Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show

by Ann Anderson and Ann Anderson

Book Overview

Long before television and radio commercials beckoned to potential buyers, the medicine show provided free entertainment and promised cures for everything from corns to cancer. Combining elements of the circus, theater, vaudeville, and good old-fashioned entrepreneurship, the showmen of the American medicine show sold tonics, ointments, pills, extracts and a host of other "wonder-cures," guaranteed to "cure what ails you." While the cures were...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786422289
• ISBN13: 9780786422289
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: McFarland & Company
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.0" x 10.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher