Robert Bogdan Freaks Summary

250 Words1 Pages
Robert Bogdan raises many interesting points in this article, concerning the nature of the term ‘freaks’ and what it meant to be one in the nineteenth and twentieth century in comparison to now. He draws his knowledge from many sources, which he references, on how those of mental and physical abnormalities in the circus business not only categorized themselves, from those who were pure in their abnormalities to those who created their own freakish nature, but also how they viewed ‘outsiders’. The way in which this article is written, I feel, it is intended for the common man to understand what life was like for handicapped persons in early America. They were seen as impure, unnatural, and well, freaks. Bogdan refers to two different kinds of