Archiving Possibilities with the Victorian Freak Show a Dissertat
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE “Freaking” the Archive: Archiving Possibilities With the Victorian Freak Show A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Ann McKenzie Garascia September 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Joseph Childers, Co-Chairperson Dr. Susan Zieger, Co-Chairperson Dr. Robb Hernández Copyright by Ann McKenzie Garascia 2017 The Dissertation of Ann McKenzie Garascia is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has received funding through University of California Riverside’s Dissertation Year Fellowship and the University of California’s Humanities Research Institute’s Dissertation Support Grant. Thank you to the following collections for use of their materials: the Wellcome Library (University College London), Special Collections and University Archives (University of California, Riverside), James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center (San Francisco Public Library), National Portrait Gallery (London), Houghton Library (Harvard College Library), Montana Historical Society, and Evanion Collection (the British Library.) Thank you to all the members of my dissertation committee for your willingness to work on a project that initially described itself “freakish.” Dr. Hernández, thanks for your energy and sharp critical eye—and for working with a Victorianist! Dr. Zieger, thanks for your keen intellect, unflappable demeanor, and ready support every step of the process. Not least, thanks to my chair, Dr. Childers, for always pushing me to think and write creatively; if it weren’t for you and your Dickens seminar, this dissertation probably wouldn’t exist. Lastly, thank you to Bartola and Maximo, Flora and Martinus, Lalloo and Lala, and Eugen for being demanding and lively subjects. I truly enjoyed writing with all of you. You’re the real stars of this dissertation. To my family and friends (feel free to group yourself accordingly) thanks for your patience, understanding, and good humor; and very special thanks to my mom and dad for passing down their love of word games and weird history. To Lord Windsor Coffee, thanks for keeping me caffeinated and alert; to too many breweries to name, thanks for iv keeping me hydrated and mellow. To my best pup, Reggie, thanks for being a steadfast writing companion, even when you just wanted to play with your tuggie; I’m turning off the computer soon, I promise. And lastly, to my best dude, Greg, you know that I’m not good with sentimental words. So, thank you for being the best running, hiking, backpacking, complaining, and beer-drinking life partner ever—I could not have accomplished any of this without you. And now that I’m done, there will be snacks. v For Greg and Reggie vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION “Freaking” the Archive: Archiving Possibilities with the Victorian Freak Show by Ann McKenzie Garascia Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in English University of California, Riverside, September 2017 Dr. Joseph Childers, Co-Chairperson Dr. Susan Zieger, Co-Chairperson My doctoral dissertation, “‘Freaking’ the Archive: Archiving Possibilities with the Victorian Freak Show,” proposes an archival research practice grounded in the nineteenth-century freak show’s peculiar conventions. Freak bodies are perplexing and material: hairy, leggy, squishy, rubbery, even electric. Freak bodies are also perplexing materials: forged autobiographies, grangerized travelogues, reported gossip. Through their taxonomizing imperatives, archives subdue these difficult bodies, but also risk stifling their lively histories. My “freak” archival research practice confronts this problem by generating new methods for accessing subjects underrepresented in the historical record through traditional research models. Anchored in case studies of Victorian freak performers and their contemporary performance art progeny, “‘Freaking’ the Archive” splits into three sections titled “The Archive,” “Archives,” and “Archiving,” which progress from broadly theoretical to increasingly practice based. I contend that freaks overhaul the normative orders of archival systems by breeding forms of documentation that simultaneously activate the freak show’s interlocking textual, visual, aural, and vii performed narratives, requiring us to push beyond our inherited visual-empirical research methods. Broadening the archive’s communicative capacities changes the goals of archival research. No longer concentrated on assembling stable bodies of knowledge, archival work becomes an experiment in provisionality committed to imagining more inclusive research practices. viii CONTENTS INTRODUCTION The Official Program of Wonders 1 Part One: “The Archive” CHAPTER 1 Unearthed Aztecs and Recovered Earthmen 79 ENTR’ACTE The Couple in the Cage 169 Part Two: “Archives” CHAPTER 2 India Artisans and Double-Bodied Hindoos 209 ENTR’ACTE The Cockettes 296 Part Three: “Archiving” CHAPTER 3 Eugen Sandow, the Digitized Strongman 333 CODA Gooble Gobble, Gabba Gabba Hey! 434 BIBLIOGRAPHY 453 ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 1: “Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy” 8 FIGURE 2: “G.A. Farini’s Tattoo’ed Greek” 45 FIGURE 3: “The Aztec’s” 96 FIGURE 4: “Maximo and Bartola” 115 FIGURE 5: “Lalloo” 280 FIGURE 6: “The Cockettes” 296 FIGURE 7: The Iron Man 333 FIGURE 8: “Sandow” 368 FIGURE 9: “Sandow” 394 x Introduction: The Official Program of Wonders 1 i. Human Freaks! Positively Alive! Blockhead and Spider Girl! My dissertation ends where many probably have before, in a bar with a pint of beer. Unlike normal endings, this one was so curious it defied all explanation… so bizarre it needed to be seen to be believed. It featured the Merchant of Madness, the Freak, the genuine, living Human Blockhead—Lucky John! On a lazy Saturday morning in July, my sleepy beach town’s brewery vanished, swept up by a tidal wave of the carnivalesque. Balloon animals, acrobats, fizzy beer, and salty snacks had conjured the local watering hole into a three-ring circus just waiting for its ringmaster. But, move over Barnum and move over Bailey because this time the sideshow was taking center stage. Unassuming in all black, Lucky John stood perched on the bar top spurred by lusty chants of “Freak! Freak! Freak!” Although, if you took a look around you would be hard-pressed to figure out who exactly the “freak” was. The haberdashery skills of the Balloon Guy had transformed the room into the World’s Most Amazing Cavalcade of Human-Ponies, Human-Platypuses, Human-Beer Cans, Human- Spiders, and a bevy of Real Live Authentic Mermaids. As Lucky John rolled out his spiel—The rarities of true Blockheads! Generations of secrets on display!— the raucous beer-freaks began to drink up his words almost as quickly as their suds. After much ballyhoo, Lucky John stood poised nail-to-nose and hammer-to-nail, ready to really drive the whole thing home. His hammer tilted up, a shout of “Oh God!” pealed out, and then! Nothing. An anxious but relieved titter rippled across the bar. Then, his hammer tilted up again, and… poundpoundpoundpound. In four taps so swift they were nearly 2 indiscernible by the naked eye, Lucky John impaled his nostrils with genuine steel nails. The amazed crowd flooded the bar with laughter, hoots, and howls. Lucky John nailed it. For a form of entertainment seemingly so entrenched in the past, freak shows are still a lively part of our cultural landscape. A dive bar-bingo parlor on the outskirts of Santa Maria, California advertises “Freak Show Fridays” on its burnt-out sign. Tinkertown, a museum of miniature sideshow dioramas made of recyclable materials, is tucked away in the mountains north of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The former headquarters of the Ringling Brother’s Circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin is now home to Circus World, a museum, archives, and theme park complex. Rumors persist of a New Jersey relative of Charles Eisenmann, freak show photographer extraordinaire, whose home is a private freakatorium filled with the personal effects of many freak performers, which is only open to just the right people. Due north, Syracuse University boasts of the Ronald G. Becker Charles Eisenmann Collection, a stunning body of freak photographs. A pilgrimage across the Atlantic Ocean yields Oxford University’s famed Bodleian Library, featuring the extensive John Johnson Collection of “Human Freaks.” And, if nothing will satiate you except some slice-of-life Americana, then Gibsonton (“Gibtown”), Florida is a must. “Gibtown” is the former winter home of freak performers and circus folk whose oral stories and photographs have since been digitized by the University of South Florida library. From an outsider’s perspective, the only freak show items remaining in Gibtown are rusty circus equipment and some nasty gossip about the tempestuous relationship between the Lobster Boy (Grady Stiles) and the Electrified Girl (Mary Teresa.) But if you make a stop at the local carny watering hole, Showtown 3 Restaurant and Lounge, you will see many generations of freak show and carnival culture still alive, well, and enjoying the lounge’s famous Pineapple Upside Down Cake shots.1 Attempts to document and preserve freakery cut across institutional and vernacular archival spaces and practices. For an institution we are eager to place firmly in the past, the freak show manages to keep appearing in ways both anticipated and surprising. But maybe it is this anxiety about freakery as an exploitative, outdated entertainment that inspires such vigorous attempts to collect and recollect.