October 25, 2021 • 33 mins
Interest in being scared on purpose -- for fun -- led to the development of haunts as entertainment over the last several hundred years. But the 20th century saw explosive growth in haunted house culture, and a tragedy in the 1980s led to new safety regulations for haunted attractions.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today
we are talking about haunted house history. Uh no, not
(00:22):
a place that people actually believe might be haunted, but
the kinds of places you go to be scared on purpose,
that kind of haunted house or just called they're called
haunts a lot these days. So fun, and I thought
I forgot about an event that happened when I was
a kid that was not fun at all and really
shapes haunted house history, and so we had to include it. Um.
(00:45):
My apologies that that part is not fun at all
and it comes towards the end. Still, I will say
this offers up a lot of delights. There is some
very good newspaper quotes that I quite enjoyed and giggled
uproariously while reading them the first time. Um, and we
get to mention a couple of my favorite subjects. I
promise upfront for those of you that are concerned only
(01:06):
the briefest mention of Disney's haunted mansion. We have to
do it because it's contextually important to the bigger story.
You'll also notice, and we'll talk about this some in
the behind the scenes that, Um, we're talking mostly about
North America and the US in particular, because haunted houses
seem to be our thing. Uh. We'll talk about that
(01:29):
and that aspect of our culture a little bit more
in Friday's episode. But other than that, get ready haunted
house discussion. Yes, humans have been making things to scare
other humans and potentially to scare other creatures or entities,
probably for thousands of years. Think of things like scarecrows,
or decorations on tombs, things like that. Even Greek and
(01:52):
Roman mythology feature tales of things like mazes, uh that house,
frightening beasts. But the idea of a haunted house meaning
a space that is set up as an entertainment that
is based on the idea being scared on purposes fun. Actually,
that idea is pretty new, only a few hundred years old,
(02:16):
and even before haunted houses the way we would think
of them when what comes to mind when we say
that word developed, there were other entertainments that you could
pay a fee to go and see and be frightened.
One of those was the phantasmagoria, and this was essentially
horror theater. It was enhanced by the use of early
moving image devices to create astonishing for the time visual
(02:40):
trickery that left audiences frightened and often questioning their reality.
Magic lanterns played a big part in the development of phantasmagoria.
A magic lantern was an early projection device which used
a light source like a candle or burning mineral lime,
and it allowed users to cast an image onto a
green or a wall so that numerous people could view
(03:02):
it at once. These weren't moving images, but some expert
lanternists would combine multiple projections at once layered together to
create really intricate imagery. A popular motif for this was demons,
which would sometimes be projected by multiple layers at once
onto a gauzy material to make the optimal eerieness possible.
(03:27):
Yeah gave it an almost three D effect allegedly, and
by the late seventeen seventies this technology was used widely
by magicians and performance mystics. But the name that's perhaps
most famous in this space is Etienne Gaspa Robert, who
came to be known as Robertson. That was the stage
name that he took, and he took the use of
(03:47):
magic lanterns to entirely new levels in his storytelling performances.
Robertson realized that by moving the lanterns during performances and
incorporating sound effects like bells and thunder collapse, he could
create an immersive experience that seemed alive rather than just
having people look at static images. Robertson performed in Paris
(04:10):
in a converted space that had once been a convent.
The physics scholar found ways to make people believe, for
the span of a performance that they were seeing the
grim Reaper, or a ghost or a demon floating before them,
all too real. His advertisement for his earliest show read
Phantasmagory by Citizen E. G. Robertson. Apparitions of specters, phantoms,
(04:34):
and ghosts such as must appear or could appear in
any time, in any place, among any people, experiments with
the new fluid known by the name of galvanism, whose
application gives temporary movement to bodies whose life has departed.
An artist noted for his talents will play the harmonica.
(04:56):
Well this ad, it's really good. That harmonica that's mentioned
is probably not what you're thinking. Uh. He was referring
to a glass harmonium, or you'll sometimes see it called
a bowl organ, which used water on glass goblets to
create these spooky, other worldly noises, and this may have
actually been a version of that device invented by Benjamin Franklin,
(05:18):
known as a Franklin harmonica. There's no h there, um
uh there. You've heard them before. They make a very wonderful,
spooky noise, and if you have listened to any Halloween anything,
you've probably enjoyed the sounds of a glass harmonium. Attendees
to Robertson's shows would enter the space and take their
(05:39):
seats in dim lighting. Normally there were already static images
projected onto the walls to sort of set the scene,
and then once the crowd had settled, Robertson would snuff
out all the light and begin the sound and vision production.
And he was later quoted as saying, quote, I am
only satisfied if my spectators, shivering and shuddering, raise their
(06:01):
hands or cover their eyes out of fear of ghosts
and devils dashing towards them, if even the most indiscreet
among them run into the arms of a skeleton. His
shows became so popular in Paris that he soon started
touring them to great success. Next Halloween season we might
actually do a whole episode on him. Tracy referred to
(06:21):
him as a physicist. He was, and yet he ended
up in this area of of of employment, so as
you can imagine, he's kind of an interesting figure. Yeah,
and the image that we have gotten to go on
our social media with this episode is an artist's interpretation
of one of these events. H And there is indeed
a whole lot of raising their hands and covering their
(06:44):
eyes out of fear in the success. In eighteen o two,
in London, Marie two sawed, fresh from Paris herself, set
up a display tableau of famous French icons without their heads.
The theme of beheading meant that Robespierre, right, King Louis
(07:04):
the sixteenth, and of course Marie Antoinette were all included.
This separate chambers display, which is a name that Tussled
used for this display, was created using death masks that
she had created of those people. If you've listened to
the Madame Tussaud episode by previous host Sarah and Babilina,
you also know there's some doubt about whether she was
(07:26):
actually able to cast the faces. Of the royals or
whether she artfully recreated their faces. Either way, though, this
exhibit caused a sensation, and while she had displayed her
work in France, her set up in England was where
this really modeling theme as a separate area caught on
as an attraction in and of itself. By eight thirty
(07:49):
five she had a permanent exhibition in London which included
the now famed Chamber of Horror. It wasn't exactly a
haunted house, but it made it pretty clear that there
was an audio ants for this kind of maccab entertainment. Yeah,
that episode that Sarah and Deblina did talk a lot
about how her wax works were so impactful because, of
(08:09):
course wax looked so realistic to people compared to anything
they had seen before representing any of these gory scenes.
So in the spirit of the phantasmagoria, of course, that
Taskla do Glogogno, which we have talked about on the
show before several times, debuted in the late eighteen nineties,
once again offering a taste of horror to an audience,
(08:32):
But that was still a passive situation. Although guests certainly
reacted with great intensity, they were still all seated there
as the imagery of the stage played out. In nineteen fifteen,
the first true commercial ghost house opened at lip Hook
Fair in England. This is a project undertaken by the
company Orton and Spooner. George Orton was a wheelwright and
(08:54):
Charles Spooner was a woodcutter, and they combined their skills
into a company that produced fair ound rides and attractions
in the eighteen nineties. The attraction they built, which is
said to have been designed by a man named Patrick
Collins as a gift to his wife, Flora, was a
steam powered walk in house, similar to a lot of
carnival funhouses at the time. The floor rocked, there were
(09:17):
blasts of air and purposely wobbly walls, but it was
themed with scariness instead of silliness in mind, and that
made it a first. The Haunted Cottage, as it is called,
and we say is because it still exists today, is small.
It's about the size of a train car, and the
Haunted Cottage changed hands over the years until it landed
(09:37):
at the Hollycomb Steam in the Country Museum in lip
Hook and it remains there on display. It was restored
in so you can go visit it if you are nearby,
or once travel becomes more realistic. Pranking behavior was common
as part of Halloween celebrations in the US in the
nineteenth century. Something that traveled from Europe. For example, on
(10:00):
right Up from the Cincinnati Daily Star in eighteen seventy
nine described various stunts pulled by kids on Halloween night.
There's one potentially terrifying prank that's described as follows quote
on the Louisville Short Line track in Newport, the boys
laid a stuffed man. The engineer of the passenger train
(10:21):
saw the man on the track in time to check up.
He got off his engine and went forward to pull
the fellow out of danger. When he was greeted with
shouts of about two hundred boys. Strange to say, the
engineer never cussed a word. It reminded him of when
he was a boy and practiced the same tricks. I
love that the newspaper right up concludes that he didn't
(10:43):
do any swearing. But one can imagine how fearful it
would be to think you were seeing a body on
the tracks. Yet he was cool as a cucumber. Uh,
And that account is pretty benign. Thanks to the good
nature of that engineer. But reading accounts of what happened
each hall Aween, because a lot of papers would do
like a here's what played out on Halloween night, you
(11:04):
definitely get a sense over the years of people getting
really tired of these pranks as the years wore on.
In in Arlington Heights, Illinois paper in nineteen two, the
following was written under the headline malicious Halloween mischief quote.
Many innocent parties were victims of cowardly Halloween tricks committed
(11:24):
under the shade of darkness, and considerable property damage resulted.
It might be all right to tell in a police court,
but it is hardly suitable to mention in a clean
home paper. No intelligent person will stoop to such dirty tricks.
Those who committed depredations should be exposed and required to
make good all damages. Most everybody enjoys a joke or
(11:47):
fun to a proper degree on suitable occasions, but when
property is damaged or destroyed, it is time to call
a halt. Over the next few decades, the pranking continued
and adults reached a point where they had simply had it.
We will talk about that and how haunted attractions figure
into this story after a quick sponsor break. The Great
(12:17):
Depression drove the growth of the haunted house concept in
the US. This was, to some degree, a way to
keep all those Halloween pranks at bay. The idea was
that if the kids who would normally harass people or
destroy property had something to actually do on Halloween, they
would not indulge in those undesirable behaviors. Halloween had for
(12:38):
many years been largely about pranks, less about seeking candy
from strangers. That kind of develops a little later, but
in some places those pranks had just continued to escalate
to a degree that started to alarm people. On November
four three, a ride up appeared in various Minnesota papers
that was titled Halloween Hoodlum's so and with quote Tuesday
(13:01):
was black Halloween and Minneapolis and the city never wants
to see another like it. The night was given over
to gang terrorism and destruction, and youthful vandals held the
upper hand from first to last for sheer, viciousness and insolence.
Minneapolis has never had a Halloween to equal it. The
police were virtually powerless to cope with the marauders. Property
(13:24):
was wantonly destroyed, and the lives of citizens endangered in
every part of the city. It was, in every sense
a nightmare in which not the slightest regard was shown
for the rights of others, and through which hoodlum's paraded
with the utmost contempt for even elemental decency. And that
(13:45):
article describes to go on some of what happened, unlike
some of the previous papers who dared not discuss it,
writing quote when windows are smashed, street cars derailed, automobiles overturned,
hydrants turned on, telephone and power, polls sawed down, and
thoroughfares blockaded, Desperate chances are being taken with human life.
(14:08):
That article also blames beer, the depression, and a breakdown
of parental authority as the various causes of the mayhem,
although the writer struggles to decide which of those should
get what portion of the blame. Are kind of things
that have been blamed for a long time for UH
youths getting into trouble. So in the years that followed,
this idea of creating a fun and scary place for
(14:31):
young people to visit really started to grow. One seven
pamphlet that offered ideas for setting up a Halloween haunt
at home gave adults a very vivid description of what
they could achieve. Quote an outside entrance leads to a
rendezvous with ghosts and witches in the cellar or attic.
Hang old for strips of raw liver on walls, where
(14:53):
one feels his way to dark steps. Weird moans and
howls come from dark corners, damn sponges and hairnets hung
from the ceiling touches face doorways are blockaded so that
guests must crawl through a long, dark tunnel. At the end,
he hears a plaintive mew and SE's a black cardboard
cat outlined in luminous paint. The idea developed that these
(15:18):
kinds of home built haunted houses would be a collective
community effort. Multiple homes in a neighborhood would create spooky
scenes in the homes, and kids in the neighborhood would
go from one to another on a sort of Halloween
Holmes tour. From there, the local haunted neighborhood tour expanded
with the creativity of the residents of any given neighborhood,
(15:39):
and it became a staple in a lot of communities.
The idea of let's all go into each other's houses.
It's so alien at this point. Um. We have, as
I said at the top of show, talked about Disney's
Haunted Mansion before several times. But it does have a
part to play in making a haunted house attraction mainstream
(16:00):
in the US because this serves as this important moment
for haunted houses culturally. And that's because one, it brought
a high level of technology and artistry to the idea,
kind of elevating the whole thing, and too disnease. Haunted
Mansion was created entirely to delight. It's not really there
to divert the energies of kids away from misbehaving. It's
(16:22):
just there to be enjoying. And the pristine exterior that
Walt had insisted on to house the attractions n happy
haunts made this idea of a haunted house seemed fun
and a little less threatening and even wholesome. The nineteen
seventies were significant for the development of the haunted house
attraction for several reasons. One of those was the United
(16:44):
States Junior Chamber, better known as the j CS. The
j CS is a not for profit civic organization that
focuses on leadership development for people eighteen to forty with
attention on community improvement. It's believed that as early as
the sixties, various JAC'S chapters had started setting up haunted
houses as fundraisers. The lack of certainty is due to
(17:08):
a lack of clear documentation, but what is documented is
that by the mid nineteen seventies, chapters all over the
U s we're doing it. And the person who's usually
cited as being the most important to this spread of
charity haunts for the j c's is a man named
Tom Hilligas. He was head of the Bloomington, Illinois j
c's chapter, and after having put together a number of
(17:30):
haunted houses for his local organization, he decided to write
how to manual for other chapters to use, and he
did that along with fellow j C Jim Gould, and
this book was approved and published by the j c's.
Twenty thousand copies of it were distributed, and it laid
out exactly how to put together a haunt for charity revenue,
(17:50):
and soon Tom was also touring and giving seminars as
a haunted house expert. Eventually, Hiligas decided to open the
Haunted House Company and turn his expertise into a business.
Over the years, the Haunted House Company introduced a full
range of Halloween and hot related products, and even went
on to design the first Santa's Village seasonal attraction. In
(18:13):
the US and the world of charity, haunted houses grew
as well. A lot of people learned how to build
haunts from Tom's book, both for charity and for commercial haunts.
In n evangelists Jerry Folwell through Liberty University joined in
on the haunted house trend with a project that he
called Scare Mayor That's an attraction that continues to the present,
(18:36):
although it has not run the last two years due
to covid UH. Soon other churches launched their own haunted houses,
and these attractions, which are often called hell houses, are
intended as a didactic measure on the part of conservative
evangelical churches. They normally depict the various sins that church
leaders believe will lead a person down a path to
eternal damnation, and often these are really shocking and horrifying,
(19:00):
as well as being disparaging to a number of communities.
We mentioned it because it is an important part of
the story in the US. The third thing that happened
in the nineteen seventies was the rise of the theme
park haunt. Knots Berry Farm held their first haunt in
nineteen seventy three, called Knots Halloween Haunt. It lasted for
(19:20):
three nights and featured a makeover to some of the
park's regular attractions to give them a more Halloween feel.
Crowds loved it and came back the next year, selling
out every night of the event. Over the years, it
has continued to grow, and now the Not Scary Farm
event takes up the entire hundred and sixty acres of
the California theme park. It runs from mid September to
(19:43):
the end of October. Once the Knots Haunt was a success,
other amusement parks followed suit, but that led to a
tragic event which significantly changed the haunted house game in
the US forever. We're going to take a break, and
then we'll hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you
missed in history class going before we get into that
sad part of the story. Unfortunately, as haunted houses got
(20:13):
more and more elaborate, there were also instances where they
became legitimately dangerous. In an attraction called the Haunted Castle,
at the Six Flags Great Adventure Amusement Park in Jackson,
New Jersey, burned to the ground. The blaze began at
six thirty five pm on May eleventh, and just a
little over an hour later it was under control, although
(20:36):
park officials had believed that the building was evacuated. Later
that night, it was discovered that eight people had died
in the attraction, all aged twenty and under. While they
were within twenty five ft of an exit when they died.
Seven of them had been trapped in a maze segment
of the attraction, apparently either unable to find their way
out or believing that the smoke effect was part of
(20:57):
the attraction. That was something that several part guests would
later say that they had thought themselves when they saw
the smoke. The building itself was not really a building
at all, but seventeen aluminum trailers that had been connected
together with a stucco facade added on the structure. Operated
under a temporary building certificate, but had been running for
(21:19):
six years when the fire occurred. Temporary buildings have different
regulatory requirements about safety equipment, and this lengthy period operating
as one got a lot of attention at the time
the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions had standards
in place for mechanical rides, but not for haunted houses
(21:39):
or so called dark rides, meaning ones that operated with
low lighting conditions inside. One week after the fire, New
York City Mayor Ed Coach made the announcement that haunted
houses operating in New York had to have new safety measures,
including emergency lighting and smoke detectors installed, as well as
fire extinguishers and no smoking and no open flame signs.
(22:03):
Many haunted houses in the city already had safety measures
in place, and when Coach made this announcement, he was
also joined by Fire Commissioner Joseph E. Spinado and Buildings
Commissioner Charles M. Smith Jr. And in their press conference,
the commissioner stated that their preliminary survey of the city's
haunted houses had shown that they were up to code.
(22:23):
At the same time, haunted houses along the Jersey Shore
were all closed depending an investigation. Though at that point
the cause of the Haunted Castle fire hadn't yet been determined,
there was enough concern that similar attractions might also be
unsafe as in an emergency situation, so that shutdown was initiated.
Because of that concern, State and local officials inspected haunted
(22:47):
attractions in the area to assess their fire safety. One
haunted house, the Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, was built
with the same temporary multi trailer set up that the
Haunted Castle had. Management chose to close voluntarily even before
the fire officials called for closures. Yeah, that setup was
actually like a UM kind of a modular design that
(23:12):
that these theme parks could order from a company where
it was like each trailer had its own scene that
you could add on to your your haunted attraction, So
it was it was part of a package you could purchase. UM.
A problematic aspect of enforcing safety measures for amusement parks
really came into the spotlight in the wake of the
(23:32):
Haunted Castle fire. Multiple municipalities were responsible for sometimes overlapping
things relating to coding permits and fire safety regarding theme parks,
and sometimes there were actually gaps. A New York Times
article from outlined how complicated the situation was. Quote in
(23:53):
New Jersey, for example, the Department of Labor and Industry
is responsible for checking all rides for mechanical safety compliance
with fire electrical, plumbing and construction codes. However, is enforced
by local authorities under local statutes and the statewide Uniform
Construction Code. The code applies to all buildings put up
since nineteen seventy seven. Earlier buildings are checked by the
(24:16):
state's Community Affairs Department and Fire Safety Commission. It came
to light that because of this confusing situation, the Haunted
Castle had never been inspected. When reporters started questioning officials,
it seemed that no one really knew who was supposed
to have inspected it. When the mayor of Jackson Township,
William Schreiber, was interviewed, he initially said that it wouldn't
(24:39):
have been inspected because it was a temporary structure, but
that status should have only lasted ninety days. When pressed
on the matter, Schreiber made some calls and came up
with the information that because it was a pre nineteen
seventy seven structure, the Uniform Construction Code didn't apply to it.
But Haunted Castle opened a and the mayor had no
(25:02):
further explanation when that was pointed out. The state Governor's
office described the theme park Haunted House as an instance
of a structure that had slipped through the cracks of
ambiguous building codes. As for the cause of the fire,
it was determined that a teenager had lit a cigarette
lighter in a dark room because he couldn't see and
he was trying to figure out where to go, and
(25:24):
that his lighter had brushed against foam padding on a
wall that had almost immediately caught fire. He had tried
to put it out but failed, but then he proceeded
through the haunt without informing the staff of the fire.
While there were multiple lawsuits on the parts of the
families of the deceased, the amusement park was not held
accountable because its management had been misinformed by local authorities
(25:47):
regarding the need for a building permit, and a grand
jury report on the matter, it was concluded that quote
Jackson Township and its officials were neither qualified nor capable
to handle code responsibilities in a pride checked as large
as great adventure. In an interview with The New York
Times after the verdict was handed down, jury foreman Gloria
(26:08):
Lujo said, quote, they tried to meet their obligation by
going to get the permit. They left the building open
and available for inspection. We felt they did what they
were required to do. The township should have been doing more.
Somebody there wasn't doing his job. They were never told
they had to put in sprinklers or the place would
be closed down. But an interview with another juror, Irving Powder,
(26:32):
revealed that not all of the jurors agreed that the
township should actually take the blame. There just wasn't any
kind of law on the books that would cover a
structure like the Haunted Castle, So he kind of felt
more like it was a tragic outlier rather than someone
being negligent. The new Jersey state legislature enacted new safety
standards for amusement attractions, and even at the national level,
(26:54):
the event impacted fire codes in As part of the
response to the fire, the National Fire Protection Association added
a new section to its Life Safety Code titled Special
Provisions for Special Amusement Buildings and included regulations about sprinkler
systems even for temporary buildings, and specified smoke detection devices
(27:15):
for low light conditions and amusement attractions. Yeah, there are now,
of course, all kinds of laws on the book, like
there are even laws that say if an emergency situation
arises in some municipalities, whatever alarm goes off has to
also immediately shut down any of the noises that the
the attraction has so that nobody gets confused about what's
(27:37):
going on. Um Now, I mean there are there's an
extremely high level of standards for places like this. And
if you're wondering why we're spending so much time talking
about this incident, it's because it was a really significant
moment in the world of haunted houses. For for profit haunts,
it meant there was more overhead needed to ensure that
(27:57):
all of the attractions were up to new codes, but
for charity haunts it posed an entirely new level of challenge. Suddenly,
just finding an empty building to put a charity haunt
in was not enough. Those spaces had to be brought
up to code, even if they were only going to
operate briefly, and that was often far beyond the budget
of a charity build. In addition to that, despite all
(28:20):
of those new regulations around setting up haunts, a lot
of commercial haunted houses started popping up, and they quickly
made it really difficult for homegrown charity haunts built on
meager budgets to even operate. There are certainly still charity
haunts to be found, and people putting in a lot
of time and effort to make them scary and fun
and unique experiences for visitors. Those regulations may have temporarily
(28:44):
paused some commercial enterprises, but the haunted house industry has
only grown in the years since then. Universal Studios Theme
Park in Orlando, Florida held its first Freight Nights event,
which has since grown to be a massive, weeks long
event called Halloween Horror Nights. It takes place in Universal
Parks around the world. The ongoing popularity of horror movies
(29:08):
and explosion of the genre has also contributed to the
growth of the haunts sector, as haunted attractions replicate moments
or places from those films. Today, the range of haunted
attractions is massive, encompassing everything from those fun neighborhood homemade
yard haunts and then escape rooms and some attractions that
(29:28):
rely more on the concept of torture than anything ghostly.
According to trade organization American Haunts, there are more than
twelve hundred paid admission haunted attractions in the US, three
hundred amusement facilities with Halloween themed events, and more than
three thousand charity attractions that opened briefly for the Halloween season. Yeah,
(29:49):
I am. I was looking for kind of revenue information
and the things that I found were kind of old,
because nobody has been doing those sorts of ooculations the
last couple of years. That's why we're not including that,
because it's a little bit of a difficult time to
really judge the trajectory of things. But that that is
(30:11):
a very brief overview of haunted houses in the United
States as attractions. And now I have a listener mail
related to our Todd Browning episode. This is from our
listeners Cyrus, who writes, I just recently listened to your
two part episode about Todd Browning. I've been a fan
of Todd Browning's films, but had not had any insights
on his past, so thank you for doing an episode
(30:33):
on him. Furthermore, I was quite intrigued to hear about
his circus in vaudeville life and how that inspired his
films such as Freaks and The Unholy Three. I myself
am a professional sword swallower and have performed in a
couple of circuses and sideshows alongside some pretty remarkable people,
namely the Freaks of the natural borns. Working with these
professionals and some long time show owners came with some
(30:55):
lessons in history in itself. I appreciate you mentioning the
bit of out exploitation, how some felt that Todd Browning's
Freaks was exploitation of the performers, and how some played
the superhero by claiming the exploitation people most definitely did
feel that sideshows exploited these different individuals, even to the
point of getting the sideshows shut down and the natural
(31:16):
borns then being put on welfare. This, however, ended up
hurting the natural borns more than helping them, because their
quote differences actually made most of them unable to work
a typical day job outside of the circus. The natural
borns were also most often the top build acts in
the side show, and some would become so wealthy that
they became owners of the side shows. This does not
(31:37):
go without saying the exploitation against the performers wishes did
happen in some instances, which is definitely not okay. But
to quote famed magician and sideshow historian Todd Robbins no
relation to author Todd Robbins in reference to exploitation quote.
That was the exception, not the rule. I cannot speak
wholly for how Todd Browning treated the performers on set
(31:57):
of Freaks. However, I have a gut feeling that he
had a respect for them because he has been on
that side of the tent flap, so to speak. Thank
you so much for your show. It's one of my favorites. UM,
thank you for sending this because it's a great unique
perspective that um, you know I had not had not
had to include in that that episode. UM. And it's
just I'm I'm always glad for more discussion of that
(32:19):
whole topic and how it's handled both of them in
the thirties and today. UM, So thank you, thank you.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
You can also find us on social media as Missed
in History and if you would like to subscribe and
you haven't gotten around to it yet, no time like
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(32:47):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today
we are talking about haunted house history. Uh no, not
(00:22):
a place that people actually believe might be haunted, but
the kinds of places you go to be scared on purpose,
that kind of haunted house or just called they're called
haunts a lot these days. So fun, and I thought
I forgot about an event that happened when I was
a kid that was not fun at all and really
shapes haunted house history, and so we had to include it. Um.
(00:45):
My apologies that that part is not fun at all
and it comes towards the end. Still, I will say
this offers up a lot of delights. There is some
very good newspaper quotes that I quite enjoyed and giggled
uproariously while reading them the first time. Um, and we
get to mention a couple of my favorite subjects. I
promise upfront for those of you that are concerned only
(01:06):
the briefest mention of Disney's haunted mansion. We have to
do it because it's contextually important to the bigger story.
You'll also notice, and we'll talk about this some in
the behind the scenes that, Um, we're talking mostly about
North America and the US in particular, because haunted houses
seem to be our thing. Uh. We'll talk about that
(01:29):
and that aspect of our culture a little bit more
in Friday's episode. But other than that, get ready haunted
house discussion. Yes, humans have been making things to scare
other humans and potentially to scare other creatures or entities,
probably for thousands of years. Think of things like scarecrows,
or decorations on tombs, things like that. Even Greek and
(01:52):
Roman mythology feature tales of things like mazes, uh that house,
frightening beasts. But the idea of a haunted house meaning
a space that is set up as an entertainment that
is based on the idea being scared on purposes fun. Actually,
that idea is pretty new, only a few hundred years old,
(02:16):
and even before haunted houses the way we would think
of them when what comes to mind when we say
that word developed, there were other entertainments that you could
pay a fee to go and see and be frightened.
One of those was the phantasmagoria, and this was essentially
horror theater. It was enhanced by the use of early
moving image devices to create astonishing for the time visual
(02:40):
trickery that left audiences frightened and often questioning their reality.
Magic lanterns played a big part in the development of phantasmagoria.
A magic lantern was an early projection device which used
a light source like a candle or burning mineral lime,
and it allowed users to cast an image onto a
green or a wall so that numerous people could view
(03:02):
it at once. These weren't moving images, but some expert
lanternists would combine multiple projections at once layered together to
create really intricate imagery. A popular motif for this was demons,
which would sometimes be projected by multiple layers at once
onto a gauzy material to make the optimal eerieness possible.
(03:27):
Yeah gave it an almost three D effect allegedly, and
by the late seventeen seventies this technology was used widely
by magicians and performance mystics. But the name that's perhaps
most famous in this space is Etienne Gaspa Robert, who
came to be known as Robertson. That was the stage
name that he took, and he took the use of
(03:47):
magic lanterns to entirely new levels in his storytelling performances.
Robertson realized that by moving the lanterns during performances and
incorporating sound effects like bells and thunder collapse, he could
create an immersive experience that seemed alive rather than just
having people look at static images. Robertson performed in Paris
(04:10):
in a converted space that had once been a convent.
The physics scholar found ways to make people believe, for
the span of a performance that they were seeing the
grim Reaper, or a ghost or a demon floating before them,
all too real. His advertisement for his earliest show read
Phantasmagory by Citizen E. G. Robertson. Apparitions of specters, phantoms,
(04:34):
and ghosts such as must appear or could appear in
any time, in any place, among any people, experiments with
the new fluid known by the name of galvanism, whose
application gives temporary movement to bodies whose life has departed.
An artist noted for his talents will play the harmonica.
(04:56):
Well this ad, it's really good. That harmonica that's mentioned
is probably not what you're thinking. Uh. He was referring
to a glass harmonium, or you'll sometimes see it called
a bowl organ, which used water on glass goblets to
create these spooky, other worldly noises, and this may have
actually been a version of that device invented by Benjamin Franklin,
(05:18):
known as a Franklin harmonica. There's no h there, um
uh there. You've heard them before. They make a very wonderful,
spooky noise, and if you have listened to any Halloween anything,
you've probably enjoyed the sounds of a glass harmonium. Attendees
to Robertson's shows would enter the space and take their
(05:39):
seats in dim lighting. Normally there were already static images
projected onto the walls to sort of set the scene,
and then once the crowd had settled, Robertson would snuff
out all the light and begin the sound and vision production.
And he was later quoted as saying, quote, I am
only satisfied if my spectators, shivering and shuddering, raise their
(06:01):
hands or cover their eyes out of fear of ghosts
and devils dashing towards them, if even the most indiscreet
among them run into the arms of a skeleton. His
shows became so popular in Paris that he soon started
touring them to great success. Next Halloween season we might
actually do a whole episode on him. Tracy referred to
(06:21):
him as a physicist. He was, and yet he ended
up in this area of of of employment, so as
you can imagine, he's kind of an interesting figure. Yeah,
and the image that we have gotten to go on
our social media with this episode is an artist's interpretation
of one of these events. H And there is indeed
a whole lot of raising their hands and covering their
(06:44):
eyes out of fear in the success. In eighteen o two,
in London, Marie two sawed, fresh from Paris herself, set
up a display tableau of famous French icons without their heads.
The theme of beheading meant that Robespierre, right, King Louis
(07:04):
the sixteenth, and of course Marie Antoinette were all included.
This separate chambers display, which is a name that Tussled
used for this display, was created using death masks that
she had created of those people. If you've listened to
the Madame Tussaud episode by previous host Sarah and Babilina,
you also know there's some doubt about whether she was
(07:26):
actually able to cast the faces. Of the royals or
whether she artfully recreated their faces. Either way, though, this
exhibit caused a sensation, and while she had displayed her
work in France, her set up in England was where
this really modeling theme as a separate area caught on
as an attraction in and of itself. By eight thirty
(07:49):
five she had a permanent exhibition in London which included
the now famed Chamber of Horror. It wasn't exactly a
haunted house, but it made it pretty clear that there
was an audio ants for this kind of maccab entertainment. Yeah,
that episode that Sarah and Deblina did talk a lot
about how her wax works were so impactful because, of
(08:09):
course wax looked so realistic to people compared to anything
they had seen before representing any of these gory scenes.
So in the spirit of the phantasmagoria, of course, that
Taskla do Glogogno, which we have talked about on the
show before several times, debuted in the late eighteen nineties,
once again offering a taste of horror to an audience,
(08:32):
But that was still a passive situation. Although guests certainly
reacted with great intensity, they were still all seated there
as the imagery of the stage played out. In nineteen fifteen,
the first true commercial ghost house opened at lip Hook
Fair in England. This is a project undertaken by the
company Orton and Spooner. George Orton was a wheelwright and
(08:54):
Charles Spooner was a woodcutter, and they combined their skills
into a company that produced fair ound rides and attractions
in the eighteen nineties. The attraction they built, which is
said to have been designed by a man named Patrick
Collins as a gift to his wife, Flora, was a
steam powered walk in house, similar to a lot of
carnival funhouses at the time. The floor rocked, there were
(09:17):
blasts of air and purposely wobbly walls, but it was
themed with scariness instead of silliness in mind, and that
made it a first. The Haunted Cottage, as it is called,
and we say is because it still exists today, is small.
It's about the size of a train car, and the
Haunted Cottage changed hands over the years until it landed
(09:37):
at the Hollycomb Steam in the Country Museum in lip
Hook and it remains there on display. It was restored
in so you can go visit it if you are nearby,
or once travel becomes more realistic. Pranking behavior was common
as part of Halloween celebrations in the US in the
nineteenth century. Something that traveled from Europe. For example, on
(10:00):
right Up from the Cincinnati Daily Star in eighteen seventy
nine described various stunts pulled by kids on Halloween night.
There's one potentially terrifying prank that's described as follows quote
on the Louisville Short Line track in Newport, the boys
laid a stuffed man. The engineer of the passenger train
(10:21):
saw the man on the track in time to check up.
He got off his engine and went forward to pull
the fellow out of danger. When he was greeted with
shouts of about two hundred boys. Strange to say, the
engineer never cussed a word. It reminded him of when
he was a boy and practiced the same tricks. I
love that the newspaper right up concludes that he didn't
(10:43):
do any swearing. But one can imagine how fearful it
would be to think you were seeing a body on
the tracks. Yet he was cool as a cucumber. Uh,
And that account is pretty benign. Thanks to the good
nature of that engineer. But reading accounts of what happened
each hall Aween, because a lot of papers would do
like a here's what played out on Halloween night, you
(11:04):
definitely get a sense over the years of people getting
really tired of these pranks as the years wore on.
In in Arlington Heights, Illinois paper in nineteen two, the
following was written under the headline malicious Halloween mischief quote.
Many innocent parties were victims of cowardly Halloween tricks committed
(11:24):
under the shade of darkness, and considerable property damage resulted.
It might be all right to tell in a police court,
but it is hardly suitable to mention in a clean
home paper. No intelligent person will stoop to such dirty tricks.
Those who committed depredations should be exposed and required to
make good all damages. Most everybody enjoys a joke or
(11:47):
fun to a proper degree on suitable occasions, but when
property is damaged or destroyed, it is time to call
a halt. Over the next few decades, the pranking continued
and adults reached a point where they had simply had it.
We will talk about that and how haunted attractions figure
into this story after a quick sponsor break. The Great
(12:17):
Depression drove the growth of the haunted house concept in
the US. This was, to some degree, a way to
keep all those Halloween pranks at bay. The idea was
that if the kids who would normally harass people or
destroy property had something to actually do on Halloween, they
would not indulge in those undesirable behaviors. Halloween had for
(12:38):
many years been largely about pranks, less about seeking candy
from strangers. That kind of develops a little later, but
in some places those pranks had just continued to escalate
to a degree that started to alarm people. On November
four three, a ride up appeared in various Minnesota papers
that was titled Halloween Hoodlum's so and with quote Tuesday
(13:01):
was black Halloween and Minneapolis and the city never wants
to see another like it. The night was given over
to gang terrorism and destruction, and youthful vandals held the
upper hand from first to last for sheer, viciousness and insolence.
Minneapolis has never had a Halloween to equal it. The
police were virtually powerless to cope with the marauders. Property
(13:24):
was wantonly destroyed, and the lives of citizens endangered in
every part of the city. It was, in every sense
a nightmare in which not the slightest regard was shown
for the rights of others, and through which hoodlum's paraded
with the utmost contempt for even elemental decency. And that
(13:45):
article describes to go on some of what happened, unlike
some of the previous papers who dared not discuss it,
writing quote when windows are smashed, street cars derailed, automobiles overturned,
hydrants turned on, telephone and power, polls sawed down, and
thoroughfares blockaded, Desperate chances are being taken with human life.
(14:08):
That article also blames beer, the depression, and a breakdown
of parental authority as the various causes of the mayhem,
although the writer struggles to decide which of those should
get what portion of the blame. Are kind of things
that have been blamed for a long time for UH
youths getting into trouble. So in the years that followed,
this idea of creating a fun and scary place for
(14:31):
young people to visit really started to grow. One seven
pamphlet that offered ideas for setting up a Halloween haunt
at home gave adults a very vivid description of what
they could achieve. Quote an outside entrance leads to a
rendezvous with ghosts and witches in the cellar or attic.
Hang old for strips of raw liver on walls, where
(14:53):
one feels his way to dark steps. Weird moans and
howls come from dark corners, damn sponges and hairnets hung
from the ceiling touches face doorways are blockaded so that
guests must crawl through a long, dark tunnel. At the end,
he hears a plaintive mew and SE's a black cardboard
cat outlined in luminous paint. The idea developed that these
(15:18):
kinds of home built haunted houses would be a collective
community effort. Multiple homes in a neighborhood would create spooky
scenes in the homes, and kids in the neighborhood would
go from one to another on a sort of Halloween
Holmes tour. From there, the local haunted neighborhood tour expanded
with the creativity of the residents of any given neighborhood,
(15:39):
and it became a staple in a lot of communities.
The idea of let's all go into each other's houses.
It's so alien at this point. Um. We have, as
I said at the top of show, talked about Disney's
Haunted Mansion before several times. But it does have a
part to play in making a haunted house attraction mainstream
(16:00):
in the US because this serves as this important moment
for haunted houses culturally. And that's because one, it brought
a high level of technology and artistry to the idea,
kind of elevating the whole thing, and too disnease. Haunted
Mansion was created entirely to delight. It's not really there
to divert the energies of kids away from misbehaving. It's
(16:22):
just there to be enjoying. And the pristine exterior that
Walt had insisted on to house the attractions n happy
haunts made this idea of a haunted house seemed fun
and a little less threatening and even wholesome. The nineteen
seventies were significant for the development of the haunted house
attraction for several reasons. One of those was the United
(16:44):
States Junior Chamber, better known as the j CS. The
j CS is a not for profit civic organization that
focuses on leadership development for people eighteen to forty with
attention on community improvement. It's believed that as early as
the sixties, various JAC'S chapters had started setting up haunted
houses as fundraisers. The lack of certainty is due to
(17:08):
a lack of clear documentation, but what is documented is
that by the mid nineteen seventies, chapters all over the
U s we're doing it. And the person who's usually
cited as being the most important to this spread of
charity haunts for the j c's is a man named
Tom Hilligas. He was head of the Bloomington, Illinois j
c's chapter, and after having put together a number of
(17:30):
haunted houses for his local organization, he decided to write
how to manual for other chapters to use, and he
did that along with fellow j C Jim Gould, and
this book was approved and published by the j c's.
Twenty thousand copies of it were distributed, and it laid
out exactly how to put together a haunt for charity revenue,
(17:50):
and soon Tom was also touring and giving seminars as
a haunted house expert. Eventually, Hiligas decided to open the
Haunted House Company and turn his expertise into a business.
Over the years, the Haunted House Company introduced a full
range of Halloween and hot related products, and even went
on to design the first Santa's Village seasonal attraction. In
(18:13):
the US and the world of charity, haunted houses grew
as well. A lot of people learned how to build
haunts from Tom's book, both for charity and for commercial haunts.
In n evangelists Jerry Folwell through Liberty University joined in
on the haunted house trend with a project that he
called Scare Mayor That's an attraction that continues to the present,
(18:36):
although it has not run the last two years due
to covid UH. Soon other churches launched their own haunted houses,
and these attractions, which are often called hell houses, are
intended as a didactic measure on the part of conservative
evangelical churches. They normally depict the various sins that church
leaders believe will lead a person down a path to
eternal damnation, and often these are really shocking and horrifying,
(19:00):
as well as being disparaging to a number of communities.
We mentioned it because it is an important part of
the story in the US. The third thing that happened
in the nineteen seventies was the rise of the theme
park haunt. Knots Berry Farm held their first haunt in
nineteen seventy three, called Knots Halloween Haunt. It lasted for
(19:20):
three nights and featured a makeover to some of the
park's regular attractions to give them a more Halloween feel.
Crowds loved it and came back the next year, selling
out every night of the event. Over the years, it
has continued to grow, and now the Not Scary Farm
event takes up the entire hundred and sixty acres of
the California theme park. It runs from mid September to
(19:43):
the end of October. Once the Knots Haunt was a success,
other amusement parks followed suit, but that led to a
tragic event which significantly changed the haunted house game in
the US forever. We're going to take a break, and
then we'll hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you
missed in history class going before we get into that
sad part of the story. Unfortunately, as haunted houses got
(20:13):
more and more elaborate, there were also instances where they
became legitimately dangerous. In an attraction called the Haunted Castle,
at the Six Flags Great Adventure Amusement Park in Jackson,
New Jersey, burned to the ground. The blaze began at
six thirty five pm on May eleventh, and just a
little over an hour later it was under control, although
(20:36):
park officials had believed that the building was evacuated. Later
that night, it was discovered that eight people had died
in the attraction, all aged twenty and under. While they
were within twenty five ft of an exit when they died.
Seven of them had been trapped in a maze segment
of the attraction, apparently either unable to find their way
out or believing that the smoke effect was part of
(20:57):
the attraction. That was something that several part guests would
later say that they had thought themselves when they saw
the smoke. The building itself was not really a building
at all, but seventeen aluminum trailers that had been connected
together with a stucco facade added on the structure. Operated
under a temporary building certificate, but had been running for
(21:19):
six years when the fire occurred. Temporary buildings have different
regulatory requirements about safety equipment, and this lengthy period operating
as one got a lot of attention at the time
the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions had standards
in place for mechanical rides, but not for haunted houses
(21:39):
or so called dark rides, meaning ones that operated with
low lighting conditions inside. One week after the fire, New
York City Mayor Ed Coach made the announcement that haunted
houses operating in New York had to have new safety measures,
including emergency lighting and smoke detectors installed, as well as
fire extinguishers and no smoking and no open flame signs.
(22:03):
Many haunted houses in the city already had safety measures
in place, and when Coach made this announcement, he was
also joined by Fire Commissioner Joseph E. Spinado and Buildings
Commissioner Charles M. Smith Jr. And in their press conference,
the commissioner stated that their preliminary survey of the city's
haunted houses had shown that they were up to code.
(22:23):
At the same time, haunted houses along the Jersey Shore
were all closed depending an investigation. Though at that point
the cause of the Haunted Castle fire hadn't yet been determined,
there was enough concern that similar attractions might also be
unsafe as in an emergency situation, so that shutdown was initiated.
Because of that concern, State and local officials inspected haunted
(22:47):
attractions in the area to assess their fire safety. One
haunted house, the Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, was built
with the same temporary multi trailer set up that the
Haunted Castle had. Management chose to close voluntarily even before
the fire officials called for closures. Yeah, that setup was
actually like a UM kind of a modular design that
(23:12):
that these theme parks could order from a company where
it was like each trailer had its own scene that
you could add on to your your haunted attraction, So
it was it was part of a package you could purchase. UM.
A problematic aspect of enforcing safety measures for amusement parks
really came into the spotlight in the wake of the
(23:32):
Haunted Castle fire. Multiple municipalities were responsible for sometimes overlapping
things relating to coding permits and fire safety regarding theme parks,
and sometimes there were actually gaps. A New York Times
article from outlined how complicated the situation was. Quote in
(23:53):
New Jersey, for example, the Department of Labor and Industry
is responsible for checking all rides for mechanical safety compliance
with fire electrical, plumbing and construction codes. However, is enforced
by local authorities under local statutes and the statewide Uniform
Construction Code. The code applies to all buildings put up
since nineteen seventy seven. Earlier buildings are checked by the
(24:16):
state's Community Affairs Department and Fire Safety Commission. It came
to light that because of this confusing situation, the Haunted
Castle had never been inspected. When reporters started questioning officials,
it seemed that no one really knew who was supposed
to have inspected it. When the mayor of Jackson Township,
William Schreiber, was interviewed, he initially said that it wouldn't
(24:39):
have been inspected because it was a temporary structure, but
that status should have only lasted ninety days. When pressed
on the matter, Schreiber made some calls and came up
with the information that because it was a pre nineteen
seventy seven structure, the Uniform Construction Code didn't apply to it.
But Haunted Castle opened a and the mayor had no
(25:02):
further explanation when that was pointed out. The state Governor's
office described the theme park Haunted House as an instance
of a structure that had slipped through the cracks of
ambiguous building codes. As for the cause of the fire,
it was determined that a teenager had lit a cigarette
lighter in a dark room because he couldn't see and
he was trying to figure out where to go, and
(25:24):
that his lighter had brushed against foam padding on a
wall that had almost immediately caught fire. He had tried
to put it out but failed, but then he proceeded
through the haunt without informing the staff of the fire.
While there were multiple lawsuits on the parts of the
families of the deceased, the amusement park was not held
accountable because its management had been misinformed by local authorities
(25:47):
regarding the need for a building permit, and a grand
jury report on the matter, it was concluded that quote
Jackson Township and its officials were neither qualified nor capable
to handle code responsibilities in a pride checked as large
as great adventure. In an interview with The New York
Times after the verdict was handed down, jury foreman Gloria
(26:08):
Lujo said, quote, they tried to meet their obligation by
going to get the permit. They left the building open
and available for inspection. We felt they did what they
were required to do. The township should have been doing more.
Somebody there wasn't doing his job. They were never told
they had to put in sprinklers or the place would
be closed down. But an interview with another juror, Irving Powder,
(26:32):
revealed that not all of the jurors agreed that the
township should actually take the blame. There just wasn't any
kind of law on the books that would cover a
structure like the Haunted Castle, So he kind of felt
more like it was a tragic outlier rather than someone
being negligent. The new Jersey state legislature enacted new safety
standards for amusement attractions, and even at the national level,
(26:54):
the event impacted fire codes in As part of the
response to the fire, the National Fire Protection Association added
a new section to its Life Safety Code titled Special
Provisions for Special Amusement Buildings and included regulations about sprinkler
systems even for temporary buildings, and specified smoke detection devices
(27:15):
for low light conditions and amusement attractions. Yeah, there are now,
of course, all kinds of laws on the book, like
there are even laws that say if an emergency situation
arises in some municipalities, whatever alarm goes off has to
also immediately shut down any of the noises that the
the attraction has so that nobody gets confused about what's
(27:37):
going on. Um Now, I mean there are there's an
extremely high level of standards for places like this. And
if you're wondering why we're spending so much time talking
about this incident, it's because it was a really significant
moment in the world of haunted houses. For for profit haunts,
it meant there was more overhead needed to ensure that
(27:57):
all of the attractions were up to new codes, but
for charity haunts it posed an entirely new level of challenge. Suddenly,
just finding an empty building to put a charity haunt
in was not enough. Those spaces had to be brought
up to code, even if they were only going to
operate briefly, and that was often far beyond the budget
of a charity build. In addition to that, despite all
(28:20):
of those new regulations around setting up haunts, a lot
of commercial haunted houses started popping up, and they quickly
made it really difficult for homegrown charity haunts built on
meager budgets to even operate. There are certainly still charity
haunts to be found, and people putting in a lot
of time and effort to make them scary and fun
and unique experiences for visitors. Those regulations may have temporarily
(28:44):
paused some commercial enterprises, but the haunted house industry has
only grown in the years since then. Universal Studios Theme
Park in Orlando, Florida held its first Freight Nights event,
which has since grown to be a massive, weeks long
event called Halloween Horror Nights. It takes place in Universal
Parks around the world. The ongoing popularity of horror movies
(29:08):
and explosion of the genre has also contributed to the
growth of the haunts sector, as haunted attractions replicate moments
or places from those films. Today, the range of haunted
attractions is massive, encompassing everything from those fun neighborhood homemade
yard haunts and then escape rooms and some attractions that
(29:28):
rely more on the concept of torture than anything ghostly.
According to trade organization American Haunts, there are more than
twelve hundred paid admission haunted attractions in the US, three
hundred amusement facilities with Halloween themed events, and more than
three thousand charity attractions that opened briefly for the Halloween season. Yeah,
(29:49):
I am. I was looking for kind of revenue information
and the things that I found were kind of old,
because nobody has been doing those sorts of ooculations the
last couple of years. That's why we're not including that,
because it's a little bit of a difficult time to
really judge the trajectory of things. But that that is
(30:11):
a very brief overview of haunted houses in the United
States as attractions. And now I have a listener mail
related to our Todd Browning episode. This is from our
listeners Cyrus, who writes, I just recently listened to your
two part episode about Todd Browning. I've been a fan
of Todd Browning's films, but had not had any insights
on his past, so thank you for doing an episode
(30:33):
on him. Furthermore, I was quite intrigued to hear about
his circus in vaudeville life and how that inspired his
films such as Freaks and The Unholy Three. I myself
am a professional sword swallower and have performed in a
couple of circuses and sideshows alongside some pretty remarkable people,
namely the Freaks of the natural borns. Working with these
professionals and some long time show owners came with some
(30:55):
lessons in history in itself. I appreciate you mentioning the
bit of out exploitation, how some felt that Todd Browning's
Freaks was exploitation of the performers, and how some played
the superhero by claiming the exploitation people most definitely did
feel that sideshows exploited these different individuals, even to the
point of getting the sideshows shut down and the natural
(31:16):
borns then being put on welfare. This, however, ended up
hurting the natural borns more than helping them, because their
quote differences actually made most of them unable to work
a typical day job outside of the circus. The natural
borns were also most often the top build acts in
the side show, and some would become so wealthy that
they became owners of the side shows. This does not
(31:37):
go without saying the exploitation against the performers wishes did
happen in some instances, which is definitely not okay. But
to quote famed magician and sideshow historian Todd Robbins no
relation to author Todd Robbins in reference to exploitation quote.
That was the exception, not the rule. I cannot speak
wholly for how Todd Browning treated the performers on set
(31:57):
of Freaks. However, I have a gut feeling that he
had a respect for them because he has been on
that side of the tent flap, so to speak. Thank
you so much for your show. It's one of my favorites. UM,
thank you for sending this because it's a great unique
perspective that um, you know I had not had not
had to include in that that episode. UM. And it's
just I'm I'm always glad for more discussion of that
(32:19):
whole topic and how it's handled both of them in
the thirties and today. UM, So thank you, thank you.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
You can also find us on social media as Missed
in History and if you would like to subscribe and
you haven't gotten around to it yet, no time like
the present, you can do that on the i art
radio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.
(32:47):
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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