Sideshow freaks

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Circus banners for ‘Spidora’ and ‘Olga the Headless Girl.’ Originally conceived in the late 1800s by London-based vaudeville illusionist Henry Roltair and hugely popular at Coney Island in the late 1930s, “Spidora” was a disturbing illusion featuring the head of an actual woman with the body of a giant spider. When it comes to the equally disturbing “Headless Girl” sideshow attraction, we have a man from Hamburg, Germany purporting to be a physician called “Doctor Heineman” (aka Egon…

Circuses are naturally creepy, but vintage circus photos are truly terrifying. Here are 22 scary pictures from old circuses, including freaks, creepy clowns, ...

MISS ROSINA Armless Legless woman Lady original old 1910s postcard

In the 19th and most of the 20th century, humankind’s obsession with all things weird and freaky could only be satisfied with a trip to the circus freak show. There, our ancestors could ogle people afflicted with skin conditions, deformities, and eccentricities, and sometimes people who just happened to be from another culture that the […]

Grace McDaniels (March 14, 1888 - March 17, 1958), AKA the "Mule Faced Woman," was born in Numa, Iowa. She was called the "Mule Faced" Woman because, to some, her face resembled that of a mule's. The reasoning behind her exterior is that she had had lip cancer which caused her lip to swell. After about thirty years, her lip was so swollen that she was able to join a freak show. She was married and had a child. She later retired and moved to Tampa, Florida. She then died of lip cancer in…

Stephan Bibrowski (1891–1932) was better known as Lionel the Lion-faced Boy (later “Man”), owing to a rare condition called hypertrichosis which caused his entire body to be covered in long, silky hair.

vintage circus poster sideshow freak show