Liliputtar, strippor och exotiska stammar : En studie över mänskliga attraktioner på tivoli Gröna Lund under 1900-talet

Sammanfattning: This paper discuses three different freakshow-attractions at the amusement park Gröna Lund in Stockholm during the 20th century; two tribes from the African continent, the exhibit of people with dwarfism and all female striptease. These attractions have been examined with international and intersectional perspective aswell as their effect on the possible heritage status of the amusement park Gröna Lund and their part in creating a so-called dissonant heritage. The thesis does not examine individual freaks or the amusement often refereed to as burlesque that also was an important part of the amusement park Gröna Lund. By studying the amusement park Gröna Lund’s company archive at the Centre for business history in Stockholm I found the main source material for this thesis. This material consisted of pictures, commercial flyers given out at exhibitions, advertising banners and articles from various Swedish newspapers. The material has then been exposed to both textual and image analysis. The result is that the human attractions at Gröna Lund can, and should, be seen as a part of an international freakshow market - although influenced by social and political trends and institutions. I also argue that the amusement park, and the human attractions are a part of a dissonant heritage, a more intersectional Swedish heritage. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.