Chang, the Chinese Giant.

P.T. Barnum founded the first New York dime museum in 1841, but in the years after the Civil War they really proliferated throughout the city. Despite the word “museum,” there was no fine art on display in these exhibition halls–just sideshow and freak acts. The following are actual dime museum attractions that were advertised during the 1880s in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

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• Barney Baldwin, the Living Man with the Broken Neck
• The Iowa Giantess (weighs 450 pounds with a luxuriant beard)
• Professor Smith and His Wonderful Goat
• Mr. Gus Alward and His Talking Hand
• Chang, the Chinese Giant
• Tisha Booty, the Human Pin Cushion
• Venus, Empress of the Aerial Wire
• The Wild Australian Boy
• Mr. Edwards, the Wonderful Change Artist
• Mlle. Elward and Her Wonderful Mind Reading
• The Champion Lady Pedestrian of the World
• Millie Christine, Two-Headed Nightingale
• Reily, Prince of Jugglers
• Whiston, the Humorist
• The Albino Lady
• Walter Stuart, a Man with Head and Body
• Baron Littlefinger
• Man Fish
• Vanolar the Great
• The Leopard Boy
• The Animated Skeleton
• The Wonderful Turk
• Guiteau, the Assassin
• Rhoda, the Herodian Mystery