The Great American Snake Oil Show

The Great American Snake Oil Show was a traveling exhibition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that featured performances and sales of so-called "miracle" health products, often unproven or falsely advertised. It played on the era's fascination with patent medicines, many of which claimed to cure everything from pain to disease. The show combined entertainment with marketing, selling dubious remedies directly to the public. Eventually, public awareness and regulations, such as the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, helped curb such deceptive practices, marking the decline of these traveling shows and their fraudulent cures.