A Cabinet of Curiosities Presents - A History of Side Show Exhibitions and Acts
Venues
Shows as the term showman implies were one of
the main forms of attraction within the field of popular entertainment
in the Victorian era. Shows could be found on the fairground arena,
within a travelling or fixed circus, in a show of optical and scientific
wonder at permanent halls or on the high street. Everything and
anything was exhibited under the banner of education and entertainment
including, displays of the body beautiful or grotesque, painted
panoramic scenes, fasting men and fat women and magic and illusion
tricks. A range of venues were utilised to present side show attractions
and performers over its long and varied history. Travelling fairs
and show booths were the mainstay of the side show attraction for
many hundreds of years but enterprising showmen and their acts also
appeared in museums of curiosities, drawing rooms, and royal palaces.
Museums of Curiosity and Dime Museums
Although Dime museums have largely became associated
with American type entertainments, when Reynolds's Waxwork Exhibition
opened its doors in Liverpool in 1858 it was drawing in some part
on a tradition that had flourished in different forms in Europe
since the eighteen century. The displaying of largely exotic and
fantastic objects was prior to the nineteenth century largely within
Wunder-Kabinets or Cabinets of Curiosities. The presentation of
objects for both educational and entertainment purposes lay at the
heart of both the nineteenth century museums and also their illegitimate
relation, the museum of curiosity. However, the combination of entertainment
and education that was presented by the nineteenth century showmen
like Albert Reynolds created a new form of urban entertainment that
prospered both in the United States and the United Kingdom which
became known as the Dime Museum. These places of wonder have been
seen as an American institution, with the dime museum being an essential
part of urban thoroughfares in America in the nineteenth century.
Barnum's American Museum
The most famous of these venues was of course
P.T. Barnum's American Museum, which until its destruction by fire
in 1865 was one of the foremost centres of entertainment in New
York. The American Museum was an institution that exhibited natural
history specimens, oddities, paintings, wax figures, amusements,
and memorabilia. Although marginally successfully as a dime Museum
it did not receive national fame or prosperity until it was taken
over by P. T. Barnum, the great American showman. It was situated
from 1841 to 1865, at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in New
York City and became one of the foremost visitor attractions in
New York. Posing as both an educational and entertainment establishment,
the five-storey building hosted a variety of different attractions,
including natural history in its menageries, aquarium, side-shows,
waxworks and theatrical plays. The main principal of the museum
was that for a fixed price admission, visitors viewed an ever-revolving
series of "attractions" including Tom Thumb and other famous side
show novelties promoted by Barnum. The American Museum attempted
to combine venue. After paying the fixed admission price, the spectator
could view either be entertained through performance with a range
of novelty or variety acts available or through simply viewing the
waxworks or the freak show exhibit. Attractions such as these flourished
largely in large urban centres as they required an endless flow
of new customers.
British Dime Museums or Panopticans
Despite the success and fame of Barnum's museum
in New York, miscellaneous objects gathered together in one building
where also very popular in London at the time of Barnum's American
Museum, with the Egyptian Hall, the Royal Polytechnic and many other
places venues presenting all types of attractions. Novelty museums
and panoptican type shows existed in most major British cities,
under a variety of names. Ranging from the larger scale production
of the Britannia in Glasgow to smaller but just as varied double
sized shop fronts such as Tom Norman's New Exhibition in Croydon.
From the 1860s onwards the new exhibition halls used as a model
for their attractions Barnum's American Museum, in particular the
display of live curiosities alongside waxworks, menageries and variety
performers. The essential backdrop to these venues was the permanent
waxwork exhibition that combined with an ever changing flow of live
entertainments and the latest wonders of the age such as the cinematograph,
presented an up to date array of attractions for the visitor. In
the new and expanding recreational environment of the great regional
cities such as Liverpool and Glasgow, the emergence of new novelty
museums such as panopticans and waxwork shows was in response to
a larger urban populace. The population of Liverpool in line with
other major Northern cities at the time had expanded throughout
the nineteenth century and this new populace required a greater
range of entertainments to amuse themselves in. Drawing on both
the cabinet of curiosity and waxwork model as presented by the British
showmen but heavily influenced by the American model as popularised
by P.T Barnum, these venues ranged from small shop-fronted arcades
with a long term lease, to larger purpose built venues incorporating
displays combining both the educational and the sensational. Jack
Headley's Franco-British Exhibition in Bolton for example, presented
Miss X's fasting lady, John Chambers the armless wonder alongside
waxworks, automatic machines and mutoscope machines. The Britannia
and Grand Panoptican in Glasgow, offered their attractions rather
like a row of shops on an urban thoroughfare or a line of shows
on a fairground but within a confined fixed venue. After paying
the fixed admission price, the spectator could either be entertained
through performance with a range of novelty or variety acts available
or through simply viewing the waxworks or the freak show exhibit.
Attractions such as these flourished largely in large urban centres
as they required an endless flow of new customers.
Reynolds Waxworks Museum
One of the most long-standing and prominent venues
in the North of England was Reynold's Waxworks and Exhibition situated
in the Lime Street area in Liverpool. The original waxworks exhibition
opened in 1858 and initially the attractions were based on the model
presented by Tussauds in London. However, over the decades the main
focus of the entertainments on offer became very different to those
presented by Madame Tussaud namely live entertainment shows and
their particular specialisation, freaks of nature. Despite the popularity
of the waxworks, Reynolds continued to change and refresh the type
of attractions on display perhaps in order to compete with the range
and variety of attractions presented by rival concerns in Lime Street.
The inclusion of live entertainment alongside anatomical models,
waxworks and the chamber of horrors was bringing to the British
spectating public the type of entertainments first promoted by Barnum
in the ten in one dime show or museum. Opening hours in Reynolds
followed this pattern of all day entertainments with patrons being
admitted at 10am until 10pm. Cost of admission started at threepence
with the price increasing to sixpence if one wanted to enjoy the
entertainments that were shown twice a day (3pm and 8pm). Acts comprised
of the performing fleas, the Norwegian Giant and Tiny Tim, and a
vocal and instrumental recital by Miss Beatrice Vaughan, as well
as a mystic magical entertainment by Major Devono. Children who
were employed for entertainment purposes at this time included the
Infant Jumbo, the 'most wonderful child ever exhibited', who at
the age of six weighed over 205 lbs. By the late 1880s and early
1890s it appears that the show side of the exhibition was the means
by which the exhibitors could constantly refresh the attractions
on view. The use of novelties and freaks to entertain and educate
the public was a continuation of a side-show tradition taken directly
from the fairgrounds and shop-shows and marketed by Barnum to a
higher level than previous attained, freak shows as presented by
Barnum were not on the edges of society or part of illegitimate
theatre practices but firmly within the mainstream and appealed
to a family audience.
By 1894 live entertainment appears to be a mainstay
of the attractions on offer. Princess Paulina, the Living Doll makes
her first appearance at the exhibition, would be later modelled
into a waxwork effigy in the historical waxworks hall. Ethnographic
attractions also became a feature of the exhibition with both the
Aztecs and the Circassisan Brothers thrilling audiences in October
1894. Reynold's Waxworks Exhibition opened its doors from 1858 to
1922 and provided the people of Liverpool with a range of shows
and attractions all within one fixed venue. Catering for a largely
working class audience, it maintained its position as an arena for
spectacular and entertainment for over seven decades all for the
price of a sixpence. Incorporating waxworks, live performances,
freak show exhibits and the latest technological wonders of the
age, it contents may have been largely British in character but
the exhibition was both inspired and presented through American
showmanship and exhibition practices
Famous Side Show Performers
Side show performers appeared in a number of venues
ranging from the afore mentioned side shows on the fairground, variety
stages and of course the Dime Museums. Within all of these venues
the most popular attractions were performers with extraordinary
talents, who could do supposedly normal things despite their disabilities,
with differences ranging from the colour of their skin, a particular
disability or an unusual specialisation. These acts were either
rooted in reality as in the A famous example of this Siamese twins,
so called because of Chang and Eng, the original twins were born
in Siam in 1811 and brought to America in 1829. Midgets were frequently
advertised as being much older than they actually were. Hirsute
or bearded attractions would range from Jo Jo the Dog Faced Boy
and the famous fake show Hairy Mary from Borneo, which was in reality
a monkey.
Hirsute faced ladies were a common feature in
the nineteenth century and famous names included Leonine the Lion
Faced Lady, Alice Bounds the Bear Lady and Annie Jones who appeared
with Barnum and Bailey's Circus. Other nineteenth century exhibits
included Patrick O'Brien the Irish Giant, a regular act at St Bartholomew's
Fair and Sam Taylor the Ilkeston Giant. Examples of physical extremities
included The Fat Boy of Peckham, the Infant Jumbo and Sacco-Homann
the famous fasting man. Indeed such was the popularity of fat women
shows that five alone could be found at Hull Fair, the largest travelling
fair in the United Kingdom in the 1890s.
The presentation of human oddities in the Victorian
era changed dramatically with P.T. Barnum and his famous attraction
Tom Thumb. When Barnum arrived in England in 1844 the British showmen
were amazed that Barnum was hoping to attract so much money for
simply exhibiting a dwarf. However, Barnum created a novelty act
that would become one of the greatest attractions of the Victorian
Era. Charles Stratton - or Tom Thumb - was eleven years old when
first exhibited by Barnum in 1843. Barnum changed his nationality
from American to English, he changed his age from four to eleven
years old, and his name from Charles Stratton to General Tom Thumb.
When he left the States for his European tour he became an instant
attraction and was presented to Queen Victoria on three separate
occasions.
Dwarf and midget exhibitors such as Major Mite,
Harold Pyott (the English Tom Thumb) and Anita the Living Doll,
followed in the example of Charles Stratton and became highly successful
sideshow novelties. The effect of Barnum on the English showmen
and the public was immense and freak exhibits were found in a range
of exhibitions including shop fronts, penny gaffs, music halls and
travelling fairs. Side show or freak show performers appeared at
a variety of venues depending on the time of the year and their
prominence as an attraction. Illusion acts were also a staple of
the side-shows with attractions such as the Headless Lady, the Girl
in a Goldfish Bowl and the Living Half Lady reintroduced by John
Gresham in the 1950s back to the fairground.
Side Shows on the Fairground
Living novelty acts and variety entertainments
continued to appear on both the theatrical halls and the travelling
exhibitions in the United Kingdom for most of the twentieth century.
However, it is on the fairground side-shows that they appear to
be particularly associated with until the late 1960s. Stars such
Tommy Twinkle Toes Jacobsen the armless wonder was a headline attraction
on variety hall and travelling shows and Hal Denver the son of Tom
Norman appeared with his knife throwing act on the Ed Sullivan Show
in America and on Hull Fair. Side shows were a major feature of
all travelling fairs in the United Kingdom well until the 1960s
and a wide range of novelties, acts and performers would form part
of the shows.
The shows on the fairground included W. H. Stewart's
National Sporting Club featuring boxers from England and America,
the Pindar's family with a circus and a menagerie, John Collin's
new Show Boat Theatre, Jack Parry's wonder show featuring Big Chief
Red Snake, the Shufflebottom Wild West shows, Arthur Steven's Talk
of the Town and Glamourama! Charlie Birch's Water Circus. Tippler
White's selection of novelty attractions including the bullet ridden
car of Al Capone and formed part of a groups of showmen such as
the Chadwick's, Patterson's, the Wheatley's and Professor Testo
with his flea circus, all who would be associated with fairground
side shows for many years to come. By the 1950s the shows had changed
yet again and despite the nostalgia displayed by the World's Fair
reporter in 1955 for a bygone age which had disappeared over forty
years ago, the show row was still immensely popular:
"The shows in the seemingly endless line in the
West section of the Festival again offer a huge variety of unusual
attractions, but many of the older generation look on with a sense
of regret. They will probably reflect that shows lost much of their
fascination with the disappearance of ghost shows, living pictures,
waxworks, and menageries whose entrances were resplendent with gilt,
mirror and brasswork ... Times may have changed but the "oddities
section still remains good fun and the barkers still remind the
milling crowds "you'll remember it all your life."
The show rows at many of our great historical
fairs are now dominated by trailer mounted triple decker ghost trains,
fun houses and crazy mirror shows. Ron Taylor' the last of the Boxing
Booth showmen died two years ago and brought to an end a long tradition
of boxing proprietors such as Len Johnson, Jack Gage and the Stewart
family who had been associated with fairs over the century. Over
the past hundred years many famous showmen have attended the fairs
and festivities, bringing entertainment and trickery to many generations.
In recognition of the skill, imagination and showmanship, I will
finish with W. K. Burford's tribute to the shows published in the
showman's newspaper The World's Fair in the 1950s:
So there are tricks in all trades
Except in yours and mine
And even showmen, sometimes
Come rather near the line
We paid to see a marvel-
A cherry-coloured cat;
Whatever else we passed by
We thought we must see that.
The thing was quite a "take-in,"
We claimed our
money back;
But we were then reminded
Cherries are sometimes "black."
|
|
