Born with a rare condition that caused her knees to bend backward, Ella Harper, known professionally as The Camel Girl, received a $200 per week as the star of a touring freak show in the 1880s.
In 1886 she was featured as the star in W. H. Harris’s Nickel Plate Circus, appearing in newspapers wherever the circus visited. The back of her pitch card reads:
I am called the camel girl because my knees turn backward. I can walk best on my hands and feet as you see me in the picture. I have traveled considerably in the show business for the past four years and now, this is 1886 and I intend to quit the show business and go to school and fit myself for another occupation.
The original “Siamese twins,” Chang and Eng Bunker. 1800s.
Born in Thailand in 1811, Chang and Eng Bunker toured as a curiosity act for three years before settling down in North Carolina. They married a pair of sisters and fathered 21 children.
Billed as the “Living Human Skeleton,” Isaac Sprague began irreversibly losing weight at age 12 for reasons that remain unclear.
The weight loss continued throughout adulthood until his untimely death. 1866
Russian performer Fedor Jeftichew went by the name “Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy” and became a star performer in P.T. Barnum’s sideshow.
Years later, he was an influence on the physical characteristics of Chewbacca in Star Wars.