248:, founded in 1881 by Charles Bigelow and John Healey. Hamlin's Wizard Oil Company troupes travelled in specially designed wagons, with built-in organs and space for musical performers. Their appeal was clean, moral, musical entertainment for the whole family. Part of their advertising included songsters, or small booklets of song lyrics and Wizard Oil advertising. The Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company created traveling shows based around sham Indian presentational ceremonies, such as war dances and marriages. "Representatives" of the Kickapoo tribe translated for the Indians and sold Sagwa, the most famous patent medicine. The company also presented other forms of entertainment, such as vaudeville shows, trained dog acts, dances, and acrobatics.
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nominal. Pitchmen would make grandiose claims about their product's efficacy, sometimes planting testimonials in the audience. The speaker's goal was to create a need, or fear, then offer his unique medicine as the only cure. Alternating entertainment with sales pitches wore down the audience's resistance, until the crowd was saturated with a desire for the product. The show would continue to run as many days as possible, then move on to the next town. A show might remain in a given location between one night and six weeks, depending on how the troupe behaved itself.
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were typical ingredients, and their addictive qualities provided an additional incentive for consumers to continue buying them, while their supposed medicinal benefit afforded a sufficient excuse. By 1900, the patent medicine industry was an $ 80 million business. Also contributing to the rise of the
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Medicine shows often brought entertainment to rural communities that might not have any other sort of performances for years at a time. Whatever the quality of the medical advice, some spectators enjoyed the free entertainment. Some shows followed circuits covering the entire United States, though
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Medicine shows combined various forms of popular entertainment with sales pitches from a self-proclaimed "doctor" who sold an astounding cure-all medicine or device. Shows played either outdoors from a wagon, platform or tent, or indoors in a theatre or opera hall. Admission was usually free or
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As reliable commercial pharmaceuticals were produced on an industrial level in the early 20th century, the reputation of and market for home remedies began to dwindle, and medicine shows came to rely ever more on their entertainment value. But as
America's population became less rural and more
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Over the course of the nineteenth century, traveling mountebanks gave way to more polished medicine shows, which availed themselves of a burgeoning patent medicine industry. At least 1,500 patent medicines were recorded by 1858, affording enterprising drifters a specific product to sell. These
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liniment", which made various claims such as being able to cure disease, smooth wrinkles, remove stains, prolong life or cure any number of common ailments. Most shows had their own "patent medicine" (products which were for the most part unpatented, but which took the name to sound official).
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medicine show was the expansion of the advertising industry, through which shows were able to procure inexpensive posters, fliers, handbills, and other merchandising to promote their products. Other forms of advertising included the use of memorable
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of dubious medicines appeared in the
American colonies before 1772, when legislation prohibiting their activities was enacted. Increasingly elaborate performances were developed to appeal to a largely rural population.
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and came to be regarded as relics of an earlier, more innocent era. This novelty, far more than the availability of the remedies peddled, provided the chief support for the last of the traveling medicine shows.
269:, led to the gradual disappearance of the traveling medicine show. By the 1930s few such companies continued to tour in the United States. Even fewer shows endured the economic and social upheaval of the
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of the vitamin tonic, sold in stores throughout the southern United States. The
Caravan came to a sudden halt in 1951, when the Hadacol enterprise fell apart in a financial scandal.
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While showmen pitching miraculous cures have been around since classical times, the advent of mixed performance and medicine sales in western culture originated during the
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91:. Each show was run by a man posing as a doctor who drew the crowd with a monologue. The entertainers, such as acrobats, musclemen, magicians, dancers,
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One of the last great medicine shows had its swan song in the summer of 1972, when the two-man show of Chief
Thundercloud (pitchman Leo Kahdot, a
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203:"medicines" seldom treated the specific symptoms of an illness, instead relying on stimulants or other drugs to produce a pleasurable effect.
642:. Buffalo, N.Y.: Themes & Settings in Fiction Press, 2022.. Nevada Ned was a prominent showman for the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company.
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traveled through small towns and large cities, selling miraculous elixirs by offering small street shows and miraculous cures. Itinerant
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Entertainment in the Old West: Theater, Music, Circuses, Medicine Shows, Prizefighting and Other
Popular Amusements
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Edward Oliver
Tilburn (aka N. T. Oliver, Ned Oliver, Nevada Ned, and Edward Tilburne): The Profile of a Con-Artist
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in Europe after circuses and theatres were banned and performers had only the marketplace or patrons for support.
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most shows focused on the rural midwest and south, where the inhabitants were considered particularly gullible.
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One of the most famous of the 20th-century traveling shows was the
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were touring acts (traveling by truck, horse, or wagon teams) that peddled "miracle cure"
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shows and were common in the United States in the nineteenth century, especially in the
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and other products between various entertainments. They developed from
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in the 1940s with great publicity, featured a number of notable music acts and
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597:"Tommy Scott, Country Singer with a Traveling Medicine Show, Dies at 96"
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345:(harmonicist-singer-comedian Arthur Jackson) played at a carnival in
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urbanized, the availability of other forms of entertainment, such as
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Company, founded in
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The two largest and most successful
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Hamlin's Wizard Oil Company and Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company
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Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show
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Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show
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celebrities and promoted Hadacol, which was sold during
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and after the show. Admission to the show was paid in
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504:"'Indian' medicine shows once popular entertainment"
649:. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1976. Print.
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286:The Hadacol Caravan
242:Hamlin's Wizard Oil
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352:Born For Hard Luck
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275:World War II
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252:20th century
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129:Please help
124:verification
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89:storytelling
87:, jokes, or
85:magic tricks
81:musical acts
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54:World War II
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385:mentholated
365:Tommy Scott
343:Peg Leg Sam
187:Mountebanks
97:trick shots
77:flea circus
16:Touring act
657:Categories
608:2014-01-04
581:2010-01-22
549:2010-01-22
515:2016-04-11
485:0786408006
424:References
397:Lions Club
335:Potawatomi
311:Deep South
279:television
265:and later
263:vaudeville
73:freak show
46:mountebank
377:blackface
315:Hollywood
292:Louisiana
183:Dark Ages
65:snake oil
446:(1976).
418:Quackery
407:See also
399:and the
389:liniment
381:laxative
339:Oklahoma
191:peddlers
176:Liniment
50:Old West
323:boxtops
307:Hadacol
218:jingles
213:cocaine
205:Alcohol
166:Origins
103:History
61:elixirs
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341:) and
387:skin
337:from
267:radio
209:opium
480:ISBN
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