Erie County State Fair's Freak Show (1968)

In reading the articles “In Search of Freaks” by Robert Bogdan and “From Wonder to Error: Monsters from Antiquity to Modernity” by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, in regards to freak shows, I couldn’t help but recall the time my father shared with me a story from when he was 15 and was working for the county fair. He would walk by the freak show tents every day and hear the speakers blaring, advertising the “smallest man in the world” or “the fattest woman alive”. They also would announce a story of a man with two noses and three eyes. In one instance, my dad, having walked passed the tent several times over the course of a few days, decided to finally take a look. When he got inside the booth, there was a “the fattest woman alive” whose size was enhanced by the use of her husband (who was referred to as the “smallest man in the world”). There was the "rubber-skinned man," “snake woman,” the half man/half woman, and the “three eyed, two nosed man.”

The “freaks” performed where animals were displayed, such as three-legged goats or two-headed calves, most not alive but within jars. My father shared that he was unimpressed having worked on a farm most of his life--seeing birth abnormalities from farm animals every now and then was not uncommon. However, as mentioned in class, perhaps the exhibition of animals among the “freaks” is a way to make them appear more primitive and perhaps closer to animals. I also believe that perhaps the showing of animals with true birth defects attempts to suggest that the freaks which the people will observe too are “freaks of nature”, plagued with biological abnormalities. As suggested by Garland-Thomson, the “freaks” were no longer to be treated as nature’s fantasies or viewed with wonder, but instead were to be classified as errors of nature, (Garland-Thomson). However, my father, chalking it up to being 15 years old at the time, was skeptical of the authenticity of the freaks. He caught on to their exaggerations, and even noticed that the so-called three-eyed, two-nosed man's third eye was really just painted on, and his two noses simply just split slightly down the middle. The performer would walk off and come back on to perform, having removed his third eye to swallow fire and later be the “rubber-skinned man”.

At one point, my father was up walking around the empty fairgrounds in the morning and went to get some breakfast when he saw the “three eyed, two nosed man.” The man, my father shared, was not a “freak, but simply a normal person. A normal guy getting some breakfast at the fairgrounds, trying to make a living.”

-Angela B.