Stringer Fall13

The Guayabera:
Heritage, Customs, Family
Terms of Endearment:
Chenhall’s
Nomenclature
The Legacy of
Dime Museums
Reflections on Experience
A u t u mn 2 0 1 3 V O L U M E 6 8 , # 4
7
THE MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY
24
Features
7A Town and Gown Partnership:
Collaborative Learning in Indiana,
Pennsylvania
By Jeanine Mazak-Kahne, and Coleen Chambers
13The Legacy of Dime Museums
and the Freakshow: How the Past
Impacts the Present
19
By Katie Stringer
19 Reflections on Experience: Listening
to Visitors
By David Thelen, Ellen M. Rosenthal, and Barbara Franco
24 Terms of Endearment: Nomenclature—How did it Begin;
Where is it Going?
By Ron Kley
13
Departments
3On Doing Local History
By Carol Kammen
5History Bytes
By Tim Grove
28Award Winner Spotlight
By Rikki Davenport
30Book Reviews
By Linda Eikmeier Endersby
and Anne McCudden
ON THE COVER
Guayabera, 2012.
Since the first-four
pocket peasant
shirt, place, time,
function, and
meaning have
transformed the
guyabera. One
popular notion
concerning its design is that the shirt’s back
may have been influenced by the design of the
Cuban flag. Photo courtesy HistoryMiami
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EDITOR Bob Beatty
Managing Editor Bethany L. Hawkins
DESIGN Go Design, LLC
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By Katie Stringer
untary, but most often were acts of desperation from people
the mass culture considered to be “freaks.” The place of
those individuals with disabilities is an important piece of
the past that informs present displays and exhibits, museum policies, and popular attitudes. Even today, modern
sideshows are available to the public in various forums. To
understand the impact that the past had on the present, it
is important to first understand what a freakshow is or was,
and what defines a “freak.”
The exhibitions of people who are different have
been called many things: Raree Shows, Halls of Human
Curiosities, Sideshows, Pitshows, Odditoriums, Congress
of Oddities, Collections of Human Wonders, Museum of
Nature’s Mistakes, and Freakshows. One of the first examples of a traveling exhibit of a person appeared in 1738, in
a colonial American newspaper. The paper ran an advertisement for an exhibit of a person who “was taken in a wood at
Guinea, ’tis a female about four feet high, in every part like a
woman excepting her head which nearly resembles the ape.”
New York and Cincinnati: Strobridge & Co. Lith.
Accessed through the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
I
began writing my dissertation for Middle Tennessee
State University’s Public History Ph.D. program
in 2012 with the idea that my research would culminate in a practical plan for museums and historic
sites to go beyond the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) to welcome visitors with all disabilities and abilities to have meaningful experiences. Throughout history
there have been many populations that have been discriminated against or ignored by institutions and organizations
of all types. The same is true of museums, and some might
argue that those problems still exist today. Even with the
ADA it seems that museums and historic organizations are
still behind in reaching out to and welcoming people with
disabilities.
As I researched the history of museums, it was clear that
almost all began as institutes for the wealthy, educated
elite classes. As dime museums became popular, they were
opened to even the lowest classes, but as you will read below,
the institutions did not seem to welcome visitors with disabilities except as exhibitions. Once these shows took to the
road, they became sideshows or freakshows, often accompanying circuses. The shows became inextricably tied to the
term “exhibition” and in some cases, even museum.
My research on freakshows as exhibitions helps to inform
museums on this somewhat sordid past, and can offer context for those institutions that are trying to go beyond assumed limitations to become true community centers for all
members of society.
Dime Museums and Freakshows
From the popular Coney Island amusement area in New
York City to traveling circuses and sideshows, exhibits that
featured people with physical differences were some of the
most prevalent attractions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dime museums and national exhibitions up to
the mid-twentieth century often featured humans who were
considered “different” for the public to view and experience.
The exhibition of people in these shows was sometimes vol-
Print from 1898 reads: “The Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show on
Earth. The Peerless Prodigies of Physical Phenomena.
[with] Smallest Man Alive [and] the Congo Giant.”
H i s t o r y n e ws
13
Photograph by Jack Delano.
From the Library of Congress Prints Photographs Division Washington, DC
Outside a freakshow at the Rutland Fair in Vermont.
Throughout the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries,
freakshows or sideshows were among the most popular attractions for the middle-class public.1
From 1840 until 1940, freakshows were at their height.
Historians typically mark 1840 as the beginning of the
freakshow era. That was the year P.T. Barnum began the
American Museum, a New York City attraction that cost
a dime to enter. The museum contained many exhibits of
historic artifacts and gaffes, faked items made to trick the
viewer. The museum also housed many people who were
considered to be rarities worthy of exhibition. These people
included: General Tom Thumb, a person with dwarfism; the
Aztec Twins; albinos; the “What is It?” a person with microcephaly; and many other “living curiosities.”2
Barnum’s American Museum was, in a sense, following in
the footsteps of the earliest museums of the Western world.
Considered to be the first modern museum, the Ashmolean
Museum in England opened at Oxford University in 1683.
It is generally thought to be the first museum established
by a public body for the public benefit. The collection contained natural history specimens, coins, books, and art and
was essentially a “cabinet of curiosities.” Anthony Wood
described the Ashmolean Museum as a building “necessary
in order to the promoting and carrying on with greater ease
and success severall parts of usefull [sic] and curious learning.” The museum had ten rooms and three of those were
open to the public. Collections included the “hieroglyphicks [sic] and other Egyptian antiquities” donated by Dr.
Robert Huntingdon, an “intire [sic] mummy,” and “Romane
[sic] antiquities.” These collections represent what was foreign, entertaining, and intriguing to Oxford students, faculty, and residents.3
In 1865 a fire destroyed P. T. Barnum’s original American
Museum. The New York Times listed many of the items of
interest that had been lost in the fire, though none of the
people who were exhibited died. A newspaper article published in 1865 claimed that Barnum was constructing a new
museum to replace the old. The author claimed, “The fact
is, that the loss of the museum was a national calamity.”4
14
Autumn 2013
When Barnum’s museum burned in 1865, few complained. In The Nation, Edwin Lawrence Godkin exclaimed,
“The worst and most corrupt classes of our people must seek
some new place of resort.” He then questioned whether visitors were more upset by the fire that destroyed the museum
or the state of the artifacts in the museum. Godkin asserted
that the “insufficiency, disorder, neglected condition” of the
museum should have insulted visitors. To Godkin, museums had to be more professional, educational, and limited
in the audience they sought to attract. He concluded, “The
profoundly scientific are not those who care for public museums, unless containing this or that unique treasure. The
frequenters of museums are those who cannot themselves
give much time or means to the collection, classification, and
study of specimens, but who read in the evenings and would
gladly see by day a larger number and greater variety of
helps to understand than their own limited time has sufficed
to discover.” Godkin called for a new museum that would
do justice to that title. He said, “It is in behalf of all classes
of the community, except that vicious and degraded one by
which the late ‘American Museum’ was largely monopolized,
that we ask the community for a building and for collections
that shall be worthy of the name so sadly misapplied.”5
However, the museum yet again burned to the ground in
1868 and was not rebuilt. Instead, Barnum took his show on
the road, thus founding one of America’s most famous traveling circuses and sideshows.6
Based on Barnum’s model, entrepreneurs organized exhibitions of people with physical, mental, and behavioral disabilities or impairments to attract the public and generate a
profit. Many times they advertised these exhibitions as educational and scientific. Barnum’s museum and others like it
became known as dime museums. Often, they housed gaffes
or fake objects and people, and were little more than a circus
or carnival sideshow exhibit. While people likely did not
conflate museums with sideshows, the sideshows generally
billed themselves as educational, and the sideshow did grow
out of the dime museum tradition.7
These exhibitions allowed the general population to see
“dioramas, panoramas, georamas, cosmoramas, paintings,
relics, freaks, stuffed animals, menageries, waxworks, and
theatrical performance.” The museums served as escapes for
Victorian Americans who suddenly had leisure time thanks
in part to the industrial revolution. For many, the word “museum” thus became irrevocably associated with the weird,
strange, and unknown since many of the sideshows and attractions were erroneously labeled museums.8
Freakshows and Humanity
Once the sideshow or freakshow became an entity of its
own, organizers named the people integral to these attractions curiosities, rarities, oddities, wonders, mistakes, prodigies, special people, and even monsters. The bally shouters
and fair organizers categorized performers into different
races and natural mistakes, such as giants, people without
arms or legs, obese, conjoined twins, “wild” men hailed to
have been from foreign and unexplored lands, little people,
albinos, and more. People with physical disabilities or
anomalies were generally called “born different” peoples,
unlike those who were “made freaks” by swallowing
swords or nailing objects into their heads.9
By labeling a person a freak, the sideshow removed the
humanity of the performer because he or she might not
have the same physical characteristics of the “normal”
person, and authorized the paying customer to approach
the person as an object of curiosity and entertainment. To
reconcile the exploitation of people who were different as
curiosities worthy of admission price, society had only to
take away their humanity.10
Primary sources reveal little criticism of the exhibition
of people with disabilities. Instead, many scientists and
doctors accepted and assisted such displays as educational
experiences, and they attended the exhibits as well to examine and comment on them. Though scientists studied the
people in the exhibits and wrote articles about them, none
of the articles critique the display of people with disabilities
for public amusement and entertainment.11
In Boston in 1850, the popular exhibition of Maximo
and Bartola, the Aztec Children, featured them dressed in
outfits with Aztec designs and feathers, was an immediate
success not only among the public but also with the scientific community. One observer claimed that to everyone
the children were “subjects deserving of careful scrutiny
and thoughtful observation…they must be objects of vivid
interest.” The fact that the children seemed to be severely
cognitively impaired was not addressed in the booklet
that accompanied the exhibit or by observers.12
Eventually, in 1985, the complaints of concerned citizens prompted the last remaining freakshow, New York
State Fair’s Sutton Sideshow attraction, to be moved
away from the midway of the park. The term “freak” was
no longer an acceptable term for people with disabilities
in the amusement industry. This reaction recognized
the reality that freakshows were crude, exploitative, and
somewhat embarrassing to society; it has even been called
the “pornography of disability.”13
“The History of the ADA: A Movement Perspective,” the
ADA did not begin with the congressional legislation of
1990. It began much earlier with the people and communities that fought against discrimination.14
Legally, the shift towards disability equality began in 1973
when Congress passed Section 504: the Rehabilitation Act,
which banned discrimination based on disability for the
receiving of federal funds. Following this action the disability civil rights movement gained momentum, and in 1988,
the Americans with Disabilities Act first appeared before
Congress. In 1990, Congress passed the act giving rights to
people with disabilities that had previously not been guaranteed by federal law. Essentially, the law protected against disability discrimination in employment; public services, public
accommodation, and services operated by private entities;
transportation; and telecommunications.
Interestingly, as institutions and citizens grew accustomed
to compliance with ADA requirements, the freakshow reappeared in American popular culture, albeit in a different
format. This was especially true at Brooklyn’s Coney Island.
The reboot of sideshows and freaks in the United States
focuses more on “self-made” freaks than “born-differents.”
This suggests that people who are considered to be freakish
in some way by societies are embracing the term and using
the title as a power term.
The shift from “born different” to “self-made” freaks in
sideshows and other displays is shown in the sideshows of
Coney Island today, television shows, and movies. Writing
in Disability Quarterly Studies in 2005, Elizabeth Stephens
details the differences between those born with a disability
and those who are “made freaks.” She adds, “The wonder
and anxiety generated by the body of the self-made freak
arises not from the randomness of its physical difference,
as responses to the ‘born’ freak did, but at its celebration of
different capabilities and aesthetics.”15
The freakshow revival is not just apparent at Coney
Island. In fall 2012, a new television program Freakshow premiered on the American Movie Channel. The show follows
the Venice Beach Freakshow performers in a reality show
format. Its trailer features several individuals with physical
disabilities. The main character, owner, and performer Todd
Ray notes, “Freak is one of the most positive words I can
think of; for us freak means normal.”16
Coney Island is banking on the
freakshow, in part to continue to
Signs inside Coney Island, USA’s
fuel a resurgence of popuFreak Bar directing visitors to the
larity among locals and
Sideshow or Museum.
tourists. Coney Island
USA has been working to revitalize the
area for many years.
On the boardwalk,
the organization
houses a museum,
a sideshow, and a
freak bar for visitors to experience
aspects of Coney
Island at its prime.
Impact of the Americans with
Disabilities Act
In 1988, historian Robert
Bogdan argued that the freakshow was a dying exhibition
style that would not be around
for much longer for financial
reasons and propriety’s sake. In
1990, Congress approved the
Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA). The ADA was
the first major legislation that provided a
promise of equality to
all people with disabilities. However, Arelene
Mayerson argued in
er
ng
tri
eS
ti
Ka
H i s t o r y n e ws
15
The museum contains information about the history of
Coney Island, some examples of gaffes that were popular in
sideshows, and even a cyclorama that portrays the burning
of Dreamland in the early twentieth century.
A board of directors operates Coney Island USA. Its board
chair in 2012 when I visited, was Dr. Jeffery Birnbaum, a
a physician who has been studying sideshow performers
with physical disabilities. Additionally, he is a pediatrician
with HEAT (Health and Education Alternatives for Teens),
of which he is the founder, director, and physician. Dr.
Birnbaum has also studied sideshow performers, congenital
malformations, disabilities, and the medical community.17 Today, Coney Island still operates one of the only sideshows in the country. Its website proclaims, “Sideshows by
the Seashore is the last permanently housed place in the
United States where you can experience the thrill of a traditional ten-in-one circus sideshow. They’re here, they’re real,
and they’re alive! Freaks, wonders, and human curiosities!”
In an age of ADA, disability rights, and varying degrees of
political correctness, it can be hard to see how a sideshow
can fit into the modern world. In May 2012, Coney Island
USA had just completed its annual Congress of Curious
Peoples, at which there are exhibitions of people, speeches,
parties, and inductions into the Sideshow Hall of Fame for
such categories as “Born Differents” and “Self Inflicted.”18
Dr. Birnbaum shared information about several people he
knows who participate in sideshows or other types of shows
to raise awareness about disability issues. Matt Fraser is to
the sideshow world a “seal boy” or person with phocomalia,
and he is also a disability rights activist who uses his disability in his performance. He uses his impairment to make the audience uncomfortable for
laughing and having fun, since almost all people
are conditioned to ignore or remain sympathetic
Coney
toward people with disabilities.19
Island USA’s
An interview with Jason Black from Austin,
Museum and
Texas, addressed key questions about disabilSideshows
ity and the sideshow in today’s world. Black is
by the
known in the sideshow and entertainment world
Seashore with
as the Black Scorpion, and in the past he may
“Museum”
have been known as a human lobster because of
written
his impairment. Black is affected by
prominently
ectrodactyly, an
across the
top of the
building.
r
ge
trin
eS
Katie Stringer
ti
Ka
attribute present at birth in which one or more digits from
the hand or foot is missing, and the effect is a claw-like appearance. Black commented in an email, “I am the Black
Scorpion. I do participate in freakshow/sideshow performances…. The world I’ve grown up in is one that can be,
at times, hardheaded and difficult to communicate with,
because of preconceived notions or thoughts, if you will,
as to who someone with different [fill in the blank] is supposed to be…. What I do on stage is magic, not because of
illusions or tricks but because of soul. I try to change preconceived negatives into positives and at times fail miserably when agendas have already put blinders along someone’s
path through our world.” The world in which Black grew
up is very different from that of his predecessors in the sideshow experience. Rather than displaying himself simply as a
freak, Black tries to change people’s impressions of freaks.20
When asked how things might have been different if he
had lived during the peak of sideshows, Black remarked,
“I probably would have made more money, owned a show,
and my act would have been slightly different…or I may
have been chased by an angry mob of villager—with pitchforks and torches into a barn only to be silently killed by my
creator.” Though this may be an exaggeration, the changes
from the past to today remain evident. Black replied to a
question about exploitation of himself and his disability in
his show. “I think when folks see my act, the word ‘exploit’
doesn’t really cross their minds, though I could be wrong….
Negative feedback I’ve received has always been of the
political nature, usually geriatric white men upset over
something I’ve said. I mostly teach about and share experiences of life with ectrodactyly. But really all performers are
exploiting themselves.”21
Dr. Birnbaum explained that in the past, the disability
community often viewed people who performed as taking
part in something equal to pornography. Today, however,
many in this population see it as a “rock ‘n’ roll career.”
Rather than the negative stigma originally associated with
the term “freak,” today many people in the sideshow community embrace the term. In New York City and along the
east coast, many people seek out the unofficial mayor of
Coney Island, Dick Zigun, in hopes that they will be chosen
to appear at Sideshows by the Seashore.22
Though Coney Island does not employ any people with
intellectual disabilities as performers, Dr. Birnbaum divulged
a story about a child with microcephaly
born in New York City but
abandoned at a local hospital.
A hospital worker knew of
Birnbaum’s interest in sideshows
and his work with Coney Island,
and the hospital employee asked
if he would adopt the child
to give him a career at Coney
Island. Although this is a second-hand tale from an interview,
it does show that people still associate some disabilities with the
sideshow and the exhibition of
curiosities.23
16
Autumn 2013
In addition to the live sideshows of Coney Island and
hibits that are based on von Hagen’s original work. While
Venice Beach and the new program Freakshow on the cable
these are arguably more scientifically educational than the
network AMC, many television programs take on the circus
freakshows of the past, the exhibitions do exploit the bodies
midway sideshow. As technologies and interests grow and
of human beings, just as sideshows did throughout the ninechange, perhaps this is simply the next evolution in the preteenth and early twentieth centuries.
sentation of the other for entertainment at home. Perhaps
In modern museums, even without these bodies exhibits,
today society is more comfortable watching, asking questhere are rarely traces of images or displays of people with
tions, and gawking at the different people with disabilities or
disabilities in regular permanent exhibits or art. Annie Delin
different proclivities than they would be in a public forum. explains that this absence reinforces cultural stereotypes
The exploitation of disability in the modern world continagainst people with disabilities and conspires to “present a
ues in many ways. While some programs on television may
narrow perspective of the existence of disability in history.”
appear to recognize the humanity of people with disabilities,
Museums that exclude people with disabilities from exhibits,
the pointing and staring aspects seem to still pervade sociwhether they are exhibits themselves as in the past sideshows
ety; the sensational promotional commercials may be the
and dime museums or represented in general exhibits, the
only view that a person has of the people
museum is discounting an entire segment of
portrayed on any of the shows mentioned
visitor population. In most history museabove. If that is the case, those people
ums there are not images of people living,
may only see the characters as freaks
working, making art, or anything else in
The question of
without humanity.24
the past; if they are present they are called
marvels of nature.26
how museums can
Delin goes on to argue that when
combat this imagery
people with disabilities are shown in
of exploitation and
museums, many times they appear only
entertainment can
as freaks or beggars. Portraying people
Some of the most popular and mostas freaks takes away their humanity; even
be answered through
visited museums are a part of the Ripley’s
in museums this makes it acceptable to
effective educational
Believe It or Not Odditorium franchise.
point and stare at people who are differprograms, universal
These “museums” are sometimes still
ent. Delin states that this makes it posbilled as odditoriums, and though they
design, and the
sible for ridicule and dehumanizing to
do not contain living people in their extake place in the museum.27
welcoming of the
hibits, wax and plastic figures of people
entire public to
who were considered to be freaks are
museums.
still on display. Most items in the museums are reproductions or gaffes (such
The question of how museums can
as the famous Barnum hoax the Feegee
combat this imagery of exploitation and
Mermaid). The Ripley’s franchise of
entertainment can be answered through
museums and exhibits is arguably for entereffective educational programs, universal detainment, not education, much like the original sideshows
sign, and the welcoming of the entire public to museums.
and dime museums of the past. The modern Ripley’s franRather than displaying those with disabilities as exhibits,
chise includes the odditoriums or museums, perhaps the
museums should strive to tell everyone’s story, include those
most recognizable of their brand, as well as aquariums, miniwith disabilities in the exhibit materials itself, and offer
golf, haunted adventures, and mirror mazes, to name a few. equitable experiences to all populations. Many museums
Even today people are still interested in seeing the macaare making great strides in these directions, though hisbre, taboo, or different in so-called respectable museums,
toric structures pose a myriad of challenges to overcome.
even as they were in the past centuries. Today exhibits
The Jewish Museum in Manhattan, Museum of Modern
that display human bodies are popular in several regions.
Art, Smithsonian, the New York Transit Museum, and
Gunther von Hagen’s Body Worlds, a German exhibit aimed
many children’s museums have great models of accessibilat exhibiting human anatomy, opened in 1996 and continues
ity programs and universal design. The time for historic
to travel in various forms around the world. In this exhibit
sites, houses, and museums of all shapes and sizes to raise
there are more than 200 specimens, and 26 whole human
standards in these areas is now, and the opportunities are
bodies that have been prepared and posed in diverse poses.
endless.
Though many of the bodies may have been obtained illegalThere are still several obstacles for educators and adly or at the least unethically, the press reports on the exhibit,
ministrators to create inclusive museums and historic sites.
even those that were negative, served only to increase the
Historic sites have many specific difficulties because they are
number of visitors to museums.25
tangibly inaccessible to many people with physical or mulThe success of Body Worlds is apparent in the number of
tiple disabilities. The inclusion of people with disabilities in
exhibits that imitate the original exhibition: Bodies…The
exhibits or interpretation is still an area that many museums
Exhibition, The Amazing Human Body, Body Exploration, and
and historic sites could address.
Bodies Revealed, are just a few of the traveling popular ex-
Lessons for Today’s
Museums
Lessons for the Field
H i s t o r y n e ws
17
History institutions have changed exponentially throughout the years. Public
Firsthand
historians today have the opportunity to
experiences can
enlarge and enhance museum audiences by
creating effective, dynamic environments
help students
and programs. Simply inviting groups of
make those
people with special needs or disabilities
connections that
to a historic site is not enough. Once the
make history and
group is at the site, public historians must
use their skills of engagement and shared
people from the
authority to help then teach social and life
past matter to
skills as well as educational. Our organizathem.
tions also offer the unique opportunity, in
many cases, for students to see the historic
structures and artifacts that people actually
lived in or used in the past that they usually
see through history books. Firsthand experiences
can help students make those connections that make history
and people from the past matter to them.
Though it is rare to find a freakshow today, especially one
that displays people with disabilities, it is important for museum professionals to understand that those exhibitions are
considered close cousins to modern exhibits and museums.
Historic sites and museums are such great places to build
community and connections with humanity from the past
and today; it would be a shame to continue to exclude the
ideas and participation of those who some consider to be different. By understanding the past, museum professionals can
be more cognizant of their actions and efforts of inclusion. t
Katie Stringer graduated in May 2013 with a Ph.D. in Public
History (with a concentration in museum management) from Middle
Tennessee State University. She is Executive Director of the Blount
Mansion in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 2014, Rowman & Littlefield will
publish her first book, Programming for People with Special Needs:
A Guide for Museums and Historic Sites as part of its AASLH book
series. She can be reached at mkatestringer@gmail.com.
Bibliography
These sources are very helpful for museums to create inclusive and accessible exhibitions and spaces. The literature
is still developing, but these sources are a wonderful start.
Majewski, Janice. Part of Your General Public Is Disabled: A
Handbook for Guides in Museums, Zoos, and Historic Houses.
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987.
Playforth, Sarah. Resource Disability Portfolio Series. London:
Council for Museums, Archives & Libraries, 2003.
Sandell, Richard. Museums, Society, Inequality (Museum
Meanings). London: Routledge, 2002.
Sandell, Richard, Jocelyn Dodd, and Rosemarie GarlandThomson. Re-Presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in
the Museum. London: Routledge, 2010.
Sherman, Daniel J. Museums and Difference. Indianapolis:
Indiana University Press, 2008.
1
Robert Bogdan. Freakshow: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 25.
18
Autumn 2013
2
Phineas T. Barnum, An Illustrated Catalogue and Guide Book to Barnum’s
American Museum (New York: Wynkoop, Hallenbeck, & Thomas, circa 1860).
3
Geoffrey Lewis, “The Role of Museums and the Professional Code of
Ethics,” in Running a Museum: A Practical Handbook, ed. International Council of
Museums. Paris: ICOM, 2010, 2; Hugh H. Genoways and Mary Anne Andrei,
Museum Origins: Readings in Early Museum History and Philosophy (Walnut Creek,
CA: Left Coast Press, 2008), 19, 21.
4
“Disastrous Fire: Total Destruction of Barnum’s American Museum,” New
York Times, 14 July 1865; “Barnum’s New Museum Project: Museum Will
Contain,” New York Times, 18 July 1865.
5
Edwin L. Godkin, “A Word About Museums,” The Nation (27 July 1865):
113-14.
6
“Burning of Barnum’s Museum: List of Losses and Insurances,” New York
Times, 4 March 1868.
7
People with physical disabilities or anomalies are generally called “born different” peoples, unlike those who are “made freaks” by swallowing swords or
nailing objects into their heads. Today’s freakshows consist mainly of people who
are “made freaks” who do dangerous tricks or have a rare talents, though there are
some instances of “born differents” still today; See Godkin, 113-14.
8
Andrea Stulman Dennett, Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America
(New York: New York University Press, 1997), 5, 7; More information about the
rise and impact of dime museums and entertainment industry as a whole is available in Dennett’s Weird and Wonderful; John Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney
Island at the Turn of the Century; Genoways and Andrei, Museum Origins; Charles
C. Sellers, Mr. Peale’s Museum: Charles Wilson Peale and the First Popular Museum
of Natural Science and Art; and Gary Kulik, “Designing the Past: History-Museum
Exhibitions from Peale to the Present,” in History Museums in the United States: A
Critical Assessment, Warren Leon and Roy Rosenweig, eds., 3-37.
9
Bogdan, 6.
Rachel Adams, Sideshow U.S.A: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 10.
10
11
Bogdan, 121.
12
Ibid., 129, 130.
“Sideshow Freaks a Vanishing Act,” Bangor (Maine) Daily News, 26 August
1985; Bogdan, 2.
13
14
Arlene Mayerson, “The History of the ADA: A Movement Perspective,”
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, 1992.
15
Elizabeth Stephens, “Twenty-First Century Freakshow: Recent
Transformations in the Exhibition of Non-Normative Bodies,” Disability Quarterly
Studies 25 (Summer 2005): 1.
16
AMC Network Entertainment, Freakshow, www.amctv.com/shows/freakshow.
Dr. Jeffery Birnbaum, interview by author, Coney Island, NY, 10 May 2012.
Interview summary available online at: http://on.aaslh.org/Stringer-Birnbaum.
17
18
Coney Island U.S.A., “Coney Island Circus Sideshow,” www.coneyisland.
com/sideshow.
19
The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) describes phocomalia as “a rare birth defect that causes severe birth defects, especially of the
upper limbs. The bones of the arms, and in some cases other appendages, may be
extremely shortened and even absent. The fingers of the hands may be fused. An
extreme case results in the absence of the upper bones of both the arms and legs so
that the hands and feet appear attached directly to the body.” See http://on.aaslh.
org/phocomalia. In sideshows and freakshows, people with phocomalia are called
“seal boys” or “lobster children” because of the physical characteristics of their
disorder; Birnbaum interview.
20
Jason Black, email interview by author, 28 August 2012. Summary online
at http://on.aaslh.org/StringerBlackScorpion; Organization for Rare Disorders,
“Rare Disease Information,” http://on.aaslh.org/RareDiseaseInfo.
21
Black interview.
22
Birnbaum interview.
Coney Island does not employ those with intellectual disability as performers, however, it is interesting to note that radio host Howard Stern has employed
a person with microcephaly and severe intellectual disability. Lester Green, called
Beetlejuice, attends functions and performances with Stern and is generally seen as
a comedic entertainer; Birnbaum interview.
23
24
The question of exploitation in the modern world is addressed by Annie
Delin, who states, in reference to exhibits and portrayals, “In modern society, we
no longer actively condone the showing of ‘different’ people as freaks.… Yet we do
perpetuate the acceptability of staring and pointing whenever we allow a picture
of a small person or someone with a disfiguring condition to be displayed without
identity and context.” From Annie Delin, “Buried in the Footnotes: The Absence
of Disabled People in the Collective Imagery of Our Past,” in Museums, Society,
and Inequality, edited by Richard Sandell (New York: Routledge, 2002), 89.
25
Peter M. McIsaac, “Gunther von Hagen’s Body Worlds: Exhibitionary
Practice, German History, and Difference” by in Museums and Difference edited by
Daniel J. Sherman (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008), 153, 160.
26
Delin, 84-85.
27
Ibid., 86, 89