WEBVTT - Sideshow 6: Beauty Marks 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.719 Thirty years ago, two hikers stumbled across the body while 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:15.040 hiking in the US Alps. Authorities arrived, quickly evacuating the 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.799 corpse by helicopter and taking it for forensic testing. It 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.520 wasn't uncommon in these parts to lose mountaineers to the peaks, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.639 but when they unzipped the body bag, what the scientists 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.160 saw was something different and something better than they could 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.000 ever have hoped for. They christened the body Utsi, after 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:36.559 the mountain range where they found him. Outsie was a 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.400 perfect specimen, having been safely cocooned in snow and ice 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:44.160 for over four thousand years. Over time, those scientists would 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.880 learn more about his final hours. Piecing together clues from 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.560 the contents of his stomach, his weapons, and an arrowhead 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.680 lodged in his back. It became evident that they had 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.800 a murder mystery on their hands. But before you think 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.600 this is just another true crime story, I want to 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.320 point you to something else that was also interesting. Ootsie, 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.000 you see, was special for another reason. His skin was 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:12.600 decorated with over sixty lines and crosses, largely concentrated on 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:17.000 his spine, knees, and ankles, lying right there prone on 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:22.840 their table, was the world's oldest tattooed mummy. For years, 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.040 the Western world has been debating the merits of tattooing, 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.160 but these days we know more than ever before, and 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:33.200 the past is telling today. Our knowledge of tattooing history 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.960 stretches back to the fifth century BC. Tattooing has spanned 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.520 the globe. In the case of the ancient Greeks, they 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.039 were used to communicate spy messages, and the Maya, Inca 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.800 and Aztec people's used them for rituals. The Norse and 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:51.600 Saxon's tattooed their family crests during the Crusades across tattoo 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.840 indicated the desire for a proper Catholic burial in the 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.760 event of death. Tattoos were used as protective charms among 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.480 ancient Egyptian women, and both as medicine and to mark 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:07.160 criminals in ancient China. But as the world expanded outward, 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.160 conquering cultures began to view tattoos, usually the ones that 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:15.919 were different from their own, as markers of barbarism and savagery. 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.560 This sentiment would be an everlasting one, as indelible as 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.360 inc history tells us that in fifteen sixty six, after 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.320 a violent encounter with French sailors, A tattooed Inuit woman 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.320 with her child were kidnapped and put on display throughout 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.320 Western Europe. Surviving handbills tell the story of the murder 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.880 of her husband and her capture for audiences. Stories about 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:45.440 this family devolved into tales of savagery and heathenism, an 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:50.440 attempt to justify European expansion. Over the course of her captivity, 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:55.560 this woman's body became a trophy of colonial desire. And 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.120 you can guess what happened next. Audiences clamored for more 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.840 of these human curiosities, and curiosities they got more. Captive 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.440 Native Americans were brought to Europe for display against their will. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.560 The Europeans used their hostages to spread strategic messages. They 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:18.480 became living, breathing propaganda machines. There are indigenous identities were 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.440 erased in favor of new stories that would serve the 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:26.000 colonial agenda. There's nothing more human than wanting to tell 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.800 the stories of our lives, and we do that in 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:33.680 part through how we decorate ourselves. And sometimes, perhaps in 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.640 the midst of transition or even an identity crisis, we 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:42.000 find the opportunity to change, to doll ourselves up differently 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:49.000 and become someone totally new. I'm Aaron Manky and welcome 0:03:49.720 --> 0:04:06.400 to the side show. Their caravan rolled westward, wagons pulling 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.440 toward the sinking march sun Olive Oatman, along with her 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.520 brothers and sisters and their parents, held onto the dream 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.240 of a better life. In the rear view was the 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.320 frontier town of Independence, Missouri. Independence lived up to its name, 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.800 serving as a departure point, not just for the Oatman's 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:28.000 but for travelers and seekers of all kinds. The territory 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.880 had been part of the Louisiana Purchase, which was the U. 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.320 S government's acquisition of almost one million square miles of 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.919 land that carved out the heart of North America. The 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.239 area had traded hands from the French, giving the States 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.440 the legal right to obtain indigenous lands by treaty or conquest. 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.080 Adding salt to the wound, Congress had recently created the 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:54.599 Indian Reservation System. They provided funds to relocate indigenous communities. 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.440 There was another step that the American government was taking 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:02.719 towards systematic displacement and disenfranchisement of millions of Native peoples. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.960 The Oatman's, though hoped to find home in the Louisiana Territory. 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.360 Manifest destiny was on their minds, and they had plenty 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.000 of company. You see, the Oatman's were part of the 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.760 Brewster Rights, a Mormon splinter sect that believed the Promised 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.200 Land layout in the Rio Grand Valley. They were all 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.920 traveling together, and so they packed their wagons with salt, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.240 meat and hardtack, trunks of quilts, and the last of 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.039 their few family mementos. Their wagon caravans snaked out of 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.320 town and into a landscape whose rumors had filled their 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.640 heads with visions of heaven and hell. The Brewster Rights 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.840 took to the Santa Fe Trail, a nine mile track 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.839 that cut through blistering hot deserts and jagged, rocky mountains. 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:51.200 They wouldn't be strangers to drought, lightning storms, or rattlesnakes. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.200 But here, seven months into their trip, and just eighty 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:58.359 miles outside their final destination of Yuma, Arizona, their journey 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.360 would come to a catastrophe end. The caravan wanted to stop, 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.880 you see, but Olive's dad, Royce, wanted to push onward. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.880 The promised Land was just a few miles out of reach, 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.760 So onward the Oatman's went breaking from the pack and 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:18.039 rolling ahead alone. And it's here, according to Olive's later retelling, 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.280 that her family encountered members of the Java Pie tribe. 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:26.160 After exchanging pleasantries that quickly grew unpleasant, the family tried 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.400 to move on. A skirmish ensued, and the Oatmans were 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.000 struck down in the carnage. One brother survived and found 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.920 his way to the remaining Brewster rights, while Olive and 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:41.480 her sister Mary disappeared alive as captives into the Arizona wilderness. 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.560 They were traded to the Mojave people, and it's with 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.360 them that Olive and her sister would live and, according 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.000 to their telling thrive. We know that Olive was given 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.120 both a clan name and a nickname, She was dressed 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:59.240 in traditional garments, and, as some scholars believe, was allowed 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.520 to come and go as she pleased. We also know 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.839 that within five years time, after a devastating famine and 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.520 the death of her sister, she was rescued and brought 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.720 back to fort Yuma, a post built for the protection 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.240 of trade routes. We can imagine that Olive's return was 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.160 full of emotion for her, but also for the others there. 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.120 White settlers had been perfecting the art of fearing this 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.120 particular predicament for centuries. In fact, there's a whole genre 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:32.400 of literature dedicated to these tales called captivity narratives. The 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.560 first other group to receive this literary treatment in the 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.800 English language were Muslim pirates from North Africa. When European 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.920 colonizers arrived in North America, they brought the archetype with them, 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.880 With the earliest ones published in six two, the precedent 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.520 for how to interface with the new world had been set. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.880 Olive's returned to her community of origin was striking beyond 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.080 the fact that she was taken and survived because there 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.760 was something else us. It appeared that she bore a 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:06.600 mark that outlasted her challenge. Her face had been tattooed. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.040 She now wore blue lines on her chin that ran 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.360 down from her lips. They were also long, straight lines 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:18.040 drawn on her arms. Olive's cactus thorn tattoos marked her 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.559 integration into the tribe. They functioned as a visual means 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:26.560 that expressed tribal affiliation, cultural pride, and personhood. They were 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:30.680 marks of social organization and religion, and a visual umbilical 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:35.800 cord connecting worlds seen and unseen, and most importantly, they 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:40.440 were voluntary. She wasn't immediately forthcoming about her time with 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.319 the Mojave, but where her silence left space, the frontier 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.120 megaphone was eager to fill it. In Contemporary accounts painted 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.640 her time away to be years of torment. It was 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.040 just too difficult for them to believe that she had 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:57.080 become acculturated, marrying the son of the tribe's chief and 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:01.360 starting her own family. But now back in her old world, 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.079 she would forever be marked as an outsider, a savage, 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:10.240 a freak. In eighteen fifty seven, she was on tour 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:14.120 after a local pastor wrote and published her biography. She 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.160 needed to be palatable, because being palatable meant earning money. 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.080 Pulling back her straight brown hair into a bun and 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.800 wearing a plain dress, she was able to attract audiences 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.800 that otherwise might be put off by women taking to 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.840 the podium. Scholars still debate, though, as to what actually 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.000 transpired over the course of those five years she was gone. 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.480 It's thought that Olive's sense of her own tattoos remained 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.479 unclear throughout her life. As she grew older, she remarried, 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.120 started anew and began veiling her face, But she was 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:51.600 forever stuck between two worlds, never able to erase her identity. 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.839 Olive Oatman was forever marked, an indelible stain upon her skin. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.520 But what those marks meant only she knew the truth. 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:17.599 Any sailor worth their salt had heard about Martin Hildebrand, 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.960 and any sailor worth more than fifty cents could be 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:25.200 tattooed by him. Martin, an old sea dog himself, was 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.640 the proprietor of not just the first tattoo shop in 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.360 New York City, but the first in the entire nation. 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.000 On the walls of his tavern turned studio hung ready 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.720 made art, poised for the chance to leap from the 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.040 page and onto a lucky body. These designs were his 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:45.920 biggest money makers. He dealt in crucifixes and Ballerina's, Masonic 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.640 emblems and odd Fellow signs. His most popular, though, was 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.280 a curvy young woman laying across the top of a 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:57.240 mausoleum with a sleeping willow. By eight, Martin and his 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:01.720 tattooing partner had completed an ambitious project, a full body 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.720 suit on a local jeweler named Harry Decorsi. They aimed 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:07.840 to rival, a man who went by the title the 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.840 Tattooed Greek, a protege of P. T. Barnum's, He too 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.199 was covered from head to foot, and purportedly the first 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.400 person to do so for the sake of the stage. So, 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.439 with his new look and a new name, the Tattooed 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:26.640 Albanian Harry Dicorci took the stage at George Bourbonnell's Dime Museum. 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.960 But these two men soon had copycats. They wouldn't be 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.559 the first men, nor certainly the last to get tattooed 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.160 to earn a profit. In fact, their performances soon lost 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:41.280 their cutting edge. However, two new acts soon appeared on 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.960 the stage, ones that would stir up both reactions and money. 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:50.120 Irene Woodward and Norah Hildebrand, the two first and most 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.560 famous tattooed ladies of their day. Irene was billed as 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.720 the first, the one, the only, and appeared on stage 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.800 at George's Dime Museum on March twenty first of eighteen 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.640 eighty two. It's here that she took to the stage 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.520 in a venue not unlike Barnum's American Museum. In fact, 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.600 many of the same folks orbited through the two venues together. 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.920 She draped herself in velvet, silk and lace, and was sold, 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:20.200 on George's words as a vision of punctured purity. Irene 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.760 was a thrilling provocateur who gave audiences a glimpse of 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.520 flesh the likes of which they had never seen before. 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.719 It was bare, it was colorful, and it belonged to 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:35.680 a lady. To audiences, this calculus was both ironic and enchanting, 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.720 and it didn't take a language whiz to understand the innuendo. 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.400 It was rumored that Martin had a hand in Irene's making, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.400 but this has never been confirmed. What history does tell us, though, 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.120 is that a woman with his last name soon appeared 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.000 on stage, a manufactured rival to Irene. A woman by 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.560 the name of Nora killed a brand. Whether this was 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.679 a common law marriage, they were siblings, or they had 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.880 no relationship beyond tattoo artist and customer is a truth 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.960 that's been lost to history, but the association of the 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.880 last name undoubtedly helped. She too, secured a contract at 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:16.160 the Dime Museum and appeared shortly after Irene, as the 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.440 story went. Nora was born in Australia in eighteen sixty 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:22.400 and left for private school in New York as a teenager. 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.760 It's here that she would meet her estranged father, a 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.400 sailor and tattooist. They took off west to Utah, and 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.600 once they're settled up on horseback for the final leg 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.000 of their journey. While traveling, it said that they encountered 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.559 and I quote, red skinned devils and even Sitting Bull himself. 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.240 They were taken captive, with Norah's father sentenced to burn 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.680 at the stake and Norah herself to be the chief's concubine. 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.480 But there was a twist. The promotional materials claimed that 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.400 as Norah's father was being tied to the stake, his 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.480 captors noticed his tattoos. With a change of heart, Sitting 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.280 Bull promised Norah's father his freedom if he would tattoo 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.120 his warriors. But when those warriors objected, Sitting Bull was 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.439 said to have changed his mind and ordered the father 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.800 to tattoo Nora from head to toe. She was bound 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.160 tied to a tree, and it said that he worked 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.080 six hours a day for a year, resulting in three 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.720 hundred sixty five designs across his daughter's body. And of 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.840 course something had to give in a fit of madness. 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.400 Norah's father broke his needles, and with that he was 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.440 promptly sanctioned and burned at the stake. It said that 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.400 in the aftermath, Nora was rescued and taken to Denver 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.360 to recuperate. It's here in the hospital, blinded by pain, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.680 that famed side show manager W. K. Leary discovered her. 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.200 He paid the bill for her trip back to New York, 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.600 where she now miraculously cured from the whole ordeal took 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.520 two stages throughout North America and Europe. But of course 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:58.080 this was all just a story. These colorful women were 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.920 prime examples of the working class struggle to escape poverty, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.720 and were more successful than many women of their time. 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.120 But you see the idea and the truth of young 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.760 domestic servants trying to eke out another stream of income 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.480 falls short on intrigue. Tattooed ladies, not just Irene and Nora, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.160 were exactly that. To this end, the tattooed lady represented 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.800 herself as a victim for profit. Many of these women 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.560 toured with stories of their captivity, torture, and forced tattooing, 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.480 whether or not rural audiences believed that. And again I 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:37.080 quote savages captured and tattooed these women. They were willing 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:41.200 to indulge this attractive narrative hook, especially if she was 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.880 going to show them a bit of skin and regale 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.200 visitors with impolite tales of torture that she was forced 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.360 to submit to. You see, the transgressions of a white 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:55.480 woman's purity couldn't be explicitly mentioned, so it was implied 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.360 in the captivity narratives of the tattooed ladies. Words like 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:03.640 vile lation and in dignity implied assault. Anything more than 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:08.080 an implication and innuendo, well, that was considered pornographic. The 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.960 sideshow had long hit on and capitalized on a nineteenth 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:18.040 century truth, sex cells, and honestly, it's amazing how tattooed 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.120 ladies were able to subvert the social limits imposed on 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.480 them by pretending to comply. They went along with the 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.280 damsel in distress backstories, if only to hide their self 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:32.160 determined and remarkably autonomous ways of moving throughout the world. 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.880 They were making choices for themselves, rather than relying on parents, husbands, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.760 or brothers to make those decisions for them. Polite society 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.320 was far more comfortable with tales of violation and victimhood, 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.280 and far less comfortable with the idea that young working 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:51.320 class women could determine their own future. And in the 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.280 end what they did was powerful in its simplicity. They 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:59.120 changed their lives and charmed their audiences with just a 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:19.919 few courts of ink and some stories to tell. The 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.159 nineteen o four St. Louis World's Fair was a beacon 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.040 of hope, welcoming visitors into the new century. At the 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.720 Palace of Electricity, visitors saw the first X ray machines 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:35.159 and displays of babies and incubators. The fair promised Americans 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.800 that the future was here and that there were limitless 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:42.359 possibilities and innovation. Just ahead of the thousands of people 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.480 to walk the grounds, two kindred spirits managed to find 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.840 each other in the crowd, Maud Stevens, an aerial artist 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.800 from Kansas, and Gus Wagner, a tattoo artist from Ohio. 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.560 Maud agreed to date Gus as long as he held 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.760 up his end of the bargain. He had to both 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:03.120 tattoo her and allow her to apprentice him, and he did, 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.800 unveiling yet another tattooed lady. The same year that saw 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.240 the formation of a new social group, an organization called 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.240 I Kid You Not, the American Society for Keeping Women 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.879 in her Proper Sphere. And with that Maud became the 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.439 first known female artist in the United States, inking the 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.239 bodies of rapscallions, and gentle women alike, both on the 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.480 outside and within the confines of the sideshow walls. But 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.720 soon the market began to shift. You see, the tattoo 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.240 gun had been patented a few years before her time, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.320 allowing the average consumer to ink and be inked. Tattooed 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.360 men and women were becoming more common, and when an 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.560 act is a dime a dozen, demand for it drops. 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.760 But still the sideshow had an undeniable gravitational pull. It 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.960 attracted folks who weren't able to find work elsewhere because 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.159 of their physical limitations, but also those with remarkable talent. 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.120 And as you've seen by how it dealt in both 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.919 trafficked people and autonomous actors all at the same time. 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.600 Together those folks work side by side in a social 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:13.119 stew unlike anything the world had seen before. One of 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.360 the last tattooed women was a gal by the name 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.159 of Anna May Burlington. As she tells her story, she 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.760 and her sister went to see a traveling side show 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.320 in Wisconsin. Being too poor to escape her small town, 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.880 she accepted an invitation from a worker name Red Gibbons 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.280 to become a tattooed lady and join him in traveling 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.920 the world. So she did just that. She quite literally 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:40.439 ran away to join the circus. Between nineteen twelve and 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:45.240 nineteen nineteen, read tattooed Anna's entire body. A lifelong member 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.200 of the Episcopal Church, her full color artwork suited her faith. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.080 She even had a portrait of George Washington to show 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.760 just how patriotic she was and to suit the times 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.240 she changed her story. Gone were the days of captivity. 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.560 Narratives would had fallen out of style in the wake 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.479 of an industrialized America. In its place was another idea, 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.960 that of maternal impression. Audiences frequently asked Anna how she 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.040 came to look as she did. Was she borne that way? 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.200 And she would tease them with a nod. She claimed 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.359 that her mother had watched too many monster movies in 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:24.200 her day. It soon became common practice for hospitals to 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:29.280 quarantine patients with tattoos for fear of disease. Some cities 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.560 banned tattooing altogether for fear of spreading both cancer and criminality. 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.199 It seems that tattoos were still considered unfit for a 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:41.800 civilized people, and thus still dangerous and even erotic in 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:46.000 their allure. But for Anna, tattoos were her livelihood. For 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.320 her entire career. She could be seen walking carnival grounds 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:53.240 and riding circus trains wearing a full length cape, and 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:58.000 she did this for decades. She traveled with sideshows and 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.840 circuses and exhibited herself in museums. But as the years 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.320 wore on into the nineteen sixties, everything began to change. 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.320 The world was becoming smaller, ideas about bodies were changing, 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:13.800 and Anna was aging. It's a fear that most women face, 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.640 and the reason that I creams have such a stranglehold 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:21.119 on society, the terror of becoming invisible with age. But 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:23.760 for a woman like Anna, who spent her career on 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.399 the road, and who had provided for her husband and 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.960 raised a family, she and her tattoos weren't about to 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:45.440 fade quietly. As she grew older. The world Anna found 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.320 herself in was not the same one she had bargained for. 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.119 No longer did folks have to pay cash to go 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.320 see freaks. They can now just turn on their television 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:56.960 sets or go to the movies. There were no long 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.920 lines or bustling crowds to elbow through for a chance 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:05.200 to suspend their disbelief. The circus parades stopped and audiences 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.720 got smaller. More working opportunities were also opening up for 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:12.160 folks with disabilities. The side show hit its lowest level 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.480 of popularity in the nineteen forties and fifties, but by 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.440 the nineteen sixties they were back, and Anna was back too, 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.400 and this time she was billed as the tattooed grandmother. 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.720 As the story goes, she was working a side show 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.040 in Dallas when one of the last performers of the 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:33.359 night called in sick Jack Woods. The sideshow lecturer recommended 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:35.840 that Anna step up to close out the show, but 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.080 the manager didn't think that she would be a good 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:43.000 fit due to her advanced age. Jack, determined to save 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.720 the show, got to work. He stepped out to the 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.160 audience and gave Anna an intro that he would never 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:51.840 live down. He called her the strangest of them all, 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:55.199 far stranger than anything here on stage, because she's a 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.919 human oddity who was not born a freak. She was 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:02.240 introduced as a man and made monstrosity with a husband 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.600 who had been so jealous of her that he disfigured 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.760 her body with permanent markings. The side show manager was 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:13.760 satisfied with this. Anna, however, was not picture this a 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.479 slight elderly woman giving a word whipping to a fellow 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.400 man decades her jr. Anna was livid, and she let 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.239 Jack have it. He was told to never call her 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:29.040 a monstrosity again. Suffice to say, the act was successful. 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:33.920 This story was successful, so Anna kept performing, and from 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.560 that night on, unbeknownst to her, Jack kept telling his 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:40.720 tall tale. He was just careful to keep the volume 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:44.480 a bit lower so that Anna, one of the oldest 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:57.760 and most successful tattooed ladies in the world, couldn't hear him. 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:00.600 In a world where many of us take tattoos for granted, 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.560 it's amazing what sorts of tales they paint for us. 0:24:04.000 --> 0:24:07.879 From captivity narratives to independent women, there has been so 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.480 much more on display than just a bit of ink. 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:13.639 And I hope today's journey has helped you see that. 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:17.199 But we're not done just yet. Stick around through this 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:20.000 brief sponsor break to hear one more tale about the 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.760 side show and maybe find a bit of artistic inspiration 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:34.800 along the way. For the going price of seventeen dollars 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.680 and fifty cents per foot, Dr Fred Foster Bloodgood sourced 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:42.000 all kinds of snakes. They were central to his act, 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:45.280 after all, one in which he pitted these animals against 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:50.360 human opponents, drawing blood drew audiences, and the average casualty 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.520 rate for the snakes didn't bode well for blood Goods 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:59.280 slippery acquisitions. For a decade, blood Good worked the carnival circuit, 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:03.320 shouting from the Bally platform and offering audiences a taste 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:06.920 of the grotesque. In his words, he offered one of 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:10.360 the most disgusting, one of the most repulsive, yet one 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:13.800 of the most interesting attractions ever conceived by the mind 0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:18.360 of mortal man blood Good, who, as you have probably 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:22.320 guessed correctly at this point, was certainly no doctor, would 0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:25.120 step onto the platform in a lab coat, and then 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:29.120 his act would go something like this. He would tell 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:31.879 his audiences the story of Niola, a woman from the 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:35.359 African continent who was brought here during the Scopes Monkey Trial. 0:25:35.440 --> 0:25:40.560 Of As the story went, she was discovered by scientists 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:43.960 living in a cave of snakes replicated here in front 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:48.159 of blood Good as a pit. Niola, who was actually 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:50.960 a man wearing a long wig, would then face off 0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:54.720 against these reptiles, allowing them to rattle, to bite, and 0:25:54.800 --> 0:25:58.399 to draw blood. The act crescendo would come when Niola 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:01.040 would pick up one of the larger snakes. She would 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:03.639 then place its head between her teeth, bite it off, 0:26:03.760 --> 0:26:06.840 and then proceed, according to blood Good, to skin it 0:26:06.880 --> 0:26:11.520 like a banana and devour the rest. Naturally, audiences were 0:26:11.560 --> 0:26:15.680 horrified and probably terribly pleased to be getting their money's worth. 0:26:17.000 --> 0:26:20.200 The world of made freaks like folks performing in blood 0:26:20.200 --> 0:26:24.280