Knowra Frank Lentini Frank Lentini Frank Lentini (1889–1966) was an Italian-American sideshow performer born with three legs and a partially formed fourth foot, known as the Three-Legged Man.
P. T. Barnum : An American showman whose nineteenth-century entertainments included circuses, museums, and public exhibitions. Barnum's exhibition traditions helped shape the commercial world in which Lentini performed.
Sicily : The largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and an autonomous region of Italy. Lentini was born in Sicily before emigrating to the United States.
Sideshows : Small attractions featuring performers, curiosities, and acts presented alongside larger fairs or circuses. Lentini's Three-Legged Man act belonged to this form of live entertainment.
Freak show : A form of entertainment that exhibited people with unusual bodies or abilities as attractions. Lentini's act was part of a tradition now debated for its treatment of human difference.
Charles Stratton : An American performer known as General Tom Thumb, who became a prominent attraction in P. T. Barnum's shows. Like Lentini, Stratton built a long career as a sideshow performer presented through a memorable stage identity.
Polymelia : A congenital condition in which a person has one or more additional limbs. The term describes the extra limb that distinguished Lentini's anatomy.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus : An American circus formed in 1919 by merging the Ringling Brothers Circus with Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth. Lentini performed with the combined circus, one of the major stages of his career.
Disability history : The study of how societies have understood and treated disability across time. Lentini's career shows how disability, employment, and public visibility could intersect historically.
Josephine Myrtle Corbin : An American sideshow performer born with dipygus, a rare condition involving a duplicated lower body. Corbin's public career offers a close historical comparison in the exhibition of congenital bodily differences.
Conjoined twins : Identical twins whose bodies remain physically connected at birth. Lentini's additional leg has been attributed to an incompletely developed parasitic twin.
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