Since Antiquity, visually unusual beings had been exhibited in public spaces.  In the 16th century, street performances involving these beings were organized for the enjoyment of the public.

Later Freak shows featuring a number of ‘monsters’ contributed to the success of travelling shows. For more than a hundred years, the sideshow was to become an indispensable appendage of American circus culture.

The first one of its kind systematically organized was contained in "P.T. Barnum's Great Travelling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome" and the countless imitations which followed in its wake habitually featured the same classic attractions, including the giant, the fat lady, the midget, the three-legged boy, the armless wonder and the thin man.

Where once there were 105 sideshows touring with circuses and carnivals across the United States, now there are just a handful. Displaying human oddities has now become a shameful business much as pornography. Television and computers have replaced live entertainment. Technology, coupled with political correctness, wins.