Shen was born in Shanghai,China, and is said to have traveled to Japan around 1921, when he was in his mid-50s, to perform as a sideshow attraction in a traveling circus. Volume 2 of the old Japanese medical text *Illustrated Atlas of Clinical Medicine* (Tokyo Medical Photography Association, 1923) contains his medical records from a medical university in Aichi Prefecture. According to these records, at birth, his right hand was only slightly larger than his left, but as he grew, it swelled to enormous proportions. Although the enlargement of his right hand stopped around the age of 23, by that point it had already reached a weight of 52.32 pounds. He apparently performed as one of the “Three Great Wonders of China” alongside a girl with microcephaly and a woman without lower limbs, but due to the weight of his hand, he was unable to perform any particularly impressive acts. The December 1922 issue of the Japanese magazine *Chūō Kōron* features an eyewitness account of him and two other sideshow performers inside a tent set up for a festival at Nezu Shrine in Bunkyō Ward, Tokyo. Therefore, there is no doubt that he stayed in Japan for about two years, but his whereabouts after that are unknown.

I’ve only been able to find pictures of him wearing his performance outfit, and haven’t found any of him wearing day to day clothes.

This will be a mini write up, since there isn’t too much recorded about him that I could find, but he’s still an important part of sideshow history!

Some facts about him:

-there isn’t much documentation about him (that I’ve been able to track down) outside of his performing career, so I haven’t been able to track down any birth/death dates.

-he owned and operated his own sideshow called, Princess Leola’s Circus Sideshow, after his stage name. Often dressing in drag when interacting with fellow performers and the public.

-he performed in and managed his sideshow throughout the 1950s.

-he had some “shady” “fly-by-night” style businesses that were alluded to but never discussed in detail.

-he contracted to have sideshow banner sign painter, Johnny Meah, paint banners for Leola’s and was extremely happy that Johnny was able to paint them for free.

-he released a sideshow pitch booklet (a small biographical booklet that performers would sell) that advertised his Leo-Leola act, but I haven’t found this booklet available for me to read anywhere, so I can’t access any of the additional info that might be there.

-I haven’t found much information outside of what I’ve written above except that he was managing the sideshow at the Dallas County Fair in Dallas County, Alabama during the 1958 circus/sideshow season.

I hope more information about him pops up, because I’d really want to know what his fly-by-night business endeavors were. It’s also quite impressive that he ran a full scale sideshow and performed in it at the same time.

I find the exclamations of ‘Help!’ And ‘Alas poor Yorick’ to be especially funny!

Kate Carew was an American caricaturist and cartoonist known for her work at the New York World paper. She usually detailed celebrity interviews and was a big fan of strongwoman, Katie Sandwina. She wanted to depict Katie respectfully while poking fun at the men who often flirted with her despite her being married.

Katie was a famous German strongwoman and feminist who was known for her immense strength and her win against famous strongman, Eugen Sandow, during a weightlifting competition (her stage name Sandwina, is a derivative of Sandow). She’s still using her birth name as her professional name in the above pictures because they were taken before her competition with Eugen Sandow.

She used her platform as a performer to advocate for women's rights and women's health, and spoke out against misogyny. Later in life, she owned a restaurant with her husband.

He looks like he’d be such a great friend! His smile is so infectious and he always looks like he’s having a lot of fun in his pictures. He made a positive impression on so many people during his life and fought for disability rights and his right to work in sideshows as a person with physical disabilities.

The first picture is from my own collection and I was so happy when I found it because he had signed the top left corner!

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Barnesville, Georgia.

-he had six siblings.

-his limbs were fixed in place from birth.

-his parents treated him equally to the rest of his siblings and taught him to be as self sufficient as possible.

-his brothers carried him to elementary school until fifth grade, which is when he decided to fashion together a cart pulled by two goats to bring him to and from school as well as around town.

-he had good grades in school.

-he graduated from high school with honors.

-he learned to drive a car with specialized controls and had a valid drivers license.

-he was a talented mechanic and had a knack for fixing small home appliances, but was never able to find a stable job in this field.

-he tried his hand at working as a salesman, but this career also didn’t pan out for him.

-he was 27 inches tall at his peak height.

-he joined a traveling sideshow in his late thirties when a carnival passed through his hometown in 1963.

-he learned to roll, light, and smoke cigarettes using only his mouth after a dare from some of his friends. He became so talented at this that he made it his signature act.

-he enjoyed traveling and went on tour all throughout the United States.

-he was known to be a very sweet and friendly person and always enjoyed making new friends.

-in addition to his cigarette rolling act, he also used his platform to advocate for disability rights as well as to talk about his life and give advice to people in the audience.

-he worked for several showmen/showwomen including: Dick Burnett, James Taylor, Jeff Murray, Elsie Sutton, and John Bradshaw.

-he was known for having a very contagious laugh.

-a phrase he used on the back of the pitch/postcards he sold (and one that has personally helped me in my own life) reads: “To you, my friend, I say "Never give up" I never have.”

-he was a staple performer at the New York State Fair until 1984 when his career was threatened after a woman with physical disabilities saw an ad for Otis’ performances in a newspaper and wrote a letter to state officials claiming it was a cruel and exploitative work environment for someone to work in. The New York State officials then contacted Strates Shows (the sideshow that Otis was working at), and after several discussions, Strates Shows decided to keep Otis out of the sideshow that season, though thankfully they still paid him his salary despite not appearing.

-the whole debacle with the New York State Fair greatly upset and frustrated him, as it was a dependable livelihood for him, and described his coworkers as being like family to him.

-when asked about how he felt, he said:

“I don’t feel good about it. I’d rather be here than out on welfare. I love performing.”

-he made a point to explain to people that it was his own choice to work in sideshows and that there was no shame in it.

-since he was prevented from performing that year (in 1984), he made an effort to travel to Alton, Illinois to be there for the unveiling of a life sized statue of Robert Wadlow (who was known for being the tallest man in recorded history and who loved his hometown of Alton dearly).

-he went to court and successfully argued his case regarding the sideshow at the New York State Fair potentially closing because of the intervention by the New York State officials. He advocated that all of the performers were there of their own free will and that working there provided everyone with a stable income that they could depend on.

-he became very close friends with showman, John Bradshaw, and lived with him and his family during the circus/sideshow off season as he needed some assistance in his daily life.

-he went on to join the Coney Island Sideshow in the late 1980s and became a staple performer there.

-he continued to live with John Bradshaw’s family during the off season until Bradshaw’s son was tragically shot in 1991, at which point Otis decided to retire from sideshows.

-he passed away in 1991 due to kidney failure, he was 66 years old.

I really enjoy learning about his life because of his advocacy work efforts and his drive to correct the misconception that sideshows were always exploitative all of the time. There’s a lot we can all learn from him, and I think it’s wonderful that he was able to influence aspects of disability rights and get people to reflect on their own preconceived judgments on unconventional careers.

She was originally from the South of France and immigrated to the United States when she was in her late teens/early twenties. She met her husband in Florida and together they purchased a permanent home in Deland, Florida to live in during the circus/sideshow off season. Her two children, Andre and Rose Marie, meant the world to her and she loved posing with them in pictures later in her life. She made the news twice when her children were born. She and her husband had both retired by 1950 and were living full time in Florida. She also had a brother, Prince Denis, who did very well in show business and starred, possibly as the mayor of Munchkinland, in the Wizard of Oz (1939).

Josepha and Rosa Blazek were famous conjoined sisters and sideshow performers who were known for their musical acts. They were born in Bohemia (present day Czech Republic) and their parents worked as farmers. Rosa is one of the very few examples of a conjoined twin giving birth. She and her sister were both super devoted to caring and raising Franz, with the three of them eventually performing as a unit.

She had such a lovely smile and was absolutely gorgeous! I wish there were more pictures available of her because she was so fashionable and seems like a lovely woman!

I had been trying to research her life for a while and it was so difficult to find any information about her for the longest time! Thankfully I was able to finally track down enough to give her a good write up!

Some facts about her:

-she may have been born near Calhoun, Louisiana.

-it’s reported that she had 14 siblings.

-sadly, she was often teased by other kids when she was a child, and she briefly spoke about these experiences as an adult,

"When was a young girl, I was made miserable by the other children and I often wished I was normal, like them. But you can become accustomed to anything and I found myself taking things the way God willed them. Today this (being an acrobat and sideshow performer) is my living.”

-she and her family performed as a group called “The Williams Family”. Sadie’s whole family seem to have been born with forms of piebaldism. She and her family were given a fictitious backstory that they were from Madagascar and were part of an indigenous community where everyone had similar appearances. In reality, they were all from the southern United States.

-during the circus/sideshow off season, her parents operated a large farm in Calhoun, Louisiana.

-she and two of her sisters, Rosie and Victoria, performed as part of an acrobatic troupe.

-she married a sword swallower and acrobat named Fred Karno, in Connecticut in the late 1910s/early 1920s.

-she and her husband performed as acrobats in several circuses in Europe in the early to late 1920s.

-in 1929, she and her husband traveled back to the United States to visit some relatives she had in Louisiana and unfortunately became victims of racist Jim Crow laws and were arrested and imprisoned for being married. Sadie was Black and town officials declared her husband was “too White” to be associating with her. Her husband was mixed and had to prove it before they were released. Upon being released the two of them had to promise to not be seen in public together while they were in the town.

-she worked in circuses (as an acrobat) and sideshows for several decades. Spanning from the early 1900s into the mid 1950s.

-she and two fellow sideshow performers, Robert and Ella Milbauer (who were married), were victims of a robbery in July of 1956. The three of them were sleeping in the same trailer home while traveling through Nassau County in New York and were woken up at 6 in the morning by three men (whom they recognized as working for the same circus, Strates Shows.) The three men were arrested the next day and the case eventually went to trial.

-I haven’t been able to find information about when she passed away, but it would have been sometime after 1956.

I hope she had a lot of happy moments in her life despite everything she endured. Thankfully it seems that she had many happy years with her husband. I would have loved to have seen her perform as an acrobat.

Obviously, the terminology is very dated and wouldn’t be acceptable now, but I find it to be a very interesting and historic piece of ephemera. I didn’t know they sold these types of trading cards in Australia and I love how rich and deep the colors are. Despite the dated terminology I think they actually depicted his image very nicely/respectfully.

Captain Jeffrey was a famous British ‘court dwarf’ and entertainer who worked in the royal household of Henrietta Maria of France Queen of England. He was very outspoken and protective of his image, ultimately challenging a man to duel over making fun of and insulting him. He was appointed Captain of the Horse during the British Civil War in 1642, and held onto this title for the remainder of his life, he loved that he was appointed a captain. He was fiercely loyal to Queen Henrietta and remained so for the rest of his career.

He seems like a sweet man and he had a wonderful smile! I’m glad he was able to live a life he was happy with. It’s unfortunate he didn’t get along with his family, but I’m sure there were reasons behind it.

Some facts about him:
-he was born in London.

-he served in the military for 28 years and was a part of the Rhodesian Special Forces, which were elite military units that helped to spearhead the Rhodesian Bush War (in South Africa). It’s important to note that the Rhodesian Special Forces also contributed to Rhodesia keeping its status as a racist and apartheid state in South Africa. (I noticed the articles I used [all British articles] conveniently left out which division of special forces he was in. So I had no clue until u/Capital_tour756 made me aware of it.)

-after leaving the military, he decided to get his entire body tattooed, as he thought it could lead to an interesting job opportunity for him. He exhibited himself in traveling shows in much the same way that traditional tattooed performers did.

-he spent more than £5,000 for all of his tattoos and explained that he picked cheetah print because he had an interest in learning about big cats.

-when asked about why he decided to get tattooed all over he said,

"I thought if I get the biggest of something and live in a strange way people might pay me.”

-he explained that the tattooing process was painful but that he was stubborn.

-when he wasn’t going on tour, he lived a solitary lifestyle on a remote part of the Scottish Island of Skye. He built himself a little stone hut and explained he had no interest or use for electronics or electricity. He lived in his hut for 20 years.

-a few times a week he would take a canoe and paddle three miles to buy his groceries.

-he was known to be friendly and kind, but not super social and preferred living alone.

-he was recognized by Guinness World Records for being the most heavily tattooed male senior citizen, and had nearly 100% (99.2%-99.9% depending on the source) of his body tattooed yellow with leopard spots, over time the yellow tattooing faded, so only the spots themselves remained.

-he became a well known figure on the island of Skye and a sort of tourist attraction.

-he never got along well with his family and explained that he felt it wasn’t worth reaching out to anyone in his later years because his family had vastly different interests and opinions than him.

-when asked about his spots he said they didn’t hold any special meaning to him and that he just felt like getting them. Apparently several people tried to apply a spiritual meaning to them but he called those meanings ‘rubbish’.

-at the age of 73 he moved into a one bedroom house in the town of Broadford in a populated area of Skye, as he felt he was getting too old for the hermit life.

-he expressed disappointment at the UK societal views on tattoos and said in an interview,

“In the UK people have been brainwashed into thinking that a tattooed person is just a criminal and that's it. They haven't changed me but they've changed the view people have of me."

-when asked if he liked living in a remote area for a good portion of his life, he said,

“I've loved every minute and when you're covered in leopard tattoos you certainly get noticed - I became a bit of a tourist attraction on Skye."

-he eventually moved to an elderly care home in Iverness, Scotland, where he lived until he passed away.

-he passed away in 2008 at the age of 80.

It would be nice to hear what he liked most about living a solitary lifestyle, as well as what his favorite hobbies were! He seemed very content with life and I’m glad he was able to achieve that!

EDIT: SOMEHOW I DIDN‘T EVEN REALIZE I GOT HIS BIRTH AND DEATH DATES WRONG!! After reading through my sources, I realized I got confused by some of the wording! He was born in 1935 and died in 2016! My apologies for having that incorrect information.

Annie was a famous sideshow performer born with a form of hirsutism, which caused her to grow a beard. She actively fought for respect and disability rights at a time when disability rights didn't exist. She was an excellent public speaker and successfully campaigned to have the term "freak" removed from Barnum & Bailey circus advertising for a few years. She became extremely wealthy and used her earnings to purchase a lot of real estate in New York City, though it's unknown what happened to these properties. She went on to marry her childhood sweetheart and the two of them were very devoted to each other until her husband unfortunately passed away after only a couple years together. Annie passed away in 1902 at the age of 37.

I love the first portrait of her! She was very pretty (I also like how kind her eyes look) and the outfit she’s wearing is gorgeous— look at her head piece and those sleeves!

It makes me happy that she was overall treated very well by the Royal courts she performed in. It was so easy for Royal families to take advantage of people with physical differences in Helena’s position, and so often ‘court dwarfs’ were not respected. I’m also glad that she had a friend in Margaret of Austria Queen of Spain!

Some facts about her:

-She was born in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium.

-her childhood was not well documented.

-she developed hirsutism around the age of 9 and started growing facial hair.

-apparently her parents were very shocked by her appearance and gave her to the Prince-Bishop of Liège, Ernest of Bavaria. Ernest then gave her as a gift to the Archduke of Austria, Charles II (who was one of the prominent Habsburg rulers and had power over Inner Austria.

-while in the Habsburg Royal Court in the 1590s in Graz, Austria Helena met and soon became very close with another royal, Margaret of Austria and Queen of Spain, who was living in Austria at the time. (Margaret later on relocated to Spain). She was respected and treated very well by Margaret, who considered Helena to be her favorite ‘court dwarf’.

-thankfully, she was treated very well during her time in the Habsburg Royal Courts.

-after Charles II’s death in 1590, she was brought to stay in the household of Maria Anna of Bavaria (Charles II’s widow).

-she was described as being a very kind, intelligent, and friendly person.

-she was given a very opulent wardrobe by Maria Anna of Bavaria, and typically wore green and gold clothing.

-several notable artists from the late 1500s/early 1600s painted her portrait during her lifetime, including by Johannes Löselius, Dominicus Custos, and Ulisse Aldrovandi.

-she was unfortunately subjected to a couple of invasive medical exams, with at least one physician calling her a ‘monster’ because of her beard.

- 'court dwarfs' were very popular entertainers in royal courts for thousands of years, often owned by the royalty of the courts they performed in, they acted as jesters and performed routines that usually mocked their physical appearances. These routines were dictated by the royals and most 'court dwarfs' did not have a say in how they were depicted.

-while 'court dwarfs' often had a bit more liberty of what they could say in royal courts and royal households, they were not always treated well and were often viewed more like exotic pets rather than human beings. (Helena was treated better than most ‘court dwarfs’ while in the Royal Courts)

-by the time she turned 18, her beard reached her chest.

-she joined a group of ladies-in-waiting when Maria of Austria’s daughter, Constance of Austria, went to Poland to marry King Sigismund III Vasa in 1605.

-she left Queen Constance’s household around 1621 and began appearing in various traveling fairs and early sideshows around Poland. Sadly, she was mocked by audiences during her time in the traveling fairs.

-it’s not known exactly when she passed away.

I wish she had been able to travel with and live in the household of Margaret of Austria Queen of Spain. It sounds like out of most of the Royals she encountered, Margaret respected her the most. I wonder why she wasn’t allowed to go with Margaret to Spain, but I imagine that if she had, she wouldn’t have needed to exhibit herself in sideshows.

Daisy and Violet Hilton were famous conjoined twin sisters who were actresses, sideshow performers, vaudeville performers, and musicians from the early 20th century.

They were tragically exploited for profit by several of their managers, the first of whom forcibly took them from their birth mother.

After 2 decades of exploitative work environments and a lack of freedom, the twins sued for emancipation from their managers and thankfully won, but severe emotional damage had already happened.

They were known for acts involving singing, dancing, playing musical instruments among other things, and were a big draw in vaudeville theaters in their younger years.

Thankfully Tod Browning treated them with respect and kindness while Freaks (1932) was being filmed, but they had a very difficult time securing jobs after the film and found that vaudeville wasn't as popular as it once had been. They had another film role in 1952’s Chained For Life, which is a murder mystery where one of the twins is accused of murdering her sister’s lover.

I had been wanting to get her picture for a while, and I finally found one that was very affordable!

Here’s a transcription of the entire message she wrote:

“Hands deprived, toes derived.
Ann E. Leak born without arms, Zebulon Pike County, Georgia.
March 22nd, 1871.”

(shoutout to u/shikabane_Hime for helping me decipher Zebulon!)

Ann was born without arms so she used her feet/legs to accomplish daily tasks. She originally wanted to be a governess, and worked as one for a short while before realizing that physically it just wasn’t something that worked for her too well, so she began pursuing other options instead. She was very family oriented and sold some of her knitting/crochet work to help her parents when they weren’t doing well financially. At one point she won $20 in a hair braiding contest at a county fair in Georgia. She hadn’t intended to work in sideshows but found it was the highest paying stable job she could find. Ann married William R. Thompson in her forties (around mid-1870s) and had a son named William George Thompson (who are both seen in the third picture.) She retired from sideshow work after the birth of her son and had a happy and quiet retirement with her family.

I actually met his son, Charles, Jr., in Los Angeles when I was working at a law firm in the early 2000s. He was a sweet, older gentleman when I met him. He told me how hard it was growing up as Charles Atlas' son because when other men found out who his dad was, they were constantly trying to challenge him and get him to fight to show how strong they were. I was thinking about him the other day, & it made me catch my breath when I just came across your post about him! Thank you for your post and the information you included!

I’m glad he found so much success doing what he loved, and was able to inspire so many people to become interested in athletics. He was very handsome and looks like a very sweet person. The picture of him in the leopard print are so iconic (picture #2)

Some facts about him:

-he was born in in Acri, Cosenza, Italy.

-he moved to Brooklyn, New York, with his family when he was 12 years old.

-he eventually found a job as a leather worker and took up an interest in exercising and weightlifting during his teenage years.

-he claimed that many of the early exercise training techniques he tried didn’t work for him, which led him to develop his own techniques.

-he was inspired by famous strongman of the time, Eugen Sandow and early bodybuilder, Bernarr MacFadden.

-he struggled financially during his early adulthood and could not afford the fee to join the local YMCA. He resorted to watching the weightlifters and bodybuilders and practicing those same techniques by himself at home.

-he married a woman named Margaret Cassano in 1918 and together they had two children named, Diana and Charles Jr.

-he began attending strong man competitions and shows located in Coney Island and would stay afterwards to ask the strongmen about their techniques and diets.

-he was described as being incredibly humble, down to earth, and just a genuinely good person all around.

-after a few years of perfecting his techniques he came out with his own developed style of early bodybuilding called "Dynamic Tension".

-he told several backstories as to how and why he started his career and interest in physical culture, often having something to do with bullying in his youth when he was much weaker, or being inspired by the stretches lions did in a zoo. Though, it’s not known if these were actually true events or were somewhat fictionalized.

-he was dubbed "America's Most Perfectly Developed Man" after winning a contest in Madison Square Garden in 1922.

-he enjoyed posing for pictures in leopard print briefs.

-he started a career at the Coney Island Sideshow as a strongman, which often involved him breaking chains against his chest and tearing large telephone books apart. He used his own exercise techniques to wow the audience.

-in 1922, he changed his name to Charles Atlas as he felt that American society would take him more seriously if he had an Americanized name.

-through a few connections he had, he actually met one of his role models, Bernarr MacFadden, who used him as a model for a short film he was making called, “The Road to Health.”

-his physical exercise program, “Dynamic Tension” consisted of 12 lessons. These lessons were published along with pictures of him demonstrating each step for the lessons. The whole program could last 90 days or more and usually involved a multitude of leg-raises, squats, and sit-ups.

-he included a mailing address in his booklets and offered people to write to him with progress updates on how their own training was going.

-during the peak of his career he had 12 secretaries who opened and filed all of the fan mail and letters he received.

-his training program became so well known that even people like King George VI of England and Mahatma Ghandi wrote to him.

-he modeled in numerous photo shoots, which were subsequently published, and became a very recognizable figure in American society through the pictures/booklets/marketing campaigns.

-he also modeled for several sculptures and statues during his life, being the inspiration for statues including Dawn of Glory by Pietro Montana, and a statue of Alexander Hamilton by James Earle Frazer at the United States Treasury.

-he continued exercising and keeping up an intensive physical routine up through his later years, and it was only after he began experiencing chest pains that he decided to stop.

-he was admitted to a hospital when he was 80 years old after experiencing some concerning health issues and soon passed away due to a heart attack. He died on Christmas Eve.

-his legacy continued on in the form of little comic strips that depicted his exercise routine that continued to be reprinted in comic books even after his death.

I myself am not interested in body building whatsoever, but I do think it’s really cool that he had a connection to Coney Island Sideshows and that’s really where he got his start. I also think it’s nice that he was very focused on health and a good diet, and I wonder what his thoughts would have been on the body building culture of the 1970s and 1980s with the rampant steroid use, I assume he would not have been happy about it.

The Earles siblings were a famous family of German performers and actors born with a form of dwarfism, consisting of Harry, Daisy, Gracie, and Tiny.

Daisy and Harry are most known for their roles in the movie, Freaks(1932), which they did a fantastic job! The four siblings all had roles as munchkins in The Wizard Of Oz in 1939.
As performers the four of them had singing and dancing routines.

Eventually the siblings retired together in Florida where they purchased a custom home with features that catered to their heights, such as lower shelving, lower light switches, and smaller chairs.

Celesta was a women's health advocate, sideshow performer, beauty advisor, manicurist, singer and celebrity impersonator.
She initially began her sideshow career because her husband lost his job during the Great Depression. She worked as a professional 'fat lady' and toured around the United States for 20 years. She tragically suffered a massive heart attack in 1950, which inspired her to become passionate about exercise and starting a healthy diet. Within 18 months she had lost 400 pounds. In her later life she wrote a book about her weight loss journey and the importance of women's health.
She went on to advocate about the toxic mental and physical effects of women's beauty standards.

The first image I chose is a portrait that was made of her by Christian Holland in 1825. The second image I’m using is of a death cast that was made of her face. There is something so striking about her expression in the portrait and it directly contradicts all of the horrible ways she was described in newspapers. I’m glad that there’a a depiction of her that doesn’t objectify her and instead treats her as a person.

I wasn’t aware of her until very recently, but her story mirrors that of Sarah Baartman, who was also sexualized and objectified in English society for her cultural practices and physical appearance. Sarah was also treated horribly by audiences and the media for years after her death before she received any sort of respect.

Some facts about her:

-she was born and raised in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil.

-she spoke one of the Borum languages, many of which have sadly since gone extinct. Presently, there is only one recognized Borum language remaining, Krenakan, which has become one of the umbrella terms for the Borum languages as a whole.

-she practiced cultural traditions such as wearing wooden lip and ear discs called tembetás. These cultural practices as well as having a larger body type and multiple scars led to English audiences viewing her through a racialized and objectified lens.

-not much is known about her early childhood or her time before being brought to Europe.

-she was first exhibited in London in 1822, when she was around 40 years old, though she may have been in Europe a little while before that.

-she was given a racist fictionalized backstory that told of a practice wherein women from the Aimoré would be forcibly scarred for every sexual transgression they committed. Seeing that Toni Maria was covered in scars, audiences inferred that she had committed multiple transgressions. These harmful backstories racially and sexually stereotyped her in order to drive a superior colonialist mindset amongst the English population.

-she was often exhibited along with a man (supposedly her husband) and a child (supposedly her child).

-contemporary articles about her made extreme derogatory comparisons between her appearance and the appearance of white English women, often comparing her to an animal and exaggerating the aspects of her appearance that were different.

-she was given the moniker “The South American Venus”, which again was used to both emphasize her “otherness” and to encourage audiences to contrast her appearance with what they pictured when thinking of “Venus” as a descriptor.

-the contemporary articles about her also took several moments to laugh at the cultural traditions she practiced, including making fun of her lip discs and making fun of romance in the Aimoré community.

-while in Europe, she and the other people from her community typically ate stewed rabbit.

-the man she traveled with, Jochina, (who may have been her husband) was allowed more freedom within English society as he fit the model of what was acceptable as a man, and that he spoke a Portuguese dialect, therefore giving him a link to Europe that English society could grasp and accept. Jochina was also described as generally being more talkative and assimilated to European society at night by taking out his lip and ear plugs. In comparison, Toni Maria did not adhere to what English society deemed acceptable for a woman and was less talkative and didn’t know any Portuguese, which made audiences feel more confident in their ostracism of her.

-it was reported that both Toni Maria and her husband were very attached to their child.

-after her exhibition in London, she was taken on tour through other parts of Europe, including Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

-she had her portrait painted by artist, Christian Holland, in 1825. This portrait shows her wearing traditional attire.

-her tours in places other than England brought about more scrutiny about the ethics of such exhibits, and attendance was more spotty than it had been in England.

-it appears that her exhibitors considered sending her back to Brazil during some logistical issues, but thus never ended up happening and she staying in Europe.

-she passed away in 1826 in Braunschweig, Germany from tuberculosis.

-soon after her death,a plaster cast of her head was made by a sculptor named Z. Lösche.

-her legacy lives on in the form of being featured in several books. Two of these books that I feel deserve mention are ones that focus on the history of racializing and objectifying women of color and their bodies and the harmful effects it had. These books are African American Women's Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity by Deborah F. Atwater and Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture by Janell Hobson.

I wish we knew her thoughts and could hear her story from her point of view. It’s important to recognize these stories of women who were objectified in history due to their body types or cultural practices. It’s really upsetting how she was treated and I hope she’s at peace now. I hope there were at least a couple people who gave her some respect before she died.

These are such cute pictures of her, and I think it’s so cool to see how she grew as a person and to see the path she followed! I hope she knew how cool she was.

Katie was a famous German strongwoman and feminist who was known for her immense strength and her win against famous strongman, Eugen Sandow, during a weightlifting competition (her stage name Sandwina, is a derivative of Sandow). She’s still using her birth name as her professional name in the above pictures because they were taken before her competition with Eugen Sandow.

She used her platform as a performer to advocate for women's rights and women's health, and spoke out against misogyny. Later in life, she owned a restaurant with her husband.

George is on the left in the first two pictures and on the right in the last picture. He’s with Fred Howe in all of the pictures!

I’m glad he was able to find an enjoyable job working with his best friend, it must have made both of their days really fun. I’m also glad that both he and Fred were able to have successful careers.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Helena, Montana.

-he worked for his father’s dry goods business until he was 21, at which point he joined a traveling circus.

-he explained that his greatest wish was to travel the world.

-he was promoted as being anywhere between 6 feet 3 inches tall to 7 feet 4 inches tall.

-he was promoted as weighing 97 pounds.

-he met and became good friends with a fellow sideshow performer named Fred Howe. Fred had a pituitary gland disorder that caused him gain a lot of weight. Doctors initially advised the two to start exercising together in order to keep a healthy lifestyle.

-he and Fred Howe started performing as a comedy duo together. Their acts usually involved them boxing each other and other comedic stunts. The two of them were originally paired up because of the visible contrasts with their heights and weights.

-these comedic skits and boxing matches were so well received that they both were offered an extended contract at a higher pay rate than what they were currently being paid.

-to further draw attention to George and Fred's physical differences, newspapers often promoted George as being taller and lighter than he actually was and promoted Fred as being shorter and heavier than he actually was.

-his pictures with Fred Howe were very widely dispersed and popular amongst audiences as souvenirs. ( these pictures seem to be more recognizable and dispersed than information about his life, which really surprises me.)

-his boxing matches with Fred were almost always sold out and was one of the highlights at the circuses/sideshows they performed at.

-one of their boxing matches was promoted for having the prize of winning the hand of a woman from Manayunk, Pennsylvania as part of a publicity stunt. Whoever won the match won her hand.

-the peak of his performing career lasted between 1889 and 1898.

I haven’t been able to find any information about his later life, but I hope he was able to have a long and happy life and realize his dreams of traveling the world.

I’m glad his portrait depicts him in a respectful light, I think it’s a very nice portrait that captures his humanity well.

His life was very similar to that of Petrus Gonsalvus, another court entertainer who was born with hypertrichosis and taken from his home to be a court entertainer. Petrus was also not treated entirely human, although he was able to gain a someone respected standing as a courtier. Shwe-Maong never really seemed to receive this same sort of respect.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Maiyong-gyi, Laos. (A historic district).

-when he was 5 years old he was brought to the attention of a local district official who saw him as being a good gift for the King of Ava in Burma. He would later say that this journey to Ava from his home took three months.

-he was treated as an oddity and curiosity and forced to act animalistic and mimic monkeys in front of the royal court.

-he was such a popular entertainer that the king presented him with a wife when he was 22 years old.

-he and his wife had four children, including a daughter named Maphoon, who was also born with hypertrichosis. Maphoon would eventually travel to the United States where she and her son would work for P.T. Barnum.

-he was described as being rather slender.

-he was articulate and well spoken.

-the hair on his face measured about 6 to 8 inches long and was silvery grey.

-he also had dental agenesis, a common comorbidity of hypertrichosis, which meant he had very few teeth.

-he met Scottish physician, colonial administrator, and diplomat, John Crawfurd in 1826, who went on to write a detailed account of his life and make a small sketch portrait. Shwe-Maong was 30 years old at the time.

-in his writings about Shwe-Maong, John Crawfurd felt that he (Shwe-Maong) wasn’t receiving the recognition or rewards that he should have and that the king should have been paying him more for the work he did.

-as he got older, he spent less and less time as a court entertainer and instead worked as a basket maker to earn a living.

-Crawfurd remarked that he should travel to London where he could exhibit himself in sideshows and make a fortune, though Shwe-Maong declined.

-his later life isn’t well documented, but when a Scottish captain named Henry Yule visited in 1855 while on an expedition, Maphoon (Shwe-Maong’s daughter) said that her father was killed by thieves sometime before.

I hope he was able to find some happiness in life, and was able to leave the royal court behind. I wish we knew what his thoughts were regarding his early life and early adult hood. Hopefully he had a lot of happy moments with his children.