Weird and Wonderful : The Dime Museum in America

by Dennett, Andrea Stulman

• ISBN13: 9780814718865
• ISBN10: 0814718868
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-10-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

Dioramas and panoramas, freaks and magicians, waxworks and menageries, obscure relics and stuffed animals--a dazzling assortment of curiosities attracted the gaze of the nineteenth-century spectator at the dime museum. This distinctly American phenomenon was unprecedented in both the diversity of its amusements and in its democratic appeal, with audiences traversing the boundaries of ethnicity, gender, and class. Andrea Stulman Dennett'sWeird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in Americarecaptures this ephemeral and scarcely documented institution of American culture from the margins of history.Weird and Wonderfulchronicles the evolution of the dime museum from its eighteenth-century inception as a "cabinet of curiosities" to its death at the hands of new amusement technologies in the early twentieth century. From big theaters which accommodated audiences of three thousand to meager converted storefronts exhibiting petrified wood and living anomalies, this study vividly reanimates the array of museums, exhibits, and performances that make up this entertainment institution. Tracing the scattered legacy of the dime museum from vaudeville theater to Ripley's museum to the talk show spectacles of today, Dennett makes a significant contribution to the history of American popular entertainment.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
The Origins of the Dime Museum, 1782-1840	p. 1
Barnum and the Museum Revolution, 1841-1870	p. 23
The Peak Years: From the Civil War to 1900	p. 41
Freaks and Platform Performers	p. 66
Lecture Room Entertainments	p. 86
Waxworks and Film	p. 106
The Dime Museum Reconfigured for a New Century	p. 124
Epilogue	p. 144
App. A: Chronology	p. 149
Dime Museums	p. 151
Notes	p. 155
Selected Bibliography	p. 179
Index	p. 193
About the Author	p. 200
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