Barnum & Bunnell’s Tattooed Humbugs: Manifesting a Tattoo Trade
Researched & Written by Carmen Nyssen
The tattoo trade in America, as we know it today, resides with a diversity of talented tattoo artists and a broad range of customers who proudly wear their artistry. Countless breakthroughs and contributions throughout history have led to this progression and developed tattooing into the massively popular art form it has become. Inarguably, one of the trade’s most momentous leaps was its merging with the wondrous world of mirth by way of the ‘tattooed attraction.’ In its earliest years as a profession, tattooing in the U.S. was generalized as a ‘sailor’s art’ associated with old salts and seedy districts filled with brothels, saloons, and other such low-brow establishments. But, starting in the mid-1880s, two of the nineteenth century’s great showmen, Phineas T. Barnum and his loyal protégé George Burr Bunnell (1835-1911) changed the status quo—forever! While these men were not alone responsible for tattooing’s evolution, they sparked a new era. Through their circus and dime museum venues, they inspired the invention of America’s first ‘trade-specific’ tattooed attractions: tattooed freaks, or tattooed humbugs, who were covered in a specially designed ‘suit’ of ‘tattoo trade’ designs expressly for exhibition purposes.
“With the help of Barnum and Bunnell’s promotional expertise, ‘trade-specific’ tattooed attractions, ranked among the most sensational humbugs.” –Tattoo Historian, Carmen Forquer Nyssen, Barnum and Bunnell’s Tattooed Humbugs: Manifesting a Tattoo Trade.
‘Trade-specific tattooed attraction’ coined by Tattoo Historian Carmen Forquer Nyssen
These tattooed characters were innovations in-and-of the sideshow, whose stage personas and etchings were endowed by geniously-cultivated promotion intended to engage the masses. Their elaborately ornamented skin presented on grand platforms—outside the usual sailor haunts—captivated show-goers and created a sensation that brought tattooing to another level of allure in the public eye. Powered by Barnum and Bunnell’s imagination-infused show operations, their popularity exploded and set tattooing on the path to a bona fide trade—one that has ever since refined and renewed to meet the needs of an evolving population.
Tattooed Humbugs
A humbug …consists in putting on glittering appearances—outside show—novel expedients, by which to suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear.” … “There are various trades and occupations which need only notoriety to insure success, always provided that when customers are once attracted, they never fail to get their money’s worth” –P. T. Barnum
With the help of Barnum and Bunnell’s promotional expertise, ‘trade-specific’ tattooed attractions, ranked among the most sensational humbugs. Although tattooed attractions, such as Irishmen James F. O’Connell and John Rutherford, had exhibited years beforehand, they had been covered in tattoos during the course of their travels in Polynesia, originally with no intent of displaying themselves. Although they served a certain novelty, their performance was never impactful enough to start a huge trend.
Tattooed humbugs, on the other hand, were expressly decorated for exhibition purposes, and they were part of an exploding sideshow and dime museum scene that perpetuated a multi-faceted tattoo phenomenon. They fell under a category Robert Bogdan, in his book Freak Show, has dubbed “self-made freaks’—fake oddities made to meet the demand of the era’s numerous sideshows and dime museums. As opposed to most sideshow ‘fakes,’ however, like the Circassian (Turkish) beauties who were actually American women with teased-out hair, tattooed attractions carried the distinction of being genuine representations of a thriving craft. They wore real-life patriotic, sentimental, and nautical-themed motifs of the then dubbed ‘sailor’s art’ applied by the era’s practicing tattooers. Moreover, the exhibition of their tattooed bodies not only expanded sideshow offerings, it served as advertisement for tattooing and an avenue for its progression. In only a short time, the growing requests for tattooed attractions, combined with the broadened exposure of the tattooer’s art, catapulted tattooing into a full-blown trade.
Capt. Costentenus the Tattooed Greek
The catalyst for the creation of tattooed humbugs was Barnum’s uniquely decorated Greece native, George Costentenus, who starred in his sideshow from the mid-1870s to the early 1880s. Costentenus had come to the United States from Hamburg, Germany—aboard the Suevia on May 25, 1876—after several years of exhibiting with engagements in Vienna, Austria and Paris, France. As one would expect, excitement abounded upon his arrival in America. Newspaper reports relayed his titillating tale of being captured and forcibly tattooed in Tartary (and/or Burma), and marveled over his Indigo and Cinnabar animal and plant etchings, which starkly contrasted with the Polynesian patterns of past attractions such as John Rutherford and James O’Connell. Although Costentenus first exhibited himself at the nation’s Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, with all the publicity he received it wasn’t long before he garnered the attention of renowned showman P.T. Barnum, who offered him $100 weekly for his services. Only two weeks later, he was on site at Barnum’s Bridgeport, Connecticut home, sitting for the media and hyping his upcoming “P.T. Barnum’s New and Greatest Show on Earth” debut with his remarkable story of having been tortuously tattooed.
Barnum & Bunnell Unite
Despite his fantastical spiel, which was later published in a pitch pamphlet that was sold at his performances, some speculated that “Captain” Costentenus, in reality, had been tattooed with the intent of exhibiting. Whatever the nature of his tattooing, it was Barnum, and soon after his colleague George Bunnell, who envisioned the potential of showcasing his strikingly etched body across multiple platforms. Not so coincidentally, 1876 was the same year—on November 2nd—that Barnum and Bunnell launched their New American Museum at 103-105 Bowery, with Bunnell serving as the hands-on proprietor. Because Barnum’s circus affiliates (John J. Nathans, George F. Bailey, Avery Smith, and Lewis June c. 1876-1880) had already claimed sole use of his celebrated name, it was off-limits for promoting the undertaking. Otherwise, as their contract stipulated, Barnum and Bunnell were equal, if mostly silent partners, both money and business-wise.
See Connecticut Digital Archive: Document: Agreement between Bunnell and Barnum, November 2, 1876
In addition to openly advocating for Bunnell in print, as a response to the New York Daily Tribune’s tirade on Bowery museums, Barnum lent his brand of amusement to their shared ambitions.
In content and appearance, their enterprise was reminiscent of his impressive 1840s to 1860s American Museum—a combination zoo, museum, lecture hall, wax museum, theater, and freak show. Additionally, although the museum was initially furnished with the collection of one-time Barnum associate George Wood (1823-1886), Barnum’s influence overwhelmed the exhibition stage. During the circus off-season, it functioned as a venue for many of his circus sideshow freaks, not least of all, his wildly popular “Tattooed Greek, aka “Tattooed Mortal Miracle,” aka “Biblical Behemoth,” Captain Costentenus.
1876 Dec 5 New York Daily Tribune pg. 3: “New American Museum, 105 Bowery, near Grand, Neat Respectable, Marvelous, Indorsed by Hon. P.T. Barnum. 10, 000 Curiosities and Living Wonders. All for 15 cents. Children 10 cents.
From its inception, the New American Museum outshined seedier New York Bowery establishments, attracting unending crowds with its line-up of exceptional sideshow freaks—not to mention its upscale yet affordable amenities. In fact, Bunnell’s cheap admission price, the 15¢ for adults and 10¢ for children (later 10¢ for all), which entitled patrons to gawk at the myriad of oddities on display from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M., earned him credit in history for inventing the concept of what came to be known as the ‘dime museum.’
Tattoos on the Rails
To be sure, both Barnum and Bunnell were possessed of a showman’s acumen. The emboldened formula for success that led to their grandiose museum scheme—and the groundbreaking tattooed humbugs—hearkened back to their long-time amusement careers and collaborations. Although Bunnell was no doubt familiar with Barnum by virtue of his upbringing in Westport, Connecticut, near Barnum’s Bridgeport residence, according to a May 13, 1882 Police Gazette biography, they became further acquainted through circus connections. Bunnell had been associated with various circuses and menageries, along with his brothers John (1831-1892), Joseph (1841-1873), and Samuel (1821-1881), since the 1850s. By 1862, he had also launched a museum in Hartford, Connecticut’s Touro Hall (one of several in this decade), where he implemented his signature ‘15¢ for adults, 10¢ for children’ entrance fee. Bunnell alleged that Barnum had hired him to assist with a Chicago museum early on as well. By 1872, at any rate, Barnum was impressed enough with Bunnell and his brother John’s showmanship to incorporate their small sideshow annex, Bunnell Bros., into his recently formed railroad circus.
For the next nine years, Barnum and the Bunnells traveled the rails together. With this mode of transport—an idea masterminded by one of Barnum’s partners, William Cameron Coup, in 1870-1871—they brought their shows to the greater masses, piled-on the profits, and built-up their notoriety. Being eternal showmen, they used the interplay of their venues to turn circumstances evermore in their favor. As portrayed by press agent George Oscar Starr (1849-1915) in an 1878 New York Clipper ad for Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth, the Bunnell Brothers Annex was, in iteration, the “Only Greatest Side-show on Earth,” and in further exaltation, “the New American Museum …put on wheels.”
1878 May 8 Buffalo Commercial pg. 1: Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth: George O. Starr press agent; “The Annex is a side show conducted with Barnum’s circus, by the brothers John and George Bunnell. It might well pretend the title of the new and Only Greatest Side-Show on Earth. It is the New American Museum lately on the Bowery, put on wheels.”
To the benefit of all, Captain Costentenus’ act was aggrandized along the same lines within Barnum and the Bunnells’ flourishing overarching operations. For the four years Costentenus reigned as the sole-existing ‘tattooed man,’ he only ever exhibited with their shows, which bestowed them exclusive benefits of his one-of-a-kind ‘performance.’ He, in turn, gained an illustrious career by their influential patronage. The associations were further melded in 1879, presumably after Barnum had re-negotiated with his circus partners, when Bunnell was permitted to capitalize on his friend’s famous name by exhibiting Costentenus as “P.T. Barnum’s tattooed man” (at his newly opened No. 298 Bowery museum and also at another new Brooklyn locale). The next spring, Bunnell again upheld Costentenus’ Barnum billing with his traveling museum, which was effectively titled “Bunnell’s Annex to Barnum’s Show.”
Trade-Specific Tattooed Humbug
Owed to Bunnell and Barnum’s synergized venues, Costentenus stood as an unparalleled novelty in the show world. So much so, he became as inspiring to business-minded folk as he was to fun-seeking audiences. After several years, the allure of his fully tattooed body finally inspired some entrepreneurial visionary to replicate his form—with the added twist of decorating the wearer in designs of the ‘sailor’s art.’
As with any novel new spectacle, the introduction of the first ‘trade-specific’ tattooed humbug—adorned in a glory of ships, flags, hearts, and lady liberty decorations—must have thrilled show-goers. Yet, beyond what is known of Barnum, Bunnell, and Costentenus’ seeds of inspiration, there’s little documentation of the event; i.e. the extent of the “wow factor” it elicited, who conceived of the idea, or how surrounding events unfolded.
One of the earliest references is a February 14, 1880 New York Clipper advertisement placed by the Van Amburgh & Co. Circus & Menagerie appealing for “tattooed Greeks” to join their show roster that year, imaginably in aspiration of matching Barnum and Bunnell’s sideshow offerings.
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If Captain Costentenus was the only ‘tattooed man’ on exhibition at the time, as available records infer, then the query was either a request for Costentenus himself to answer; for ‘tattooed men’ who were known to be currently in the making; or for those yet to be created. It’s even possible such advertisements triggered the market for the latter. Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough evidence to draw conclusions. It isn’t known if the idea of tattooed humbugs was conjured by:
- (a) Barnum, Bunnell, or another showman, such as Van Amburgh & Co.’s manager, who then commissioned tattooers to create them.
- (b) A tattooer who found a willing participant and gambled on filling a lucrative new niche with sideshows and dime museums.
- (c) A random person who offered their un-tattooed body to a tattooer or showman in exchange for a sideshow career.
- (d) Some combination thereof
Harry DeCourcey
What can be said with certainty is that tattooed humbugs—a merging of the tattooers’ art with the amusement world—kickstarted an entirely new facet of the tattoo business. In May of 1880, New York City’s “Old” Martin Hildebrandt, a longtime revered ex-sailor tattooer set up in his 36 ½ Oak Street tenement, and his friend, Philadelphia’s Stephen Asbury Rausel Lee, had covered Brooklyn jeweler Harry DeCourcey (real name William Henry Denny, 1851-1903) in an all-over ‘suit’ of designs. In effect, they became the artistic authors of the very first ‘trade-specific’ tattooed man: a living advertisement of the tattooer’s art, who bravely committed to life as a permanent ‘freak.’
For more information about Martin Hildebrandt’s background see Buzzworthy Tattoo History historical sketch “Tattoo Saloon Shops of New York City’s 4th Ward.”
DeCourcey’s tattoo work was presumably done at the behest of himself and/or an eagerly-awaiting show manager. According to a June 17, 1881 Daily Union-Leader article, the two celebrated tattooers had been pushed [by someone] to complete the work before the circus season commenced, for one show or another.
As for who hosted DeCourcey’s first appearance, some newspaper articles state that he was made specifically for Bunnell’s museum stage, while others indicate that P.T. Barnum’s most aggressive, mud-slinging rival, Adam Forepaugh, held the honor. Strangely, given each showman’s penchant for publicity, there’s no firsthand media coverage identifying who first presented his spectacularly designed body or how his performance impacted audiences. By no means was DeCourcey’s novelty lost on the show world though. As Stephen Lee told newspaper reporters, he was a valuable enough commodity that, by 1881, he was making the hefty sum of $40 per week with Forepaugh’s Circus (as opposed to his $10-$15 jeweler’s take-home). Additionally, as the interview explained, as soon as DeCourcey’s provocative etchings made the scene Forepaugh commissioned Lee to turn-out another ‘tattooed man’ by decorating the skin of local brass finisher Fred Taylor (presumably Melbournia, the tattooed Australian), though it took him awhile to complete the work.
Until late 1881 to early 1882, DeCourcey, seems to have been the only ‘trade-specific’ ‘tattooed man’ making a living with sideshows. It’s likely that the permanence and severity of the operation discouraged others at first, as well as uncertainty about the benefits of such a commitment. According to a February of 1881 newspaper report, the tattoo operation was so taxing on DeCourcey that his weight was reduced to a mere 107 pounds, and his nerves were so shattered he had to take opiates to relax. His sickly countenance might have accounted for the fact that his career was never on par with that of Costentenus. For some reason, anyway, his celebrity potential wasn’t fully harnessed by show managers/owners.
Unlike his cohort who endured as a star on Barnum and Bunnell’s line-up for years, DeCourcey wasn’t in the employ of any big shows for long, and didn’t receive the same specialized aggrandizement. A New York Clipper notice announced that he was disengaged—whether from Forepaugh or Bunnell’s show—by November of 1880. By the following summer, various ads listed him traveling the show circuit, seemingly of his own management, and with sparse publicity, exhibiting at: Coney Island; William Bristol’s dime museum in Kingston, New York; and the Great Pavilion and Dime Museum in Watertown, New York.
Bunnell’s Breakthrough
Ultimately, DeCourcey’s heavily tattooed epidermis did inspire the making of more tattooed humbugs, and Bunnell was the one who majorly sensationalized them and developed their show appeal via his highly-patronized dime museum empire. By the beginning of the trend, circa 1881, Bunnell was operating his enterprises independently of Barnum, who had since partnered with James A. Bailey (1847-1906) and others to form “P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show On Earth, And The Great London Circus,” and he had dissolved his Bunnell Brothers sideshow.
But Bunnell remained associated with Barnum and followed his lead by shrewdly mounting the growth of his own amusement undertakings. In Bunnell’s own words, his “bounding boom” crowned the “enterprise of the century.” On January 27, 1879, after a short hiatus while exhibiting his sideshow with Barnum’s Great Show, the self-proclaimed “originator of originalities,” relocated the New American Museum to 298 Bowery. That same year he opened a permanent Brooklyn branch, after a successful previous winter trial, at 325 Washington. Then, that fall, due to the less-refined quality of clientele, he sold his Bowery branch to George Middleton and Francis Marian Uffner (1831-1896), and kept his main museum in Brooklyn until December of 1880, when he opened another second operation at 711 Broadway near Ninth Street. When all was settled, he pronounced the latter as “The Hub,” and the former as the “Annex.” He also further extended his business dealings via traveling exhibits at home and abroad.
Having honed a solid reputation in the show world by this time, Bunnell took ownership of his hard-earned authority by trading-in Barnum’s ‘American Museum’ namesake for the more apt “G.B. Bunnell’s Museum.” Within the next couple years, he was also billing Barnum’s tattooed man, Captain Costentenus, as “Bunnell’s tattooed Greek.” These several years worth of upgrades and name changes set the stage for the next, more extraordinary tattooed novelty, and Bunnell’s accompanying claim to fame.
A Tattooed Humbug of Punctured Purity
On March 21, 1882, at his 9th and Broadway Museum stage, Bunnell presented the first one-and-only ‘tattooed lady,’ Irene Woodward (1857-1915) (after she had given a sneak-peek three days earlier at the Sinclair House around the corner). He took great care in perfecting the stage persona of his aptly-titled “picture of punctured purity.” As numerous newspaper articles reported, during her performance, Irene sat atop her platform in a risqué costume of velvet, silk, and lace, commanding audiences with a shocking revelation of tattoos. Additionally, though she was allegedly tattooed by Martin Hildebrandt, she relayed an enthralling tall-tale of having been covered by her ex-sailor father during their travels in the Wild West to engage the crowd.
Whether Bunnell had contracted Irene of his own accord, or her reported agent John Wallace had secured the deal for her, she instantly became a Bunnell’s spectacle and a media hit. Her tattooed femininity was so well received, a week later the Daily Graphic was touting her as the personification of artistic tattooing upon “matchless beauty,” and endorsing her as a spokesperson for the German rheumatism remedy St. Jacob’s Oil (many theater and sideshow performers also gave testimonies for that brand).
Tattooed Humbug Pitch Pamphlets
It’s no wonder the stories illustrated in tattooed attraction pitch pamphlets read little different than the popular dime novels of the era—full of damsels in distress, exotic characters, and daring heroes of foreign lands or the rough-ridden Wild West. The publishers of the booklets, Augustus Julius Dick and Edward J. H. Stecher, specialized in this type of fiction, for the theatrical world and otherwise. The two had formed The New York Popular Publishing Company in 1879, with a factory at 32 Beekman and an office at 37 Bond Street. From the start, they advertised their brightly colored promotional materials—booklets, window hangers, et cetera—in the New York Clipper, and within no time, became allied partners of the show world. Among their best customers were the circus and dime museums curiosities, who hired them to create sensational pitch pamphlets with fascinating backstories to accompany their sideshow acts.
Performers would order the booklets in bulk and sell them as keepsakes at their show venues. The distribution of the pitch pamphlets was, in turn, a huge benefit to Dick and Stecher’s business. In itself, it served as free advertisement. But the pair maximized exposure by printing these tales of wonder within the same pages of their theatre songsters or dime novels, along with a short catalog of their other wares, to more fully demonstrate the range of their products. Their first tattooed attraction booklet for Captain Costentenus, for example, was published in No. 16 of the New York Boys—a dime novel series sponsored by the theatrical musical duo, Hart & Harrigan, that ran weekly from September 18, 1880 to December 10, 1881. In promoting the greater collaborative effort inherent in the show world, Bunnell and Barnum, and other showman, were sometimes also mentioned in the text of tattooed humbug stories, as were tattoo artists such as Martin Hildebrandt, Stephen Lee, and Edwin Thomas.
Augustus J. Dick (1848-1834) and Edward J.H. Stecher (1835-1897)
Bunnell’s Tattooed Lady
Through his promotion of Irene’s brazen novelty, Bunnell positioned himself as the connoisseur of tattooed attractions. The lavish publicity given “Bunnell’s Tattooed Lady” in national newspapers and trade magazines leaves no doubt that he aimed to capitalize on Irene’s womanly charms and the rarity of her act to catapult her fame ahead of her male counterparts, along with his own status. There’s no denying that her coverage greatly surpassed that of non-Bunnell tattooed men whose media treatment was mostly reduced to a name listing in museum advertisements. In fact, all articles reporting on Irene’s stardom only ever mentioned Captain Costentenus, a Barnum-Bunnell performer, as a (supposed) rival …as if no other ‘tattooed men’ existed.
As a result of such posturing, Bunnell enjoyed ample acclaim for Irene’s performance for months to come and cemented his standing as a purveyor of first-rate tattooed freaks ahead of competitors. For further insurance, from mid-May to mid-June, he invigorated his tattooed attraction showings by having Costentenus and Irene switch spots—moving Costentenus from his Brooklyn museum to the Broadway branch, and vice versa. Also, in a June New York Clipper notice, he warned would-be usurpers that Irene was still under contract with him for several more months and that he would “use every means to protect his interest.”
Tattooed Humbugs Abound
Ironically, as is the way with money-making trends, Bunnell’s promotional and territorial tactics only fueled competition. Under his expert showmanship, Irene, with her comely looks and beautifully rendered designs, had instigated quite a demand for tattooed ladies. In general, that year marked a rush of dime museum and circus managers looking to bedeck their sideshow platforms with tattooed humbugs, and an upsurge of entrepreneurial tattooers (of all skill level) keen to fulfill the supply. Besides DeCourcey, by May, Stephen Lee’s “Australian Tattooed Man” was on exhibit at the New York Museum, and around June, James Grace (1857-1883) was added to the circuit.
Also in June, a feisty young tattooed woman named Annie Boyle made headlines when she assaulted a man on the Brooklyn ferry en route to seek a museum job. The reputation conscious Bunnell was beyond annoyed when a Truth newspaper article compared the controversial Annie to his lovely Irene. In the fashion of his mentor Barnum, he promptly had them print his retort pronouncing her a cheap fake akin to the “catchpenny” museum imitators who tried to rival him; her career seems too have faded immediately after the events. Annie, incidentally, attributed her [unfinished] work to her husband William Boyle.
1882 June 11 Truth pg. 7: “The Tattooed Lady. Truth:-Your news item does injustice to “the tattooed lady.” Her pictures are the only ones which have ever ornamented the dead walls of the city. She is a picturesque specimen of punctured purity; never has, as yet, been arrested, and will be on exhibition only at Broadway and 9th street. Her imitator, who is now in jail, will bear about the same comparison to the original, as the cheap catchpenny faking places called museums do to the Broadway Museum. G.B. Bunnell. New York, June 10.”
Selective about the tattooed humbugs who graced his stage, Bunnell favored the perceived wholesomeness, yet provacativeness, of tattooed ladies, as well as their newness factor, which was easier to hype. So far, however, it’s unknown whether he proactively hired tattoo artists to create these lovely performers, or if they were brought forth to him after the fact of their tattooing operation.
If Bunnell had commissioned anyone, Old Martin Hildebrandt was a top contender. As noted, this longtime revered tattooer of New York City’s Fourth Ward was covered both Harry DeCourcey and Irene Woodward, and he continued creating tattooed attractions, supposedly so he could take liens on their salaries. In August of 1882, the press reported that he had turned-out three ladies for exhibition in the past four months (since April), and two more were “ready to take to the road.” As per an October 8, 1882 New York Times article, one of these women was his “sister,” actually his wife Nora, who was currently on exhibition—quite possibly at Bunnell’s museum.
Bunnell’s late 1882 museum notices advertising tattooed ladies hints that he might have hired Nora and some of Hildebrandt’s other clients, after Irene’s contract ended in September and she took a spot at the Globe Museum. Newspaper articles note that a lone tattooed lady was in Bunnell’s employ in October, which aligns with the New York Times article indicating that Nora was on exhibition by that month. Then, from November to December, a tattooed lady threesome dubbed “the marked trio” was performing on his stage. Oddly, there was no media fuss over the unprecedented act, and the women weren’t mentioned by name in the ads. Not long afterward, though, Bunnell remedied his missed promotional opportunity by next uplifting Nora’s career—apparently after some finagling.
According to newspaper reports, Irene had inspired the making of a British tattooed lady. An 1882 newspaper snippet notes that a London woman was undergoing the process that May, and a June articles states that a tattooed lady (possibly the same woman) was soon to be on exhibition in the city. Sparse documentation of tattooed people from this period in the United Kingdom infers the phenomenon didn’t manifest as immediately there as in the United States.
Nora’s Tattoo Debut
Nora actually claimed, in her pitch pamphlet, that she was the first tattooed lady to appear at Bunnell’s museum on March 1, 1882, but the timeline suggests otherwise. According to all known media reports of the era, Hildebrandt didn’t begin tattooing her until after Irene made the scene, implying she wasn’t show-ready until some time after March 21st. Wherever and whenever she made her debut, she bounced from venue to venue fairly quickly afterward. Even if her original gig had been at Bunnell’s in the fall of 1882, a New York Clipper notice indicates she had joined Adam Forepaugh’s show by the next February.
1883 Feb 10 New York Clipper pg. 759: Forepaugh Items “…Miss Hildebrandt tatooed [sic] woman …will appear in the sideshow”
Nora’s own story corroborates to an extent. In her pitch booklet account, Nora asserted that she started her career performing under the care of Forepaugh and his associate William K. Leary (1848-1887), who afterward arranged for her to exhibit with Bunnell. The first part of Nora’s claim coincides with a February 10, 1883 New York Clipper notice announcing her coming appearance with Forepaugh’s circus that season. But the rest of the facts are hazy.
Nora did end up with Bunnell for the 1883 season instead of with Forepaugh. But whether Forepaugh readily conceded her, one of a few existing tattooed ladies, to Bunnell, a Barnum affiliate, is up for question, especially given that he had already publicized her engagement. Whatever transpired, the exchange was abrupt. In the very same February 10th New York Clipper issue advertising Nora’s Forepaugh engagement, Bunnell placed a contradictory notice declaring Nora, and another newly-created tattooed lady, off-limits to other show managers, because the two were under a one-year contract with him. Two days after that publication, on February 12th, Nora was on exhibit at Harris’ Sixth Street Museum in Pittsburgh, along with a number of other outsourced curiosities from “Bunnell’s Broadway Museum.” Next up-and-coming was a tattooed beauty who pleasingly complimented Nora’s billing.
Tattooed Team
A November 23, 1882, Evening Star issue clarified that Irene and Nora were the only tattooed ladies “standing forth” [on exhibition],” but that a handsome brunette, the daughter of “wealthy parents” in Pennsylvania would soon join their ilk. This other “picture of punctured purity” was Andora Rightmyer (aka Dora Rolland, aka Dora Irwin; 1855-1911) of Reading, Pennsylvania, who was actually a struggling single mother. By Andora’s account, in an April 14, 1883 Stockton Daily Mail interview, she happened to spy Irene’s rousing performance while looking for work in New York City after her husband, Michael John Daily, deserted her. Deeming it a promising “business enterprise,” on March 25, 1882, days after Irene’s debut, she employed a 49th Street sailor named “Tom” to cover her in designs. She claimed that upon the completion of her operation, nine months and fifteen days later, she arranged for a several-year contract with Bunnell (the contract seems to have been shortened).
Although Andora’s work was inferably finished around December, it’s possible she was one of Bunnell’s three tattooed ladies who was on display in October. By the next March, at least, after Nora’s Harris’ Museum engagement was fulfilled, she proudly claimed her spot on Bunnell’s Broadway Street museum platform as half of the rhyming tattooed duo “Nora and Dora.” Like their predecessor Irene, both women wore elegantly feminine costumes and their respective stage spiels conveyed extraordinary tales of them being tattooed by their fathers in the Wild West (Dora’s story claimed she was born in California and tattooed by her “Indian” father. As it turns out, her father actually had moved to the California frontier & left his family behind in Pennsylvania. But he was of German, not Native American, descent).
1883 Feb 10 New York Clipper pg. 766: “Warning is hereby given to managers that I have contracts for one year with Nora Hilderbrandt [sic] and Dora Rolland, Tattooed Ladies. G.B. Bunnell” [Brooklyn Museum].”
Building off the idea of his “marked trio,” Bunnell expanded his approach to Nora and Dora’s stardom by first presenting them as a tattooed team, then steadily growing their momentum. An enthusiastic showman, he constantly sought bigger and better oddities and amusements for his venues, and was conscientious about safeguarding what he considered his rightful assets. When Irene Woodward’s contract ended, Bunnell sent her off with a favorable reference in the New York Clipper—likewise benefitting his ‘name in the game.’
1882 Sept 2 NY Clipper pg. 393: “The First and Only Tattooed Lady! Miss Irene Woodward, will be at liberty on and after Sept. 25, 1882, after a six month engagement of enormous success with G.B. Bunnell, who will acknowledge she has been the biggest card and the greatest attraction at his various museums. Address her sole agent, G.E. Sterling, 383 Pearl street, Brooklyn”
But Bunnell wasn’t eager to let his newest tattooed ladies take leave of his control and profits so easily. By March of 1883, shortly after their Broadway museum showing, Nora and Dora made a much larger name for Bunnell—and for themselves—billed as part of his contracted traveling sideshow entourages.
Charles Eisenmann, New York Bowery Photographer
As seen above …much as The New York Popular Publishing Company had availed their pitch pamphlet services to circus and dime museum curiosities in the 1880s, New York Bowery photographer Charles Eisenmann catered to their pitch photo needs with his beautifully rendered cabinet cards. While not the only photographer of his kind, he was among the most successful of his era. He began his career sometime in the early 1870s, as the assistant of well-known New Orleans celebrity photographer, William Watson Washburn. Several years later, by November of 1875 (as documented on a death record for his infant son), he had settled in New York City and opened his own photography studio. As per family lore, the man responsible for the move was P.T. Barnum, who had allegedly encountered Eisenmann in New Orleans—the locale of Barnum’s circus and the Bunnell Bros. sideshow winter quarters. As relatives understand it, Barnum offered the young assistant a primo job photographing his sideshow performers and purposely positioned the photo gallery near the New York dime musuem.
Historical circumstances substantiate family stories. Although, up until 1878 city directories fail to list Eisenmann’s studio address, from that date until May of 1880 its location was recorded at 200 Grand, a few minutes’ walk around the corner from Barnum and Bunnell’s 103-105 Bowery New American Museum. To further corroborate the tale, right around the time Bunnell moved the museum to 298 Bowery on January 27, 1879, Eisenmann relocated his photography studio to 229 Bowery, also a short jaunt away. (Eisenmann didn’t follow Bunnell when he moved to his Broadway museum branch a year later, however).
Beyond location, proof of Eisenmann’s connection with Barnum and Bunnell lies in the subject matter of his cabinet cards. His images of fat ladies, giants, and of course eye-catching tattooed humbugs—so thoughtfully crafted to accentuate the unique qualities of his sitters with whimsical poses and props—consisted largely of Barnum and Bunnell performers. As extra promotion and income, sideshow curiosities purchased batches of these cabinet cards and handed them out after their performances. In the same manner that Dick & Stecher’s names were solidified in the show world through the distribution of their pitch pamphlets, Eisenmann’s cabinet card photos earned him a reputation as a first-class creator of circus and sideshow promotional wares. Barnum and Bunnell’s enterprises likewise received a fair share of exposure in the process. Sometimes Eisenmann included Bunnell’s names on the photo mounts of cabinet cards depicting his performers. As for Barnum, he cleverly auto-penned his signature directly onto his own cabinet card likeness (see photo).
In much later years, in 1918, when Eisenmann worked for DuPont, as a photographer, he confirmed in a company newsletter interview that Barnum had indeed employed him to photograph his famous freaks “…and all the rest of the greatest galaxy of talent and freaks that ever gathered together under the white top of a circus tent…” Of the hundreds of oddities Eisenmann photographed, his images of tattooed humbugs are some of the most rousing examples of his expertise. The detailed focus of his subjects’ tattoo work, juxtaposed against picturesque settings, captured the essence of their sideshow presence in a powerful way that reaches out across history to modern times.
Topmost of the Tattooed
By the time of Nora and Dora’s heyday with Bunnell, he was already renowned for his quality operation. Over the years, he had cleverly stacked his resources and talents. As he built-up his enterprise, he smartly played-off his growing fame by commissioning his sideshow freaks to other dime museums in Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and St. Louis. He also sent them across seas to exhibit at London’s Crystal Palace and the Royal Aquarium—where Captain Costentenus performed starting in October of 1881, under Bunnell manager William Leonard Hunt (1838-1929), aka The Great Farini.
Through such deftly orchestrated promotion, Bunnell found himself poised to secure the best curiosities, which only bolstered his status and that of his attractions all the more. As a testament to his eminence, a March 3, 1883 New York Clipper notice touted his 9th and Broadway museum as a hub “…from which there extends in every direction different off shoots that form a circle of well-patronized museums.” By the New York Clipper’s trade authority, Bunnell stood as a dime museum mogul, who had perpetuated a whole new class of amusements on a grand scale. (The Broadway museum closed in May of 1883 due to loss of the building lease).
Bunnell’s beguiling tattooed ladies, his “pictures of punctured purity,” ranked high in his repertoire, and true to his showman’s sensibilities, he nurtured their role and paid them well. An August 19, 1883 Tennessean notes that one New York City tattooer had covered his wife all over in tattoos and received a mere $7 per week commission exhibiting her in a lower Bowery museum, until Bunnell engaged her at $50 per week. It was also said that Bunnell paid the expertly tattooed Nora an extravagant $100 a week. The showman was wise to offer premium wages for legitimately tattooed ladies given the number of fake “tattooed freaks” that surfaced with the trend.
“The agreed upon idea of a tattooed attraction—between performer and spectator—rendered them entities unto themselves and made them decades-long staples of the sideshow platform.” –Tattoo Historian, Carmen Forquer Nyssen. A Tattooed Affair: Earliest Tattooed Attractions.
A month after Irene’s exciting first exhibition, in April of 1882, a Cincinnati woman with painted-on “tattoos” attempted to pass herself off as a ‘Greek tattooed lady.’ A year later, women were still looking to cash-in without actually submitting to the needle. A Mr. Stone, manager of J.B. Doris Inter-Ocean shows, commented in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch interview that he had a letter from [an alleged] tattooed woman, who was asking for a $40 a week contract. When he went to New York to inspect her and found she was stamped with indelible ink, she lowered her offering to $20 per week. Whereas some show managers likely settled for such frauds, Bunnell—as beared-out by his tattooed wonders Irene, Nora, and Dora—valued the authenticity factor. In fact, in light of his standards, it wouldn’t be surprising if he was the person who inquired at the patent office about copyrighting the tattoos of a New York woman undergoing the tattooing process around December of 1882, “to prevent imposture by counterfeiting.”
1883 Apr 1 Boston Globe pg. 6: New York Dime Museum… “Miss Nora Hilderbandt, The Tattooed Lady, a model of the Tattooing art. The only case of a genuine perfect Tattooing upon a lady’s person ever.”
Bunnell, as a rule, intentionally pursued new and fascinating innovations that might have amusement potential akin to his womanly tattooed wonders, in hopes of securing finder’s rights. He shrewdly welcomed the latest inventions as curiosity displays and granted inventors free exhibition space in his museums—touting it as an “excellent opportunity to interest capitalists,” since the best class patronized his institutions. He hit the jackpot in January of 1883, when British machinist, inventor, and mechanical illusionist, John Feggetter Blake, aka “Professor Feggetter” transferred over his “Three-Headed Songstress” illusion patent. Right away, Bunnell exhibited the apparatus at his Broadway museum, along with a “tattooed trio” (probably including Nora and Dora, but it’s not clear who the third tattooed person was).
Bunnell paid for the patent filing, and once it was granted in March of 1883, he added the magical apparatus to his tours of contracted oddities. Together with his prized tattooed ladies, and other first-class marvels, it made for a power-packed presentation that Bunnell heralded in grandiose style. That first month, the picturesque Nora Hildebrandt, the enchanting Three-Headed Songstress, and Professor Feggetter, broadcasted Bunnell’s genius exhibiting as part of his “7 Wonders,” at Boston’s New York Dime Museum, at 565-567 Washington (a new place established by Bunnell protégé Benjamin F. Keith, 1846-1914). In like spirit, “Bunnell’s tattooed lady,” Dora, was dispatched to St. Louis where she headlined at Day & Gregory’s Dime Museum with her own group of Bunnell marvels, before joining John Robinson’s Circus at the start of the 1883 season. (Nora and Dora’s names were sometimes mistakenly interchanged in museum ads).
1882 Dec 30 NY Clipper pg. 670: “The illusion the three-headed Songstress, the invention of Prof. Feggetter, and which is now being exhibited at Bunnell’s Museum, this city, is patented. Manager Bunnell is disposing his rights to show this interesting wonder, and he advertises elsewhere that he will be far from lenient with those who infringe upon his ownership in the invention by exhibiting it without permission.”
Quite intrigungly, Prof. Feggetter may have been involved with the patenting of Sam O’Reilly’s revolutionary electric tattoo machine, granted December 8, 1891. See Buzzworthy Tattoo History feature research article for more information: Early Tinkerers of Electric Tattooing]
Queen Nora the Tattooed Lady
Through the aligning and promoting of his show components, Bunnell had propped up his tattooed ladies and imprinted the idea of them onto the show world. Because of their Bunnell association, Nora and Dora stood as the most celebrated tattooed attractions that year—though Irene’s husband agent, George Woodward, kept her plenty relevant on the dime museum circuit as well. Their increasing number of male colleagues, who for unknown reasons weren’t acquired by Bunnell in this period, failed to make as big an impression on the circuit. In November, poor Harry DeCourcey, America’s first ‘trade-specific’ tattooed humbug, placed a desperate ad in the New York Clipper ad announcing that he wasn’t dead, but indeed in good health and available for work.
1883 June 2 NY Clipper pg.178: “G.B. Bunnell claims to control more features and greater wonders than ever before. His Pavilion Opera-House at Brighton Beach, Coney Island, will soon be opened. Curiosities, variety artists and suitable attractions can obtain good openings by applying to his office, as advertised.”
Of his tattooed ladies, Bunnell seems to have held the longest contract with Nora, who benefitted greatly from the affiliation. Throughout 1883 and 1884, she headlined under Bunnell’s name at a good number of East Coast dime museums. She also traveled with his newly-formed circus. In January of 1883, Bunnell had bought interest in the combined “New York Circus, G.B. Bunnell’s Museum, and Central Park Menagerie.” When the outfit took to the road for the season, he premiered Nora, complete with a generous illustration in newspaper ads, as part of his “Famed Features from the Hub of the Amusement World—The Great Broadway Museum.”
Perhaps the most intriguing of Nora’s possible Bunnell-related engagements came at the end of the 1883 American circus season. That December, she traveled to Mexico and Panama as “G.B. Bunnell’s Tattooed Lady” with her very own namesake show, “Nora Hildebrandt’s London Palace Pavilion,” managed by William K. Leary (formerly with Barnum & Howe’s London Circus as well as Adam Forepaugh’s shows). Her performance, which boosted her career internationally, was so appreciated by Mexico’s President, Manuel Gonzalez, and his son, they gifted her a mustang horse with accouterments, and a pair of solitaire earrings; other notables followed suit. While the details of this venue aren’t clear, there’s a chance Bunnell was invested somehow.
For one, Nora alluded to a connection between Leary and Bunnell in her pitch pamphlet. Secondly, Bunnell allowed the use of his name for their billing. And, lastly, immediately upon Nora’s return from Mexico, in March of 1884 (through April), she was again delighting Bunnell’s audiences with her tattooed body at his Buffalo, New York museum, where she had been performing just prior to her trip. Intriguingly, this time, for the first time, she was crowned “Bunnell’s Original Tattooed Lady.”
As Barnum had done with Costentenus, Bunnell had transformed Nora into tattooed royalty within their two-year contract period. Even if she wasn’t Bunnell’s true original tattooed lady she had been awarded the title by the showman himself for her allegiance. Although it isn’t known exactly when Nora concluded her contract with Bunnell, she was connected to him by name for the duration of 1884. In May, she exhibited at Drew’s Dime Museum, in Providence, Rhode Island, as “Bunnell’s tattooed woman,” next to Harry DeCourcey who had no such affiliated title. Additionally, in September, at his newest New Haven, Connecticut museum, Bunnell still had her photograph on display, and it was a reported favorite amongst patrons. Though her connection to Bunnell had ended by 1885, she had earned high rank on the dime museum circuit as a result of his former sponsorship.
At year’s end in December, Nora was exhibiting at the Globe Museum as the “Acknowledged Queen of all Tattooed Ladies”—purportedly endowed with a better wardrobe and more diamonds than all other curiosities. She also maintained an international following in Mexico and South America via her winter travels with the “Nora Hildebrandt Company,” managed by William K. Leary, until his death in January of 1887.
Tattooed Humbugs & the Tattoo Trade
Nora’s departure from Bunnell ended the heyday of tattooed performers. Within the next few years, Captain Harry DeCourcey and Mlle. Aimee (aka Ida Busey, 1868-1945) both exhibited on his platform, and surely others did as well. But Bunnell had ceased his grandiose promotion of tattooed attractions and invested his energies elsewhere. His genius staging of his tattooed ladies in previous years had meanwhile inspired a huge wave of both male and female tattooed attractions, and even tattooed couples and families, in the show world, including: Wesley S. Baum, Mary Baum, Alphonso E. Lewis, Robert R. Moffitt (possibly a fake?), Frank Ormond, Christ Hansen, Giorgio Cardozans, Francis Ormond, Frank Howard aka Packard, Annie Packard aka Howard, Minnette Izore, Leonora Basso, Bessie Lewis and family, Fred Hadley, James Burke aka DeBurgh, et cetera.
This new phase of tattooed attractions also provided a new avenue of visibility for tattoo artists. Between 1884 and 1886, several had been invited into the sideshow to tattoo ‘attractions-in-the-making’ on stage as an act, and also to offer show-goers their services. In March of 1884, John Williams tattooed a woman in front of audiences at Clark’s All-Star Speciality Company and New York Museum, and later brought this performance to venues of his native England. In 1886, Frank Howard was covering a tattooed-lady-to-be on stage at Crosby’s Dime Museum, alongside a line-up of eleven “Worlds Tattooed Champions,” including Captain William Bender, who gave tattooing demonstrations and obliged museum patrons with his handiwork. From this period on, most dime museums showcased an onsite tattoo artist as part of their amusements (well-known names in the media were Elmer Getchell, Edwin Thomas, William Bender, Sam O’Reilly).
“The merging of the so-called sailor’s art with dime museum dynamics was an explosive development in tattooing.” –Tattoo Historian, Carmen Forquer Nyssen. Barnum and Bunnell’s Tattooed Humbugs: Manifesting a Tattoo Trade.
Eventually, the merging of dime museum dynamics and tattooing led to the late 1880s invention of the electric tattoo machine—handheld devices made from dental pluggers, stencil pens, and other apt electrical implements—that exploded into yet another chapter of the trade’s development and a surge of equally novel ‘electrically’ tattooed attractions on display in sideshow and dime museums.
Read more Buzzworthy Tattoo History research compositions on the subject: Birth of the Tattoo Trade: New York Bowery, “Early Tinkerers of Electric Tattooing;” “Tattooed by O’Reilly: The First Electrically Tattooed Attractions;” Bowery Tattoo History.
From Sailors & Humbugs to a Trade
Though tattooed humbugs became so much more plentiful over time, they were still exciting in their own right. They were a coveted commodity as far as curiosities were concerned and remained as such for decades. While converging historical dynamics played a big part in the success of tattooed attractions, the greater portion was owed to P.T. Barnum and George B. Bunnell’s strategic aligning of show components, as well as their affiliations with related entities. The novelty, shock, and attractiveness of the tattoo work; sensationalized by pitch pamphlets, cabinet cards, and performance spiels; and further uplifted by the broader promotion of circuses and dime museums; all came together to create a new and enduring phenomenon—a spectacle within a spectacle within a spectacle. With the passing of time, the concept of sideshow tattooed attractions built on itself, while simultaneously feeding into tattooing’s evolution. Skyrocketing from the introduction of Barnum and Bunnell’s tattooed humbugs in 1876, and then the advent of electric tattooing in the latter half of the 1880s, the tattoo trade experienced a fast-moving, major expansion that has perpetually progressed to present day!
“The novelty, shock, and attractiveness of the tattoo work; sensationalized by pitch pamphlets, cabinet cards, and performance spiels; and further uplifted by the broader promotion of circuses and dime museums; all came together to create a new and enduring phenomenon—a spectacle within a spectacle within a spectacle.” –Tattoo Historian, Carmen Forquer Nyssen
The Human Factor
Another major facet that breathed life into the tattooed humbug dynamic was the human factor. The sideshow’s sensationalized theatrics of tattooed attractions, combined with the illumination of their human condition, was vital in bringing their being—something once unreal—into reality.
Read more about it in the Buzzworthy Tattoo History article: A Tattooed Affair: Earliest Tattooed Attractions
Barnum and Bunnell’s brand of extravagance was not always accepted warmly. During their era, society was split between celebrating circuses, sideshows, and other similar amusements, on the one hand, and declaring them corrupt and exploitative, on the other. There’s no denying that less savory elements came into play in the show world. Yet it wouldn’t be accurate to judge its entire history through any one lens. Though there were many exceptions, some oddity performers, particularly tattooed humbugs, were willing participants who immersed themselves in show life and benefited from it. They were “with it and for it,” and fully embraced the dynamics of their livelihood.
As with any other major cultural phenomenon, circuses and sideshows consisted of many facets—from the unsavory to the wondrous and the in-between—making it impossible to generalize the whole of its existence from any one of its parts, especially if applying today’s morals and standards. For those interested in the societal perspectives and ethical complexities of the show world, Robert Bogdan’s book Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit objectively and thoughtfully covers that particular topic.
Questions or Comments? Email:
carmennyssen@buzzworthytattoo.com
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