of Eddie the Blockhead pounding screwdrivers into his nostrils. And that's just for starters.
Sometimes my sideshow studies overlapped my paranormal ones, as I tried my hand (and other body parts) at some of the feats performed by street, fair, and sideshow entertainers. With the guidance of David Willey, physicist and resident "mad scientist" of the Tonight Show, I have dipped my hand in molten lead, made a twenty-five-foot fire walk, and laid on a bed of nails while Willey used a sledgehammer to smash a cinder block on my chest.
Secrets of the Sideshows is based on these endeavors, as well as on historical and other research. In the following pages, you will read about the evolution of circuses and carnivals and their accompanying midway features, especially the locations and functions of the socalled freak shows and other types of sideshows. You will learn to "talk carny," as we discuss roughies setting up a ten-in-one with its distinctive banner line and bally platform. There you may see an anatomical wonder or a snake charmer, while the bally talker (not a "barker") skillfully turns the tip. Inside, you will meet the lecturer (still not a "barker"), who will introduce you to such wonders as Spidora, encourage you to buy a pitch card from an alligator boy, and send you to the blowoff wondering if the pickled punks there are really gaffed. You will meet many of the showmen and especially the human oddities and other remarkable performers, even peeking behind the curtains at their often equally remarkable personal lives. You will learn the secrets of illusions such as the headless girl; become an expert on the finer points of fire eating and sword swallowing; and visit menageries, flea circuses, and singleOs, such as one featuring a giant rat.
There is much, much more, ladies and gentlemen. Hurry! Step right this way! It's on the inside!
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication:
Sideshows.