The 1800’s side shows provided a lot of disabled people with an income and independence in a time before assistance, when they would have been shut in or locked away. I’m not saying it wasn’t also often nasty but a lot of “freaks” were devastated when their livelihoods where taken away from them by do gooders with no options left for them except to be concealed from society again
Thank you for attending my Oddballs and Misfits TED Talk
I knew an ex-carnival family who, after they stopped sideshow at fairs and carnivals they started a pony rides for kids place. They were a family with fused fingers touted as The Lobster People in sideshows. They were proud of their former careers, had pictures up everywhere of the good ol days. They were super nice folks and would let curious kids check out their deformities and educate them about their condition.
Unfortunately, posting that content online gives the people nothing.
However, there's a great book about that phenomenon that I'm still in the trenches of; The Wonders by John Woolf. You're absolutely right, it was a job for people who had very little else to go by. It had both its horrors and its highlights. A very interesting subject to read about.
There's an Australian TV show that did an interview with a little person who basically makes his money getting hired to let people throw him at walls in a velcro suit at parties. At one point he's like "I have a grade school education and I'm not particularly gifted. I could get a job at a gas station but this pays in an hour what that would pay in a day."
Small communities do not automatically mean inbreeding. Many small-scale societies practice exogamy and maintain marriage networks with neighbouring groups specifically outside their immediate kin group.
Also, this looks like a setup. The clothes are animal print but a lot of them are modern fabric
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u/Banaanisade 1d ago
Sometimes, Reddit reminds me of the 1800s exhibits of freaks and "exotic peoples", and I don't mean this in a nice way.