The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum

by James W. Cook

Ingenious automatons which appeared to think on their own. Dubious mermaids and wild men who resisted classification. Elegant sleight-of-hand artists who routinely exposed the secrets of their trade. These were some of the playful forms of fraud which astonished, titillated, and even outraged nineteenth-century America's new middle class, producing some of the most remarkable urban spectacles of the century.

In The Arts of Deception , James W. Cook explores this distinctly modern mode of trickery designed to puzzle the eye and challenge the brain. Championed by the "Prince of Humbug," P. T. Barnum, these cultural puzzles confused the line between reality and illusion. Upsetting the normally strict boundaries of value, race, class, and truth, the spectacles offer a revealing look at the tastes, concerns, and prejudices of America's very first mass audiences. We are brought into the exhibition halls, theaters, galleries, and museums where imposture flourished, and into the minds of the curiosity-seekers who eagerly debated the wonders before their eyes. Cook creates an original portrait of a culture in which ambiguous objects, images, and acts on display helped define a new value system for the expanding middle class, as it confronted a complex and confusing world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

332 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Chris Herdt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from my friend Ami and didn't finish the book before I returned it, but what I did read was amazing. If you love a good hoax (and I know I do), Barnum was the king, and his techniques are still useful today.

It's not a how-to book, mind you, but that's how I took it anyway.

(I read this again in 2018, and although every time I read about post-Enlightenment urban environment in 2003(?) I replaced it with world-wide web, now I replaced that with social media landscape. Digital natives differentiate themselves from n00bs by not falling for fakes, scams, trolls, and bots -- in short, humbugs. But there is also the risk of cynicism, of pronouncing real items humbugs.)

[Jim Gallen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read “The Art of Deception” in preparation for a book club. I describe it as interesting but not entrancing. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, it is a study of the segment of the entertainment industry in which tricks and deception were the stocks in trade. It focuses on particular examples, beginning with the chess playing Automaton, a mechanical Turk that mesmerized observes who tried to discern whether it had a mind of its own or a space for a human operator during its life from about 1769 to its destruction in 1854. Next is the Feejee Mermaid, an alleged marine creature, but, more likely, the head of a monkey sewn onto a fish. Next is the Nondescript, a likely African American portrayed as a simian savage inspiring the question, “What is it?” Chapters then turn to Modern Magic and artistic illustrations creating optical illusions.

Author James W. Cook invites discussions about the morality of the entertainment. Is it immoral to entertain customers through deceit or do the customers come to be deceived? Has this genre of entertainment evanesced or do we still come to be tricked, giving a modern professional wrestling tragedy as an example? I give this only a lukewarm recommendation and note that the book club discussion was less lively than most.

[Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more an academic book than something for a popular audience. I'm super interested in how the Enlightenment shaped entertainment, and here it is: automata, magic, hoaxes, trompe l'oeil art. There's a lot to think about regarding what makes being knowingly deceived fun. The section about Barnum's grossly racist antebellum "missing link" exhibition literally made me sick to my stomach to read. It made me mad that a glossy movie about Barnum was such a big hit when history shows horrific, horrific things he did.

[Daniel Silliman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A study of "playful fraud" and the professionalized performances of tricks, from Barnum's exhibitions to a chess-playing automaton to magic shows. Really fascinating case studies, which were strongest when they focused on historical change, but could have usefully been put in conversation with contemporary frauds, hoaxes, illusions. Here or there an interpretation seems too weak to me, but there's a lot to chew on too.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun subject matter (magicians, optical illusionists, and professional tricksters like P. T. Barnum). Interesting ideas (artists refusing to say if their acts were real or fake). Too much jargon, and opaque language at times.

[Mike Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not done reading this yet, but I think I've grasped the book enough to write a review. The matter at the heart of this book isn't new to me, nor will it be new to any student of American History or indeed Modern History more generally. It traces the changes brought about by the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and the Market Revolution, using 19th and early 20th century America as example par excellence. What makes Cook's book excellent--and interesting--is that it uses the conceit of "deception" to discuss major themes of this period of massive social, cultural and economic upheaval.

Just what is meant by deception here changes subtly with each case study and refers not just to some unilateral dupe, but, as the subtitle would have it, "playing with fraud." This process of fraud-play was not merely practiced by Barnum and his peers on a hapless audience. Nor was its use entirely maligned. Rather, deception and fraud were increasingly unavoidable products of the revolutionary forces mentioned above. Etiquette and how-to books instructed bourgeois Americans how to assert and protect identity, which is expressive of their fears concerning Con Men and other impostors newly arrived on the scene. But Americans of all kinds of social strata, lowbrow and high, also flocked to see humbug exhibits and immerse themselves in the nondescript, the questionable, the uncertain. Semiotic anarchy seems to have thrilled the masses despite its troubling connotations.

The examples chosen by the author are fleshed out colorfully and integrated neatly into his scheme--which is damn-well researched judging by the extensive annotation. Joice Heth, The Automaton Chess-Player, the What Is It?, phantasmagoria: here are a range of cultural landmarks which, while massively popular in their day, are now largely forgotten. I hadn't heard of more or less any of the books' subjects with the exception of the Feejee Mermaid. As alien as these subjects were, Cook was able to ground them in their appropriate context and then masterfully walk the reader through the manifold meanings bound up in them.

Highly recommended, but keep in mind it is definitely not a pop. history book; a lot of page-space is devoted to fleshing out the author's theoretical framework and using prevailing historical and sociological theory to round out his arguments.

[Elliot Hanowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Parts of this book were laugh-out-loud funny (usually the parts about Barnum conning people in hilarious ways). An interesting look at the origins of American entertainment and celebrity which opens up difficult questions about popular culture. For example, is something a fake if people flock to see it because they know (or suspect) it's a fake? You really can't make some of this shamelessly outrageous stuff up. It goes a long way to explaining our current culture.

[Elizabeth Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good stuff on automata but a little dry...

[Marty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A social history of deception in Barnum's age. Anything that can combine the Feejee Mermaid and the Mechanical Turk is worth a read. Oh and there is alot about magic/illusions in here as well.