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

Jane Nicholas is an associate professor in the Department of History and Department of Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies at the University of Waterloo.

• List of illustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction:  Pookie’s StoryChapter 1:  Monsters and Freaks:  Exhibitionary Culture and the Order of ThingsChapter 2:  The Carnival State:  Protest, Moral Regulation, and ProfitsChapter 3:  The Carnival Business in Canada:  Paternalism, Belonging, and Freak Show Labour         Chapter 4:  The Twentieth Century Freak Show:  Medical Discourse, Normality, and RaceChapter 5:  Not Just Child’s Play:  Child Freak Show Consumers and WorkersChapter 6:  The Spectacularization of Small and Cute:  Midget Shows and the Dionne QuintupletsEpilogue:  ‘I guess it really is all over’:  The End Which is Not OneBibliography

"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)