Canadian Carnival Freaks and the Extraordinary Body, 1900-1970s

Jane Nicholas author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Toronto Press

Published:12th Apr '18

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Canadian Carnival Freaks and the Extraordinary Body, 1900-1970s cover

In 1973, a five year old girl known as Pookie was exhibited as "The Monkey Girl" at the Canadian National Exhibition. Pookie was the last of a number of children exhibited as 'freaks' in twentieth-century Canada.

Jane Nicholas takes us on a search for answers about how and why the freak show persisted into the 1970s. In Canadian Carnival Freaks and the Extraordinary Body, 1900–1970s, Nicholas offers a sophisticated analysis of the place of the freak show in twentieth-century culture. Freak shows survived and thrived because of their flexible business model, government support, and by mobilizing cultural and medical ideas of the body and normalcy. This book is the first full length study of the freak show in Canada and is a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of Canadian popular culture, attitudes toward children, and the social construction of able-bodiness. Based on an impressive research foundation, the book will be of particular interest to anyone interested in the history of disability, the history of childhood, and the history of consumer culture.

"This work is a demonstration of how original historical research, carefully and imaginatively deployed, can be usefully combined with contemporary culture theory of exhibitionary logics, embodiment, and difference. It is a story well told by a skillful historian."

-- Kenneth Little, York University * University of Toronto Quarterly: Letters in Canada 2018

ISBN: 9781487502652

Dimensions: 235mm x 163mm x 25mm

Weight: 590g

320 pages