Secrets of the Sideshows

by Joe Nickell

Book Overview

On small-town ballfields and county fairgrounds, the sideshow performers set up their tents and trailers in the shadow of the Ferris wheel. There they amazed us with daring feats such as fire eating and sword swallowing, intrigued us with exhibitions of human oddities and various "anatomical wonders," and yes, deceived us with illusions such as "Atasha the Gorilla Girl" and even outright fakes. These bizarre spectacles engaged the mind as well...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813191955
• ISBN13: 9780813191959
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.7" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

secrets of the sideshows

Well, what I have recently purchased is a very interesting book. It unveils a rather dark and unknown world that for centuries has been with us. The pictures are fine but scarce, and the prose has wit and many secrets of the trade are rather amusing. In fact a very fine book

A walk down the Midway

Joe Nickell's latest book, Secrets of the Sideshow is a thoroughly researched tome that is worth the cover price for the pictures alone. The cover effectively uses a 'banner art' style with 'Frog Boy' charmingly gracing the spine. The title is a little misleading, it is not a revelatory guide or 'masked magician' type of book at all. More of a scholarly attempt to document a lost part of American theatre. Mr. Nickell's previous works were largely concerned with his role as editor of the Skeptical Enquirer. So deal with the Shroud of Turin, Bigfoot etc. Not having read any of those I cannot comment, but suffice to say that this history of bringing a scientific mind to apparent miracles may have impacted the choice of title. What is apparent is that he has a real love of this subject. He has worked the midway at various fairs as a magician and obviously the carnival world got into his blood. Relying heavily on interviews with carnival legends Ward Hall, Chris Christ and Bobby Reynolds the author details the history of this unique piece of Americana. Bobby Reynold's contributions are fairly ascerbic with a certain bitterness when compared to Ward Hall's more agreeable approach. No attempt appears to have been made to edit any of these contributions. There are copious references to other works, Ricky Jay, Daniel Mannix and Al Stencell are quoted liberally and these authors works would make excellent companion reads. As one goes through the book the reader does learn how effects are achieved, the use of gaffs, fakery and general deception are discussed. However, this remains a secondary facet of this work. It is much more of a historical encyclopedia and includes a thorough list of references and detailed index. Overshadowing the mechanical 'How To' aspects of the book are the wonderful characters that one meets within its pages. Poobah the fire eating dwarf, Percilla the monkey girl, Doug Higley phantom of the midway and purveyor of Area 51 artifacts. [Of course they are real]. And numerous other fascinating people who often show more grace and dignity than the so called 'normal' specimens of the human family. The writing style is a mixture of academic investigation and whimsical fan. Despite his natural instincts for scientific rigor the author's joy in the subject and obvious sadness at the demise of the sideshow shine through. It ends on a positive and up to date note with a piece on the sideshow school at Coney Island, one of the last bastions of the traditional arts. I reccomend this book to anyone whoever thought about running away to the circus and I enjoyed reading it tremendously. PS. One small piece of pedantry. On page 214, Joe Nickell decribes the turn of the century magician Chung Ling Soo as an 'Englishman pretending to be a Chinaman'. In his excellent biography of Chung Ling Soo, The Glorious Deception, Jim Steinmeyer details Soo's life as an American who often pretended to be an Englishman, or more commonly a Scotsman pretending to

Hurry, Hurry! Step Right This Way!

For centuries, millions of people have enjoyed looking at commercial exhibits of the odd and curious. Joe Nickell is one of those people. Growing up in Kentucky, he never missed the carnivals and circuses that had human and animal oddities on display as sideshows. Nickell is well known for investigating frauds and hoaxes for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, but it doesn't matter to him that many sideshow acts were bogus or at least grossly exaggerated on the banners outside the shows. He obviously loves the now-disappearing shows, and in _Secrets of the Sideshows_ (University Press of Kentucky), that affection is made plain. To be sure, he gives plenty of secrets away here, most of them open secrets, but the book works best as a tribute to the imagination of the performers and organizers of the exhibits which were meant to provoke and satisfy that admirable old human characteristic, curiosity. The book provokes and satisfies in the same way. Nickell notes that "sideshow" means an adjunct to the main show. The "midway" where these shows were located was midway between the entrance and the main attraction. He briefly recounts early history, and then goes into their heyday starting in the early 1900s. Sideshows featured magic performances, often with one big trick like sawing the woman in half or the escape from a chained box. The way these sorts of tricks are done is explained here, but the explanations would not ruin the fun of a good performance. Fire-eating and sword-swallowing are explained, as is how to eat glass or walk barefoot on it, or how to walk barefoot up a ladder of swords. The explanations are enough to show how the tricks are done, but few readers are going to be tempted to try them. There were performers who didn't perform, but just showed themselves. Dwarves, giants, fatties are all here, all respectively taller, shorter, or lighter than their publicity banners proclaimed. Giants of such acts, for instance, sometimes had a contract that specified that they would not be measured. A bearded lady ("The Monkey Girl") and a man with the skin disease ichthyosis ("The Alligator Man") eloped in 1938, and were a sideshow feature as "The World's Strangest Married Couple"; they were happy together for over sixty years. Not all the displays were real, but as one carny said, "Oh, it's _all_ real. Some of it's really real, some of it's really fake, but it's all really good.") Hilariously, these exhibits which used to go under names like "Mother Nature's Mistakes" are sometimes now displayed in a "Horrors of Drug Abuse!" scare show. Nickell closes with analysis of why the sideshows are fading into the past; it isn't because of any attempt to become politically correct, or any triumph of good taste; it comes down to simple economics, as fairs can make more money with, for instance, rides that take up the same space a midway does. Because it tells secrets of the sideshows, Nickell's