Customer Reviews

Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This terrific book is as fun as it is informative. Anderson's exhaustive research is evident on every page, and her writing style is perfect: spare enough to let the color of the topic shine through, but never dry. As she relates the history of the medicine show, she shows how modern medicine, advertising and entertainment evolved together; her skill at illuminating these linkages gives the book even more weight and depth. It's an outstanding work of scholarship...and a damned good read!

Ann Anderson has done her homework. Finding information about early medicine shows is about as easy as finding a fossilized T-Rex's tooth. Anderson has done a superb job with this work and I recommend it very highly to anyone interested in the "beginning entertainment" of the United States.

Arkansas Red-Ozark Troubadour
Eureka Springs, Arkansas

A thoroughly entertaining and informative book with a subject matter I never thought would interest me. Having an advertising background, I was intrigued and facinated by the history of the medicine show and the impact it has had on our culture from a media standpoint. Well written, incredibly reasearched, and fun to read. Read it!

A readable, scholarly historic review of the American medicine show and how it evolved. Anderson traces the history from its roots in Europe to the uniquely American form it took of people hawking homemade medicines on the street and in lavish "shows." Quite interesting to read how P.T. Barnum got his start! Entertaining, thorough, and very interesting.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

You might not be surprised that P.T. Barnum got his start in a patent medicine show (he did). But how about the likes of Al Jolson, Fed Foxx, Gracie Allen, Red Skelton, Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, Bob Hope, or Mickey Rooney. They played, too.

The Traveling Snake Oil Salesman of the old west continued a noble tradition dating back to Roman times. The invading barbarians and the church conspired to ban public entertainment, leaving a legion of actors, musicians, acrobats, jugglers, and comedians to shift for themselves on the streets.

Before long they established the unfortunate precedent that continues to this day: free entertainment traded for the opportunity to sell you something.

Ann Anderson's book tracks all of this in a thorough and charming fashion, with plenty of colorful anecdote along the way. To go deeper requires only a visit to her exhaustive bibliography.

And why would we want to investigate further? Because to see where we've been illuminates where we are.

"Even though many successful performers got their start in medicine shows, the shows themselves never got much respect. Ever the black sheep of the entertainment world, medicine showmen were on a social par with thieves, prostitutes, and drunks. Of course, some of them were thieves, prostitutes, and drunks, but they were talented ones, and even law-abiding medicine men were painted with the same brush. Despite their bad reputation, medicine pitchmen and performers were very hardworking and highly skilled. Anyone who had the nerve to get on a medicine-show platform had to deliver entertainment and sell the goods. Some of the best vaudeville and minstrel performers would have been hard-pressed to compete with medicine men on the basis of versatility. Medicine shows were a cultural sponge that absorbed every interesting thing that took place on a stage." p 163

[...] gathered together the handful of surviving snake oil salesmen they could find and recorded a documentary of a their final reprise here: [...]

It's enough to make you wish for another generation of entertainers with that kind of face-to-face nerve.

August 6, 2000

Book Review - SNAKE OIL...GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YA!

Ann Anderson SNAKE OIL, HUSTLERS AND HAMBONES The American Medicine Show

McFarland & Company,Inc., Publishers

As an avid reader with very eclectic tastes, I found Ann Anderson's SNAKE OIL, HUSTLERS AND HAMBONES to be highly satisfying to my literary pallet. I am an actor who has made a living over the years doing T.V. commercials. It has long been of interest to me to know just how this crazy way of marketing came to be. However, any person that has ever watched a T.V. commercial, an info-mercial or read an advertisement in a magazine or newspaper, and wondered why ads are everywhere, will get a kick out of this book. This wonderful, funny, deliciously informative book is simply chock full of "Oh, I didn't know that!" and "So that's how that got started!" moments. She has also thought to delight our eye by including many authentic labels, illustrations and flyers from the periods she discusses. She has managed to be fastidiously scholarly in her research with out being at all dry or dull. Ms. Anderson's writing style is so accessible and real, it makes one feel you're having a cup of coffee and sitting down for a long lively chat with a very interesting friend. It's full of factual information both serious and humorous. It runs the gamut of historically profound and fancifully trivial information. She provides for us the "missing link", as it were, of how we got from there to here. SNAKE OIL, HUSTLERS AND HAMBONES is a darned good read. I'm looking forward to her next book.

I enjoyed this well-written, informative book. The author placed medicine shows in the context of American society and culture. Who knew that medicine, advertising and show business were so intertwined? A fascinating, fun read. I highly recommend this lively book. Ms. Anderson has a wonderful way of relating a subject that did not, at first, sound like one that could hold me for a whole book. It left me wanting to know even more. A terrific and entertainingly researched tome!

I stumbled upon this book when it was first released and was amazed at the detail and precision that author Anderson was able to attain with the subject matter. I have referenced it many times since as I am working on a project set in this time frame. With great enthusiasm I recommend this, not only as a great read, but as a definitive reference source for this era.
Thomas White - author, Justice Rules http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K16TCY