beautiful women...carnival shows...History Channel

Discussion in 'Central & Eastern Europe' started by gypzy, May 4, 2006.

  1. gypzy

    gypzy Well-Known Member

    I saw an episode on the History Channel called Wild West Technology. The episode was about the old traveling shows in 19th century America that exploited people w/ certain physical and/or mental features, like little people, really tall people, bearded ladies, fat ladies and other stuff. I had heard about many of these types of show. One type of show was women from around the Black Sea who were supposedly descended from the most original and purest white people. According to the barkers, men who ran the shows, these women were considered the most beautiful women in the entire world. Turks had kidnapped them and forced them into harems until the barker had "rescued" them. In the pictures they had these funky hair-dos, long and sticking straight up in the air. I know must of these shows were fake hogwash. Does anyone know about this story? Is there any grain of truth to this?
     
  2. GlennInFlorida

    GlennInFlorida Well-Known Member

    not much truth in it -
    take a look at
    http://www.missioncreep.com/mundie/gallery/gallery5.htm

    Some of my family are "Carnies", I have met a lot of the kinds of people you describe - several have been to my house on numereous occasions in my childhood. Gave the neighbors quite a start. That was back in the day of the "sideshow" - those shows no longer really exist (just a few single "attractions" here and there). My sister and I even got into the act on occasions - she filled in as "Atasha the Gorilla Girl" (Changes from a beautiful young girl to a gorilla right before your eyes) and I did a stint as an "Indian Rubber Boy" (I am "double-jointed" and can twist and stretch from here to Sunday - a mild version of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome).
     
  3. gypzy

    gypzy Well-Known Member

    Thank you for the link! For some reason I find this stuff fascinating, real or not. I added the link to myYahoo so that I can look more at the other pages when I feel.

    Thanx again,
    gypzy
     

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