In 1973, a five year old girl known as Pookie was exhibited as "The Monkey Girl" at the Canadian National Exhibition. Pookie was the last of a number of children exhibited as 'freaks' in twentieth-century Canada.

Jane Nicholas takes us on a search for answers about how and why the freak show persisted into the 1970s. In Canadian Carnival Freaks and the Extraordinary Body, 1900-1970s, Nicholas offers a sophisticated analysis of the place of the freak show in twentieth-century culture. Freak shows survived and thrived because of their flexible business model, government support, and by mobilizing cultural and medical ideas of the body and normalcy. This book is the first full length study of the freak show in Canada and is a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of Canadian popular culture, attitudes toward children, and the social construction of able-bodiness. Based on an impressive research foundation, the book will be of particular interest to anyone interested in the history of disability, the history of childhood, and the history of consumer culture.

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

Reviews

"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 *



Book Information
ISBN 9781487522087
Author Jane Nicholas
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint University of Toronto Press
Publisher University of Toronto Press
Weight(grams) 480g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 23mm