Jarring Bodies: Thoughts on the Display of Unusual Anatomies
This past April I woke up suddenly from a frightening yet laughable little dream in which I couldn’t breathe because Governor John Engler, dressed in a power suit, was sitting
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The Wild Men of Borneo
Description: a pair of twin midgets who suffered from mental retardation. Discovered by Lyman Warner in 1852 and purchased from their mother at age 26, they performed in several sideshows
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The ancient Aztec children
Maximo and Bartola, the ancient Aztec children Barnum put his hand on the pinhead children in 1849 after they were purchased in Salvador by an adventurer. In a pamphlet “recording”
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The “What Is It?”
Zip the "What Is It?" Born William Henry Johnson in a small town in New Jersey in the 1840’s, he was hired by Barnum into the American Museum in 1860.
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The Hilton Sisters
Violet and Daisy Hilton Medically speaking, Violet and Daisy Hilton were conjoined twins joined at the buttocks. The bones of their lower spine were joined and they shared a common
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The Human Caterpillar
Prince Randian, the Human Caterpillar Prince Randian, from British Guiana, had no limbs at all. He was brought to the US by P.T. Barnum in 1889 and became famous throughout
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Julia Pastrana
Julia Pastrana (1834–1860), was an indigenous woman from Mexico, who took part in 19th-century exhibition tours in Europe. She had hypertrichosis terminalis; her face and body were covered with thick
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