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Fabricating Freakery: the Display of Exceptional Bodies in Nineteenth-Century London

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Fabricating Freakery: the Display of Exceptional Bodies in Nineteenth-Century London Fabricating Freakery: The Display of Exceptional Bodies in Nineteenth-Century London John Jacob Woolf Goldsmiths, University of London Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 1 Declaration I declare that the work in this thesis is my own. John Jacob Woolf Date: 2 Acknowledgements This thesis would have been inconceivable without the work of others in the field of Disability Studies, ‘Freak Studies’ and beyond. Nor would it have been realised without the generous funding from Goldsmiths College, University of London and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I would also like to thank all the archivists, librarians and staff at the consulted collections, in particular Adrienne Saint Pierre at the Barnum Museum and Elizabeth Van Tuyl at the Bridgeport History Centre. I owe special thanks to Mat Fraser, Dr. Colin Shindler at Cambridge University, Dr. Erica Wald and Professor Jan Plamper at the University of London. To Dr. Vivienne Richmond who tirelessly read, marked, advised and supported me—both emotionally and intellectually—I am eternally grateful. Without her support, this thesis would never have materialised. I am beholden to my Dad and brother for reading the whole thesis and offering comments and corrections. Finally, thanks are due to my family and fiancée for indulging my obsessions and reminding me that while the past is filled with wonder the present is just as enriching. To them this work is dedicated. 3 Abstract This thesis examines five individuals in the tradition of freakery: the performance of constructed abnormality as entertainment. Departing from a tendency to explore the ‘freak’ and the ‘freak show’ from the mid-nineteenth century, this thesis starts at the beginning of the 1800s to explore the diachronic evolution of freakery as it went from small-scale transitory exhibitions to large-scale commercial enterprises tied to the burgeoning entertainment industry. This thesis argues that, as the freak show changed, it functioned as an index for broader social changes across the nineteenth century. Each chapter represents one or more of those changes, probing the construction and presentation of a specific identity rooted in a particular epoch and framed around the life history of a performer, whether this biography was alleged or ‘real’. The five agents explored in this thesis are Daniel Lambert (1770-1809), who displayed as a Fat Man; Chang and Eng, The Siamese Twins (1811-1874); Charles Stratton (1838-1883), a little person known as General Tom Thumb; Julia Pastrana (1834?-1860), billed as The Baboon Lady; and Joseph Merrick (1862-1890), The Elephant Man. Freakery was a lived identity reliant on a biographical history and dependent on numerous discourses that turned constructed identities into ambiguous, paradoxical and ambivalent representations. The hitherto entrenched historiographical dichotomy between the ‘offstage’ and ‘onstage’ life of a ‘freak’ is substituted for the claim of interdependency between performer and performance, reality and representation: agencies and the culture of everyday life were imbricated in the construction of ‘freak’ identities that were marked by character as much as corporeality. Overall, this thesis presents a picture of pervasive freakery in nineteenth-century London and beyond: a practice and discourse that permeated life and culture, representations and perceptions. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................3 Abstract..................................................................................................................................................4 Table of Contents...................................................................................................................................5 List of Illustrations..................................................................................................................................8 Abbreviations.........................................................................................................................................9 Introduction. Surveying the Scene: Histories, Studies and Sources...................................................10 Situating Bodily Exceptionality................................................................................................12 Engaging with ‘Freak Studies’..................................................................................................19 Methodology: Navigating Possibilities.....................................................................................25 Key Concerns...........................................................................................................................35 Thesis Layout...........................................................................................................................41 Chapter One. Daniel Lambert, The Fat Man: Biographies, Characters, Eccentricity and English Identity.................................................................................................................................................44 Biographical Sketch..................................................................................................................50 Questioning the Biographies...................................................................................................51 Model of Imitation...................................................................................................................55 Gentlemanliness and Manliness..............................................................................................61 The Eccentric Englishman........................................................................................................66 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................76 Chapter Two. Chang and Eng, The Siamese Twins: Medicine, Orientalism and Everyday Life........................................................................................................................................................79 Biographical Sketch..................................................................................................................83 Medicine and Freakery............................................................................................................85 5 Orientalism and Freakery........................................................................................................93 Ambiguity and Ambivalence..................................................................................................100 Onstage and Offstage............................................................................................................108 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................112 Chapter Three. Charles Stratton, The Man in Miniature: Fairies, Commodities and the Freak Industry..............................................................................................................................................115 Biographical Sketch................................................................................................................120 Man in Miniature...................................................................................................................123 Fairy Tales and Agency...........................................................................................................129 Commodifying Tom Thumb...................................................................................................135 Freak Industry........................................................................................................................143 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................147 Chapter Four. Julia Pastrana, The Baboon Lady: Wonder, Disgust and Biographical Mystery..............................................................................................................................................150 Biographical Sketch................................................................................................................154 Mythologies...........................................................................................................................157 Fabricating Identities.............................................................................................................160 Francis Buckland....................................................................................................................166 Arthur Munby........................................................................................................................174 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................184 Chapter Five. Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man: Exhibiting, Confining and Making Elephant Men....................................................................................................................................................187 Biographical Sketch................................................................................................................191 The Autobiography................................................................................................................194
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