Freak Show

The term freak appears to be descended from the Old English word frician, to dance. Freking, for the medievals, was a form of cavorting, sudden movement, or capricious behavior. During the craze for scientific classification of the eighteenth century, as naturalists attempted to find specific categories for all life forms, organisms that failed to match a perceived species average were often referred to as lusus naturae, “cavorts” or “freaks of nature.” In the early nineteenth century, certain naturalists toured Europe and America with examples of exotic or unique animals, charging admission to view their “cabinets of curiosities.” Humans with bodies that were perceived to deviate significantly from an understood norm were often grouped with these lusus naturae shows, and so developed a variety of different performance genres that became collectively known as the freak show.

“Freak show” was a very general category that could refer to nontheatrical exhibits such as fetuses in jars (“pickled punks”) or exotic or deformed animals as well as exhibitions of human “curiosities.” In this context, freak was considered a relatively odious way of referring to humans, in performance or not, and was rarely used by professional performers or promoters until close to the end of the nineteenth century, after the death of Phineas Taylor (P. T.) Barnum (Barnum was never once known to use the term himself; see below). Favored alternatives were “raree show,” “pit show,” “kid show,” and “ten-in-one.”

Freak performers were present in America as early as 1738, but these freaks were not highly professionalized, and they appeared more often in the context of scientific lectures than theatrical performance, possibly as a means of evading colonial anti-theater laws. During the middle part of the nineteenth century, freaks gained great legitimacy, respectability, and profitability by performing their acts within the context of a new form of American entertainment known as the Dime Museum.

In 1835, Joice Heth, ostensibly a 161-year-old African American woman who had been the nurse of George Washington himself, was exhibited in the hall of a hotel in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She was a tremendous success, partially because of her flamboyant promotion, partially because her tales of Washington's youth were, reportedly, told with such integrity and intimacy that a controversy over her true identity was kept alive for decades. The controversy [Page 742]was resolved when an autopsy revealed she was merely 80, but Heth's fame only increased after her death. Skillful protestations of innocence on the part of her manager, P. T. Barnum, resulted in widespread publicity and interest.

Following his success with Heth, Barnum became a promoter of theatricals and the emerging variety entertainments. In 1841, Barnum purchased Scudder's American Museum on the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in downtown New York City; this moment is considered to be the beginning of the “Golden Age” of the freaks, which would persist until the 1940s. Among the human curiosities at the museum were the notorious and controversial Broadway actor Hervey Leach (also known as Hervio Nano), Mlle. Fanny (who turned out to be a perfectly normal orangutan), Native American and Chinese “families,” giants such as Jane Campbell (“The largest Mountain of Human Flesh ever seen in the form of a woman”), a 220-pound four-year-old known as the Mammoth Infant, giantess Shakespearean actress and “sentimental soloist” Anna Swan, giant Captain Martin Bates, Isaac Sprague the “Living Skeleton,” R. O. Wickware the “Living Phantom,” a variety of dwarves, the famous “Albino Family,” African Americans with vitiligo, the armless wonder S.K.G. Nellis, a cadre of sexually ambiguous persons such as bearded ladies and hermaphrodites, clairvoyants, “Lightning Calculators,” and many, many others. Without question, the greatest of all the American Museum's stars was Charles Stratton, better known as General Tom Thumb. The General appeared not in the traditional “pit show” or “cabinet of curiosities” format but was celebrated around the world as a talented actor of highly theatrical, expensively produced melodramas, and appeared in performances before American presidents and industrial barons as well as the royal sovereigns of Europe and Asia.

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