Ann Anderson

Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones

The American Medicine Show

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Long before television and radio commercials beckoned to potential buyers, the medicine show provided free entertainment and promised cures for everything from corns to cancer. Combining elements of the circus, theater, vaudeville, and good old-fashioned entrepreneurship, the showmen of the American medicine show sold tonics, ointments, pills, extracts and a host of other "wonder-cures," guaranteed to "cure what ails you." While the cures were seldom miraculous, the medicine show was an important part of American culture and of performance history. Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, and P.T. Barnum all took a turn upon the medicine show stage. This study of the medicine show phenomenon surveys nineteenth century popular entertainment and provides insight into the ways in which show business, advertising, and medicine manufacture developed in concert. The colorful world of the medicine show, with its Wild West shows, pie-eating contests, clowns, and menageries, is fully explored. Photographs of performers and of the fascinating handbills and posters used to promote the medicine show are included.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: McFarland
• Seitenzahl: 202
• Erscheinungstermin: 10. Dezember 2004
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 254mm x 178mm x 11mm
• Gewicht: 391g
• ISBN-13: 9780786422289
• ISBN-10: 0786422289
• Artikelnr.: 21467315

Autorenporträt

Ann Anderson is a freelance writer, teacher, actor and director. Her articles and essays have appeared in Stage Directions, Prevention and Health, among many other publications. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Inhaltsangabe

Table of Contents
Foreword by Heinrich R. Falk     
1. Origins and Influences     
2. Colonial and Pioneer Medicine Set the Stage for the Patent-Medicine
Industry     
3. Patent Medicines: Good for What Ails You     
4. Museums, Circuses, and the Wild, Wild West     
5. Blackface and Slapstick     
6. That Old-Time Religion     
7. Street Corners and Big Tents     
8. Medicine-Show Life and Tricks of the Trade     
9. Yahoo, Hadacol!     
10. The Curtain Comes Down     
Appendix I: "All Run Down"     
Appendix II: "Heart Failure"     
Appendix III: Temperance Songs     
Chapter Notes     
Bibliography     
Index