In American culture, the traveling carnival evokes all things seamy, dubious, and lurid. In their heyday, some three hundred different traveling carnivals roamed the United States offering a glimpse of mystery and excitement, and sometimes danger. It was the rare child who did not think of joining a traveling carnival or circus to escape a stultifying small-town environment. The carnival was the poor man's entertainment. An egalitarian institution, carnivals practiced equal-opportunity speculation, and thus acquired a reputation for trickery and deceit, if not outright fraud, and as a consequence of America's developing network of train lines and highways, these carnivals were able to penetrate the most remote backwaters of the country. The carnival remains one of America's most enduring cultural institutions.

The United States, being a young country, has long had fairly primitive tastes in entertainment. For the better part of the nineteenth century, entertainment in...