Canadian Carnival Freaks and the Extraordinary Body, 1900-1970s

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 cul…