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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house Stop works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen. Well, hello, Kristen

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Speaker 1: called hello Caroline. Uh So, today we're talking about female

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Speaker 1: freaks as in side shows, services and strip DeSUS. Hey,

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Speaker 1: there's the time. And for those astute listeners out there

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Speaker 1: who listen to our episode on Mermaids, you might remember

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Speaker 1: Pete Barnum coming up in that conversation for his great

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Speaker 1: Fiji mermaid hopes. And not surprisingly, Pete Barnum is a

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Speaker 1: central figure in this freak Show podcast because he is

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Speaker 1: sort of the father of freak show in the United States. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he sort of centralized them, institutionalize them, if you will. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And he opened up the American Museum in New York,

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Speaker 1: which was a dime museum, and he basically had all

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Speaker 1: of these sort of freak show attractions that people could

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Speaker 1: come and check out, and ironically also organized the first

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Speaker 1: real beauty contest in the United States in eighteen fifty four.

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Speaker 1: So he's you know, selling freakery beauty. Yeah, it's all

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Speaker 1: kind of the same thing. You name it, PTE. Barn

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to do it. All of these freak

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Speaker 1: shows are really flourishing early on before television, back in

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Speaker 1: the Victorian era, usually between eighteen fifty and about nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty UM, basically as the market for leisure activities increased

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Speaker 1: and people had money to burn, you know, they had

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Speaker 1: the weekend to go spend their money, and we're looking

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Speaker 1: for things to do. And they also had a morbid

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Speaker 1: curiosity that helps. There's a difference between made freaks and

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Speaker 1: that would people who had a ton of tattoos, for instance,

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Speaker 1: and then there were born freaks, which would include um

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Speaker 1: dwarfs or conjoined twins, which we'll talk about in a

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Speaker 1: little bit Um and Yeah, during the Victorian era, people

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Speaker 1: were just had this strange fascination with going and seeing

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Speaker 1: like a dwarf, such as Tom Thumb, which was one

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Speaker 1: of the most famous freaks that P. T. Barnum made

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Speaker 1: into this kind of phenomenon. And at the same time

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Speaker 1: we also have this is an eight thirty two the

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Speaker 1: coining of teratology, which is the science of monsters and

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Speaker 1: abnormality in plants and animals, so that it seems like

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Speaker 1: I don't know what was going on in the Victorian

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Speaker 1: era that was really fueling this. Maybe it was It's well,

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Speaker 1: they didn't have reality TV yet, there were no Real

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Speaker 1: Housewives of Beverly Hills to watch the plastic surgery exactly.

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Speaker 1: Those kind of physical changes occur. Um. But one really

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Speaker 1: interesting piece of research that we found was the intersection

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Speaker 1: between the development of free shows and stripped teases. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and eight at the Chicago World Colombian Exposition, coach dancing

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Speaker 1: was introduced, and it's exactly what you think it is. Um.

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Speaker 1: It was basically belly dancing, and it became kind of

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Speaker 1: a stripped tease for purely male audiences. Eventually they just

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Speaker 1: did not let women or children in. Just probably appropriate,

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Speaker 1: especially since this is the Victorian era. Um. But Yeah.

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Speaker 1: According to Rebecca Read of the University of Wisconsin, this

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Speaker 1: couch dancing became part of the circus side show tent

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Speaker 1: around the turn of the century, and it was part

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Speaker 1: of the final blowoff, which is a term that basically

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Speaker 1: means the final show of the side show tent, and

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Speaker 1: so it usually did involve naked or half naked women

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Speaker 1: dancing around. Um. After the freaks were rated on stage. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you go to the freak show and then you

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Speaker 1: can stick around for a coach dance exactly. But but

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Speaker 1: fortunately or unfortunately, naked ladies were not the only part

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Speaker 1: of the side show, right, And so you might not

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Speaker 1: associate strip teases with freak shows. Rebecca Reid points out

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Speaker 1: that in fact, they were both the women doing the

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Speaker 1: strip teases and the women in freak shows and the

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Speaker 1: men of course too were considered freaks because they were

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Speaker 1: total paradox, especially if you think about the women doing

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Speaker 1: strip teases during the Victorian era. Right, belly dancing, we

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Speaker 1: might not thank anything of that. You know, you might

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Speaker 1: go to some restaurant and there will belly dancers and

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Speaker 1: you're not horrified. You would take your children. But back

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Speaker 1: then it was considered extremely exotic because I mean, think

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Speaker 1: about the clothing they wore in the Victorian era. Everything

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Speaker 1: was covered. Oh my gosh, did I just see an ankle?

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Speaker 1: So the fact that these women were dancing around in

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Speaker 1: these little skinpy outfits, it was considered pretty u risky,

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Speaker 1: pretty of titilating. Yeah. Absolutely, But the nude or totally

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Speaker 1: nude women did not make up the majority of female

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Speaker 1: side show acts because the focus of the women in

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Speaker 1: freak shows was really on um, their bodies, but also

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Speaker 1: their talents that they had in spite of, say a disability,

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Speaker 1: right like look at the amputees, people who maybe were

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Speaker 1: either had limbs amputated or were born without certain limbs.

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Speaker 1: People thought it was really interesting to watch them do

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Speaker 1: basic things, right, Like, there's a picture of ann Lee Thompson,

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Speaker 1: who I think is from Georgia. UM. She was called

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Speaker 1: the Armless Wonder And there was a picture of her

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Speaker 1: that I saw where she's, you know, dressed like a

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Speaker 1: normal individual. She happens to be sitting on a table

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Speaker 1: but who hasn't um And there's a little boy and

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Speaker 1: a man next to her. I think it's her family.

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Speaker 1: And she happens to be holding a pair of scissors

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Speaker 1: between her toes, just like, hey, I'm cutting things with

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Speaker 1: the toes. It's normal. And audiences were like, oh my god. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because they would often try to pair something very normal

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Speaker 1: with the so called freak to make it that much

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Speaker 1: more obvious that this is very different than what you've

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Speaker 1: normally seen. A woman sitting on a table putting things

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Speaker 1: with their toes. People hadn't really seen that right, and

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Speaker 1: those kind of the people with those kind of talents.

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Speaker 1: For instance, Um, the Hilton sisters were conjoined twins. They're

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Speaker 1: born in England in nineteen o eight. Yeah, not not

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Speaker 1: the current Hilton. This is not Paris and Nikki. Um,

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Speaker 1: and their mother sold them to this woman named Mary

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Speaker 1: Hilton and basically sold them into frea show slavery. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The Mary Hilton was actually their mother's boss, and she

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Speaker 1: took one look at them and figured she could make

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Speaker 1: a dime or several off of their so called talents, um,

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Speaker 1: basically making the perform Yeah, they players, They would play music,

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Speaker 1: and they started touring at the age of three. And

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Speaker 1: I also read that at the height of their career

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Speaker 1: they were earning five thousand dollars a week. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: while it is a tragic story, you know, these girls

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Speaker 1: being sold into into the freak show, if you had

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Speaker 1: a disability at that time, you know, some kind of um,

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Speaker 1: you know, very ostracizing sort of handicap, then freak shows

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Speaker 1: were actually one of the only ways that they could

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Speaker 1: make a living, you know, especially they grew up in poverty. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that, uh, that leads me to bring up Minny

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Speaker 1: and Christina, who were conjoined twins born into slavery, and

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Speaker 1: they actually used the money they made in the side

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Speaker 1: shows to gain their freedom after the Civil War, and

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Speaker 1: they went on to perform in their own shows. And

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Speaker 1: of course we have obese women like to Ton of

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Speaker 1: the Fat Girl. Apparently obese people men and women were

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Speaker 1: really popular in freak shows. Yeah. Then, and let us

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Speaker 1: not forget Jolly Irene, who has kind of a sad story.

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Speaker 1: Her endocrine system got thrown all out of whack after

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Speaker 1: she had a baby, and she ballooned from a hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty to six hundred and eighty nine pounds to

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Speaker 1: the point where they could not even fit her in

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Speaker 1: the railroad cars anymore going from show to show. And

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Speaker 1: imagine if a case like that came up today, Jolly

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Speaker 1: Irene would probably be able to go with the doctor

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Speaker 1: and somehow get that. She would just be put on medicine,

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Speaker 1: told exercise, eat right, and she'd probably be a normal

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Speaker 1: looking person. Right. But I mean those kind of resources

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Speaker 1: were not available in the Victorian era. And you also,

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Speaker 1: since they had the obest women, of course, they're also

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Speaker 1: the skinny women and the skeleton men as they would

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Speaker 1: call them. Uh, there's Eliza Jenkins, the Skeleton Girl, and

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Speaker 1: of course bearded ladies, Lee and I the lion faced lady,

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Speaker 1: and Annie Jones, who was a popular bearded lady. I

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Speaker 1: looked at a picture of Annie Jones for a while

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Speaker 1: and I, how can that be real? Is that real?

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Speaker 1: Is that something you can treat? Do women get hair

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Speaker 1: on their face so much that they can grow a beard?

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Speaker 1: I mean sure there, I mean we have not We've talked,

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Speaker 1: We've talked about facial here some before, but yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this's this kind of those kind of conditions. Can She

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Speaker 1: was a very handsome woman. Um. And then like I

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Speaker 1: mentioned Dwarves earlier, there was Anita the Living Doll, who

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Speaker 1: was sort of the counterpart to Tom Tham. She's very

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Speaker 1: popular and tattooed ladies could make quite a buck on

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Speaker 1: their ink. Yeah. And these are people who were not

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Speaker 1: born freaks. These are people who were born probably relatively normal,

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Speaker 1: and just decided to have their entire bodies covered with tattoos. Um.

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Speaker 1: A thoroughly tattooed lady in a large circus could earn

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Speaker 1: a hundred to two hundred dollars a week, which nowadays

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Speaker 1: would be you know, between twenty hundred and about fifty

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Speaker 1: one hundred dollars, which is that's not too shipping really,

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Speaker 1: not that I don't really want to tattoo my whole body,

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Speaker 1: but you know, maybe, well, didn't you find the story

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Speaker 1: of a woman who was tatted dud and like all

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Speaker 1: sorts of religious sayings from like head to toe. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she was born Anna Mae Burlington, UM. And the story

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Speaker 1: is kind of sketchy as to whether she ran off

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Speaker 1: with a tattoo artist or if she met this man

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Speaker 1: and then married him. But basically she got her husband

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Speaker 1: to tattoo her entire body with both religious imagery, and

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Speaker 1: I think there was George Washington was thrown in Um.

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Speaker 1: But she performed as Artoria the tattooed Girl. And okay,

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Speaker 1: let me tell you she was born in She retired

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one. WHOA, So she kept busy. That

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Speaker 1: is a that is a lifetime of work. But I

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Speaker 1: guess you know, you've got to be committed to your

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Speaker 1: job if you're willing to get be tattooed from from

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Speaker 1: head to toe. And then there was a famous hoax

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Speaker 1: because Pete Barnum loved his hoaxes. Of course, probably the

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Speaker 1: most famous would have been Harry Mary from Borneo, which

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Speaker 1: was a monkey. Yeah, that's just oh, we're so uh

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Speaker 1: do you not look at that and know that that's

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Speaker 1: a month This was the Victorian era. They also, you know,

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Speaker 1: he was able to get away with the Fiji mermaid.

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Speaker 1: That's true. I mean there was cookie times back then.

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Speaker 1: Carolin didn't have the Google Google Google things get on

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Speaker 1: their smartphones. UM. I also thought it was interesting how

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Speaker 1: in eight fifty one we have the development of the

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Speaker 1: set plate technique that allowed especially popular freaks to basically

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Speaker 1: make their own kind of like baseball cards, sort of

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Speaker 1: collectible handbills with their portrait, these very carefully posed portraits

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Speaker 1: and their life story on the back. One that I liked.

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Speaker 1: And I know this was not a female sideshow act,

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Speaker 1: but Jojo the dog Faced Boy, he has one. He

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Speaker 1: looks just like Chewbacca. I love it. I kind of

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Speaker 1: want to see and people will. People would go around

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Speaker 1: and they would actually collect these cards. They would sometimes

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Speaker 1: hang them and display them in their house. This was

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Speaker 1: a very you know, at its height, you know, from

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty to nineteen twenty, a pretty lucrative racket they

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Speaker 1: had going on. Um, but unfortunately, well I don't know

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Speaker 1: if it's fortunately that's the thing, like it was, dying

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Speaker 1: off of the freak shows. Um, not necessarily a bad thing. Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess it depended on who you are. If you

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Speaker 1: found another place to go. A lot of freaks retired

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Speaker 1: to what was it, Gibson, Florida. It is Gibsonton, Florida. Gibsonton, Florida.

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Speaker 1: I mean that would be an interesting place to go

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Speaker 1: to the grocery store. Yeah, they had special um permits

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Speaker 1: and they might still have them. It's a very small

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Speaker 1: town in Florida. But they would have things like special

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Speaker 1: permits for elephants and to allow people to be parking,

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Speaker 1: keep their elephants in their yard and things like that. Well,

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Speaker 1: I know it didn't work out as well for the

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Speaker 1: Hilton sisters. Going back to those conjoined twins, because I

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Speaker 1: read about how they once the sideshow acts started losing

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Speaker 1: popularity and people were like, oh, maybe we shouldn't laugh

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Speaker 1: at people with problems. Um. They actually ended up working

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Speaker 1: in a grocery store as bad girls I guess, at

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Speaker 1: registers next to each other. Um. And then actually they

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Speaker 1: were found down in their home. Oh my god. They

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Speaker 1: did not have a good ending to their story. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean the freak shows. Whenever we hear about freak shows, like,

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Speaker 1: it's typically a sad kind of thing because a lot

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Speaker 1: weren't down their luck and had to entertain, you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of show off their disability, which was considered this

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Speaker 1: monstrosity at the time, if they didn't have to. And

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Speaker 1: they were gradually like pushed out of the larger city

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Speaker 1: centers that started to get things like movie theaters where

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Speaker 1: people could go and hang out and watch movie instead

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Speaker 1: of going to a freak show or a circus, and

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Speaker 1: so they would were pushed out to like smaller and

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Speaker 1: smaller towns until they just died out in the forties,

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Speaker 1: especially with UM the rise of improvements in medicine where

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Speaker 1: they can actually get certain conditions treated, like the endracrine

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Speaker 1: system issue, like we were talking about UM. But the

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Speaker 1: reason why I thought it would be interesting to talk about,

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Speaker 1: you know, female freaks in the circus and side shows

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Speaker 1: on the podcast is that first of all, they bled

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Speaker 1: into like the ending of the freak shows overlapped with

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Speaker 1: the beginning and the rise of beauty pageants, right, just

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Speaker 1: more parading people around. Yeah, it's like two sides of

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Speaker 1: the same coin. And scholars who focus on something called

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Speaker 1: body criticism have done a lot of research on uh

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Speaker 1: beauty pageants and on freak shows. And Susan Stewart, who

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Speaker 1: wrote a book about UM about this, refers to this

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Speaker 1: kind of people on display sort of like the extremes

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Speaker 1: like extreme beauty and freakery, as the pornography of distance, right,

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Speaker 1: because we have when we're in the audience and we're

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Speaker 1: looking at either you know, a very obast woman on

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Speaker 1: stage or some sort of beauty queen, or at a distance,

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Speaker 1: we have someone like an m C saying, Okay, here's

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Speaker 1: this woman, here's what she's doing. Look at her. Let

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Speaker 1: me explain what she's doing. You're not interacting with the

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Speaker 1: person on stage, so you don't really have to worry

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Speaker 1: about their feelings, right, And it reminds me of this

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Speaker 1: concept of the mail gates that we talked about a

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Speaker 1: lot in sort of feminist discourse, of this focus of

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Speaker 1: like men looking at women. But this is like just

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Speaker 1: the public looking at other people. And UM. I thought

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Speaker 1: this was an interesting quote by Robert Bogden in his

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Speaker 1: book The Freak Show. He says how we view people

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Speaker 1: who are different has less to do with what they

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Speaker 1: are physiologically than who we are culturally, which makes total

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Speaker 1: sense because um, as our kind of collective morals change,

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Speaker 1: and medicine is able to take off, and our i guess,

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Speaker 1: our leisure interest change, free shows became more and more um,

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Speaker 1: sort of what would be the word uh not cool

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Speaker 1: to go yeah, not es socially acceptable. It became more

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Speaker 1: socially acceptable to look at a half naked woman, you know,

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Speaker 1: with a spray tan walking around the stage in bathing suit. Right.

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Speaker 1: I was kind of thinking about that when I was

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Speaker 1: reading about the history of freakery and how you know

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Speaker 1: we now see these uh these slideshows of like celebrities,

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Speaker 1: awful plastic surgery, and and my mind I was single

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Speaker 1: that was this is this the new sort of reality

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Speaker 1: freak show? Yeah, look at Octo Mom. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: she's definitely got to be part of a modern day

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Speaker 1: freak show, right. I mean I think that that argument

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Speaker 1: can definitely be made because it's still our fascination with

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Speaker 1: celebrity culture and with people like Nadia Suleiman Octo Mom.

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Speaker 1: Know that name, Um, I think reflects a lot about

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Speaker 1: where we are as a culture kind of like Robert

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Speaker 1: Bogden notes, Yeah, we're still voyers, but we're just looking

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Speaker 1: at different things now. We're not necessarily looking at people

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Speaker 1: with disabilities and disadvantages and laughing and pointing, but we're

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Speaker 1: still looking at people from a safe distance, like celebrities,

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Speaker 1: where we can point and you know, look at Charlie

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Speaker 1: Sheen and we can be like, oh god, I'm glad

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Speaker 1: I'm not like that guy, but he's probably actually having

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Speaker 1: a hard time I don't know well. And by pointing

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Speaker 1: out those kinds of differences from that distance, it further

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Speaker 1: establishes these um sort of societal norms of like, well,

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Speaker 1: this is what is and is not normal, which, you know,

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Speaker 1: we get into ideas about normativity and whether or not

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Speaker 1: that's a healthy thing a lot, and the freak shows

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Speaker 1: I think are an extreme example of how that happens.

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Speaker 1: But one thing I wanted to say though UM from

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Speaker 1: a disability studies perspective. This came up a few times,

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Speaker 1: and some of the articles we ran across was that

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Speaker 1: UM freaks are can also be perceived as quote battlers

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Speaker 1: against adversity and oppression who have refused to surrender themselves

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Speaker 1: to shame and ostracism. I mean they're getting up on stage,

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Speaker 1: they're saying, you know what, like, I know I have

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Speaker 1: the issue, but I'm kind of using you for money,

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Speaker 1: right to come look at me? Yeah? I know. So

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Speaker 1: if anyone would like a visual companion to this episode,

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Speaker 1: Todd Browning made a ninety two film called Freaks, which

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Speaker 1: features a lot and that's the Hilton sisters in it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it features a lot of the freaks that we we mentioned.

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Speaker 1: I have yet to see it, didn't he I think

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Speaker 1: he went on to make Dracula. He didn't. Yeah, with Bellaaghostie.

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Speaker 1: Um so yeah, I wish we could somehow hosts a

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Speaker 1: spiny screening of Freaks that would be interesting to go

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Speaker 1: back and watch. So I hope that. I hope that

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Speaker 1: this was an enjoyable little slice of history. I don't

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Speaker 1: feel like we talked about like free shows comes up

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Speaker 1: very often, No, not usually, but Coney Island it does

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Speaker 1: have its own little like freak show sidewalk area with

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Speaker 1: like human blockheads and fire eaters and and things like that.

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Speaker 1: So it's still exists. People still do it like lizard Man. Yeah, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know, hey what he's doing it to himself. He

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Speaker 1: is not freak. He's just like the tattooed ladies of yesteryear.

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Speaker 1: He's he's a made freak. So anyway, just interesting. Um.

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Speaker 1: Also remember that that history with the strip teases too,

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Speaker 1: because I wonder if we didn't have freak shows, would

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Speaker 1: the strip teases have evolved? P. T. Barn I would

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Speaker 1: have worked it into a beauty contest somehow, she would

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Speaker 1: have that. P. T. Barney. Anyway, if you would like

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Speaker 1: to send us an email if you have any freak

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Speaker 1: show history to share with us, Our email addresses mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. And why don't

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Speaker 1: we read a couple of emails now? All right? Kristen

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Speaker 1: well Helen writes. She says that I had just finished

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Speaker 1: listening to the Bicycling podcast when you had mentioned a

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Speaker 1: lack of female role models and professional cycling. Canadian Olympian

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Speaker 1: Clara Hughes cycling in speed skating immediately came to mind.

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Speaker 1: She won her first Olympic medals in cycling in Atlanta

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Speaker 1: that's her woo yeah, in and in speed skating in

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Speaker 1: Salt Lake City in two thousand two. Clara Hughes is

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Speaker 1: one of the very few, if not only athletes in

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Speaker 1: the world to hold multiple medals from both the Winter

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Speaker 1: and Summer Games. Male athletes included in Clara was the

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Speaker 1: Canadian flag bear at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games and

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Speaker 1: was a world record holder in the ten thousand meter

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Speaker 1: track for a period of time. And she just thought

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Speaker 1: we would like to know more about Clara and her

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Speaker 1: impressive list of accomplishments. Well, thank you for sending that

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Speaker 1: busting role model. Um, I've got an email here from

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Speaker 1: Katie and this is in response to our episode on Astronauts.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to say that I was not able to

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Speaker 1: entirely fact check this, but she writes, I just thought

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Speaker 1: you would be interested in the fact that Star Trek

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Speaker 1: changed the astronaut community forever, and it was a big

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Speaker 1: deal that there was a black woman playing an import

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Speaker 1: and a role, and there were people of all ethnicities

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Speaker 1: and even an alien on the show office set. They

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Speaker 1: actually reached out and not only talked NASA into allowing

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Speaker 1: more than just white guys into the astronaut program, they

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Speaker 1: also helped NASA rally up more astronauts. Uh. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot more information on this at star trek dot com.

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Speaker 1: But I thought you guys would like to know that tidbit.

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Speaker 1: So I went online to try to uh to fact

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Speaker 1: check this, and while I couldn't, I don't know that

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Speaker 1: they actually petitioned NASA to get UM to improve their

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Speaker 1: diversity in the Astronaut program. I did find this choice

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Speaker 1: quote from Star Trek creator Jean Roddenberry, who was adamant

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Speaker 1: about having a diverse cast on Star Trek, and he said,

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Speaker 1: I think this was in nineteen seventies six, speaking to

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Speaker 1: Playboy maybe he said, I refused to have an all

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Speaker 1: lily white, Anglo Saxon crew and hence and hence he

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Speaker 1: had like one of the most diverse casts on TV

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Speaker 1: at the time with Star Trek. So thank you, Katie

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Speaker 1: course ending that in and of course if you have

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Speaker 1: thoughts to send our way again, our email addresses mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff Works dot com. Or if you've

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Speaker 1: prefer to get on Facebook, you can do that as well.

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Speaker 1: We're over there, send us a comment, like us, and

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Speaker 1: you can follow us on Twitter as well. We are

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Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcast. And finally, during the week you

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Speaker 1: can read our blog stuff Mom Never Told You at

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to check out

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Speaker 1: our new video podcast Stuff from the future. Join How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and

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