Picturing Disability

From the mid–nineteenth to the mid–twentieth century in America, the public exhibition of people with real and alleged physical anomalies in museum, circus, carnival, world fair, and amusement park sideshows for amusement and profit was widely popular and for the most part respectable.¹¹ People displayed as “freaks” included those without arms and legs, dwarfs, unusually large individuals (obese people as well as the very tall), conjoined twins, and others with physical and mental differences that we call “disabilities” today.

Starting in the early 1860s, when large-scale commercial production of photographic images became technically possible, and ending with the demise of this form of entertainment, the people on exhibit sold photographs of themselves to patrons both to supplement their income and to advertise their appearances. Because of these photos’ popularity, thousands of them still remain in archives and in the hands of private collectors.

Illustration 2.2 is also an Eisenmann portrait of another freak show exhibit that was sold in conjunction with the subjects’ appearances. “Maximo” and “Bartola” were the subjects’ stage names, and the two were exhibited as the “Last of the Ancient Aztecs” in freak shows in the 1880s (Bogdan 1988, 127–34).

The unusual physiology that made Maximo and Bartola a potential attraction was microcephaly, a condition characterized by an abnormally small head and typically accompanied by a mental deficiency, or what is today called a developmental disability. Both the Tripp image and this one were taken in the same studio at approximately the same time. In the Maximo and Bartola illustration, the background studio screen depicts the out of doors, nature; the props consist of papier-mâché decorative stones and plants. Maximo and Bartola are dressed in loose-fitting ornamental robes that mimic Aztec dress. The tailors who made the outfits crafted a representation of the sun on Maximo’s chest that is meant to be emblematic of the Aztecs. Their hair is not neatly combed; rather, it has been frizzed and is unruly.

Although at first glance the two images are very different, they have underlying similarities. Both were produced for the same purposes by a photographer who knew the ways of the amusement world. Charles Eisenmann probably took more commercial freak photographs than any other American photographer. The best known freak exhibits came regularly to his studio in New York City’s Bowery whenever they and their managers were in town, where they posed for him and placed their photo orders.

Illustration 2.3 shows a self-portrait of Eisenmann standing with the very tall Colonel Ruth Goshen, in sideshow lingo “a giant,” who had dropped into Eisenmann’s studio for a shoot.²²

In this chapter, I explore Eisenmann’s and other freak show photographers’ depictions and investigate the underlying motivation and culture that produced them.

Freak shows were part of the popular-amusement industry, and the people associated with that enterprise had their own distinct culture (Dennett 1997). Those in the industry referred to themselves as “with it”—they were superior, more worldly, more interesting, and free of the humdrum life they judged was typical of small town America. They characterized those outside their circle with such derogatory terms as townies, suckers, and rubes. Freaks were part of the amusement industry world. They sat on their platforms looking down on those who came to see them and not just in a literal sense: they shared a contempt toward the audience.

In the traveling amusement industry, this disdain was manifested in particular deceptive, dishonest, and illegal practices. Out-and-out cheating, law breaking, and lying were common. Professional pickpockets employed by circuses and carnivals traveled with the shows and stole from the clientele, splitting the take with management. Ticket sellers regularly and systematically shortchanged customers. The circuses and carnivals rigged games of chance and sold banned commodities and services such as liquor and sex.

In the freak show, this tendency toward fraud was reflected in how exhibits were presented to the audience. Gaffs or out-and-out phony freaks were common. People exhibited as Siamese twins (“conjoined twins” in today’s language) were really people held together with a girdle. Illustration 2.4 is a case in point. As you can see by examining the two men’s faces, they are not identical; they are impostors. In illustration 2.5, the “legless woman’s” legs are not missing; they are cleverly concealed by a manipulation of the setting.

Gaffs were the most blatant forms of deception, but all exhibits to some degree were misrepresented to the public. Elaborate lies were made up to embellish the freak front. For example, Maximo and Bartola, pictured in illustration 2.2, were not “Aztecs” whose heads resembled those of ancient Central American humans. They were born and raised in a coastal village in Central America and, as noted earlier, were developmentally disabled. Although Charles Tripp, in illustration 1.1, had mastered foot skills, rather than being an “armless wonder” he was quite ordinary in that he did what other people with this same disability accomplished.

Other, more minor forms of fraud were present in the freaks’ presentations. In the publicity materials, inches were added to the height of giants and subtracted from dwarfs. The professed background and circumstances surrounding the exhibit were very likely bogus, fabricated tales to enhance interest in the exhibit. The photographs sold at exhibits incorporated the fraud that accompanied freak presentations by utilizing particular conventions. Dwarfs were photographed next to tall people, even giants, a juxtaposition designed to make the dwarfs seem shorter and the giants taller (illus. 2.6). As in the photo of Colonel Goshen (illus. 2.3), giants wore high hats and thick-bottomed shoes to appear taller than they actually were.

Two ways of presenting exhibits on the stage and in photographs predominated: the aggrandized mode and the exotic mode. By “mode,” I mean how the exhibits were presented: standard poses, backdrops, props, costumes, and compositions. Each is an element of a photograph that freak photographers—guided by showmen, some of whom were exhibits themselves—used to construct freak images. The photograph of Charles Tripp is a good example of the aggrandized mode, and the one of Maximo and Bartola fits well into the exotic category. In the former type of photo, the subject is presented in a way that inflates his or her status or flaunts his or her high-achieving normal lifestyle while celebrating his or her embellished talents, whereas in the latter type the emphasis is on the disabled person’s inferiority, his or her strangeness or abnormal origins, and the alien land where he or she allegedly was born and raised.

The thrust of the aggrandized mode was to claim that the exhibit in the picture, in spite of his or her particular physical, mental, or behavioral anomaly, was an outstanding person. In some cases, the disability was played as the source of the person’s greatness. The freak was pictured as an upstanding person with conventional or highly regarded social status. Such attributes as social position, achievements, talents, family, taste, intelligence, and physiology were fabricated, elevated or exaggerated, and then flaunted.

Within the aggrandized mode, there were subtle differences in the form the embellishment took. In one variety, the exhibit was cast, on the one hand, as being a regular upstanding citizen and, on the other, as excelling in the enactment of those normal values and lifestyle. The way Charles Tripp was pictured fits this description—his dress, the backdrop, the props, the paraphernalia of his performance, and his general demeanor personify the typical, all-American, above-average freak.

One exhibit that consistently used this presentation was another “armless wonder,” Ann E. Leak Thompson, shown in illustration 2.7. The photo contains many of the elements we saw in the Tripp photograph; Thompson is well dressed and groomed, the backdrop is a Victorian parlor, and items that show her foot dexterity are placed in front of her. She has a firm grip on a pair of scissors, which tells the viewer that she is in charge. She produced the embroidery and crocheting that is prominently displayed.

Ann E. Leak Thompson’s needlework is an important part of the image not just because it testifies to her abilities, but because of the symbols it contains: the Christian cross and the Masonic sign. A Bible is displayed in some photos of her. Thompson’s above-average persona was tied to her piety. She presented herself as a God-fearing, Bible-toting, scripture-quoting Christian. In addition to the religious and the Masonic symbols, her embroidery contains phrases from scripture: “Holiness to the Lord,” “To Thee I cling,” “A Lamp unto My Feet.”

When Chang and Eng, the so-called original Siamese twins, were first photographed for publicity photos, they appeared in exotic Asian costumes. When they came out of show business retirement after the Civil War, they were pictured in Western dress and with two of their many children (illus. 2.9).

One stellar example of the incorporation of family in his photographs is the case of Eli Bowen, “the legless wonder.” We can trace Bowen’s history and the growth of his family through the photographs he sold. He started his career as an exhibit when he was thirteen. The earliest images Bowen sold show him as a slick bachelor. When he was twenty-six, he married an attractive sixteen-year-old woman, with whom he had four children. After his marriage, his wife and children were featured in the pictures he sold. As each new child was born, he returned to the studio to have a new family portrait done. Each child was a testimony to his normal but above-average presentation. The most contemporary family portrait I have seen was taken around 1890 (illus. 2.10). In it, we see Bowen with his wife and four children, the oldest of whom is a young adult. This family portrait casts Bowen and his family in a formal arrangement shot against a respectable Victorian parlor backdrop, with the patriarch in the center and his family arranged about him. His wife stands at his side with her hand on his shoulder, and the children encircle him. Why the goat is in the portrait I do not know.

Remember, a showman’s scheme lay behind the elegant, complimentary poses taken in the thousands of photo portraits of freaks, including those of Bowen and his family. But even though the “legless wonder” presentation was patronizing, the pictures also portray dignity and independence. Some exhibits, such as Bowen, actually did give up the ways of the showman, marrying outside the amusement world and having typical families. They made enough money to dress well and settle down comfortably in typical communities; Bowen retired to Ogden, California.

Many armless and legless wonders appeared before freak show audiences and sold their images. The practice continued into the middle of the twentieth century. The format for the photos that the twentieth-century exhibits sold was the photo postcard. Frances O’Connor, the “Living Venus de Milo” was one of the last widely known armless wonders. She was photographed as the typical girl next door, albeit also as a modern woman (illus. 2.11). O’Connor was one of the stars in Tod Browning’s classic and controversial film Freaks (1932) in which a number of people with disabilities played roles similar to their own occupation as sideshow performers.

Perhaps the best known aggrandized presentation was that of the world-famous dwarf General Tom Thumb. P. T. Barnum, the king of humbug, was his manager and promoter. Tom was actually Charles Stratton, born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to a poor carpenter and a barmaid. The truth of his origins did not fit Barnum’s ideas of how to promote him, however, so he named Stratton after a character in an English folktale, called him “general,” and taught him to sing and dance and behave like a proper English gentleman. Stratton first went on tour in America when he was five years old. In an attempt to make his small stature even more remarkable than it really was, Barnum said he was twelve (Harris 1973).

Tom Thumb married the diminutive Lavinia Warren, who had also found her way to the freak show platform. Their wedding was a lavish affair and milked for all the publicity it could generate. Their appearance as husband and wife brought new interest to the pair, and attendance at their appearances soared. But when Stratton and his wife’s revenue from exhibition began to decline, they devised a plan to attract more customers. They began exhibiting a little Thumb, an infant whom they claimed was their birth child. Illustration 2.12 is a likeness of the couple and their alleged baby taken at Mathew Brady’s studio around 1868 and sold while they were on tour. The infant was not theirs, though, because they were infertile.³³ When they toured Europe, they used different babies from different countries, and when in the United States they changed babies as each grew too large to handle.

Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren were early in a long line of little people who appeared in freak shows. Little people typically presented themselves in the high aggrandized mode; their claims of status went beyond just being above-average typical citizens. They took on airs and the titles of royalty and high society. This claim is captured and promoted in their many publicity photos. The Horvath Midgets also presented themselves in the high aggrandized mode. “The smallest People in the world” were photographed, as we see in illustration 2.13, decked out in formal attire—lavish gowns, jewelry, tuxedos, high hats, and medals.

Princess Wee Wee, a diminutive African American woman, appeared for ten years at Coney Island’s Dreamland and in 1910 in the Barnum & Bailey Circus. During these years, she sold printed postcards such as the one seen in illustration 2.14. She, too, took on the mien of a high-society woman dressed in an evening gown and was accompanied by her manager, who is wearing a vested suit. The painted backdrop for this image includes an elaborate fireplace.

The aggrandized mode of photographic presentation employed various forms of dress to raise the exhibit’s status as well as to bring people’s attention to the person’s disability. The giants wore tall hats and high-heeled boots. The “human skeletons,” or people who were extremely thin, appeared in outfits that enhanced their claim to fame. Male human skeletons often wore tights and tightly fitting shirts. Females adorned themselves with low-cut, armless evening gowns that revealed their scrawny physiology. Eisenmann captured a lady “human skeleton” in illustration 2.15. She is wearing a dress that reveals not her bust, but rather her gaunt condition. Some “human skeletons” were anorexic; most suffered from tuberculosis and other body-wasting diseases.

The aggrandized approach paraded the exhibits’ alleged positive attributes: their talents, competence, superior status, and normal lifestyle. The exotic took the opposite tact. On show in the exotic photos were the exhibits’ strange features and their alleged alien backgrounds.

The images of Maximo and Bartola, the “Last of the Aztecs,” as in illustration 2.2, reveal an obvious exotic freak show presentation and one of the oldest. The fake story used to explain their appearance declared that the brother and sister were discovered by an American explorer in an ancient Aztec temple. The children, so the lie went, were on a temple alter being worshiped by the natives when the explorer spied them. What made the story plausible was that their elongated heads resembled those of the figures in stone reliefs that decorated Aztec ruins. As I have said, these early Aztec exhibits were not what they were alleged to be. A showman had lured them from their parents with a small cash payment and promises of forthcoming riches.

The “Last of the Aztecs” were not the last exhibit to appear on the freak show stage to make this claim. Their popularity spawned a long line of imitators, including Hutty and Tain, the “ancient Ethics” (Ethics was a corruption of the word Aztec). Shown in an Eisenmann photograph in illustration 2.16, the “Ethics” are wearing South American–style clothing and stand in front of a background that suggests the untamed outdoors.

The exhibition of people with developmental disabilities as Aztecs continued well into the twentieth century. In illustration 2.17, a circus pitchman is outside a tent in which two “Aztecs” were on exhibit. Note the sign on the stand: “The Aztecs from Mexico.”

Two other postcards were sold in conjunction with the 1910 version of the “Ancient Aztecs” shown in illustration 2.16. One shows the “Aztecs” with their manager Max Klass (illus. 2.18). Their loose-fitting outer garments were meant to resemble Central American–style serapes, with the swastika used as a symbol of an ancient religion. When the picture was taken, they were traveling with the Sells-Floto Circus Sideshow.

Further into the twentieth century, the deceitful way of presenting people with microcephaly was recharged by another outrageous tale: that the people on exhibit were from head-binding tribes in Africa. A number of freak show exhibits feigning African origins went on the road, borrowing from National Geographic stories of certain African tribes that wrapped infants’ heads tightly in cloth to make them elongated, supposedly an attractive attribute. In 1929, an enterprising showman convinced the poor Memphis, Tennessee, parents of four young, developmentally disabled African American siblings with microcephaly to tour with a circus sideshow as “Iturian Pygmies from the Iturian Colony in darkest Africa.” They were later labeled as “Pigmy’s from Abbyssinnia,” with a misspelling of both “Pygmies” and “Abyssinia,” the former name for Ethiopia. Illustration 2.19 is a promotional photo postcard sold in conjunction with their appearance.

As the freak shows continued into the twentieth century, the pseudo-anthropological, scientific, and religious stories that framed the exhibits lost their credibility, so showmen added a mocking comic dimension to the exotic presentations. In the late 1920s and 1930s, for example, Kiko and Sulu appeared in the combined Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey sideshow as “Pinheads from Zanzibar.” In one photo postcard, they are draped with animal skins, and their heads are shaved to leave only a small patch of hair on top (illus. 2.20). The sideshow manager, Clyde Ingalls, stands next to them smoking a cigar. Their over-the-top costumes were meant to add a ridiculous twist to what had become an obviously bogus presentation.

In another postcard of Kiko and Sulu, sold at the same time as the earlier one of them dressed in animal skins, they are photographed in a way that breaks with the exotic presentation (illus. 2.21). They are dressed in formal attire, clothes more appropriate for an aggrandized presentation than for an exotic motif.

This mocking depiction, where the exotic is mixed with the aggrandized, created a mode of presentation in which people with developmental disabilities were cast as comic fools. Dropping all exotic pretentions, the three developmentally disabled people with small heads in Tod Browning’s film Freaks (1932) were pictured in typical childlike dress.

Not just people we would now call mentally retarded or developmentally disabled were presented in the exotic mode. Although people of small stature were most often presented in the aggrandized mode, physiology was not a strict determiner of presentation. Some dwarfs, especially achondroplasic dwarfs—whose body parts are disproportioned when compared to typical physiology—were often presented as exotics. Olof Krarer, shown in illustration 2.22, was dressed in furs and surrounded by fabricated icebergs, thus claiming an exotic background. The tale that accompanied her presentation was a cock-and-bull story (Bjornsdottir 2010). Although really born and raised in Iceland, she said she was a descendant of an ancient group of Danish colonists who were cut off from civilization in Greenland. In her tale, she was confined to an igloo during her childhood, and her diet consisted of raw meat, blood, and animal oils. The outrageous story went on: her family had been discovered by Icelandic shipwrecked sailors, and after a treacherous trip by sled dog she arrived in Iceland.

Other showpersons of short stature jumped on the Arctic bandwagon. Perhaps the best known was “Chief Debro, the Eskimo Midget,” who was actually Frank Shade of Kendalville, Indiana. He appeared with his diminutive wife, Sarah, decked out in animal skins, their hair long and disheveled.

I have concentrated on the two most common ways of presenting people with disabilities in freak shows: aggrandized and exotic. Although these modes dominated freak photographs, there were others. As my discussion of the evolution of exotic presentations suggests, some exhibits were staged in a mocking mode. One body type in particular, rotund, was presented almost exclusively in a mocking mode. Going along with their stage appearance, very obese women were photographed wearing dainty short dresses and in coy, flirtatious poses. Their stage names, which appeared in the photo captions, had a mocking ring: “Dainty Dotty,” “Sweet Heart Susie,” and “Baby Ruth.”

Freak show photographic images were peddled as part of the flimflam presentation of people with disabilities to the public in various amusement world venues. Pity was not part of freak photography. Audience members were meant to buy the images as souvenirs to remember and advertise the show—for entertainment. The photo depictions of the exhibits were not pitched as donations to charity cases, nor were the exhibits presented as needy, weak, and destitute. Quite the opposite: at least in the aggrandized mode, exhibits were shown as and often were better off financially than the people who purchased their pictures.

1. For a more comprehensive history, see Bogdan 1988.

2. This image is extremely rare. Until now there were no pictures of Eisenmann in print. This one came from the Eisenmann family collection. I thank Robert Wainwright for sharing it and allowing me to included it here. Note that “my father” is written on the left, an attribution by Eisenmann’s daughter.

3. In her autobiography (Saxon 1979), Lavinia never mentions the child, and the child never appears in later photographs.