episodeExhibited
Tattooed people, shown for money, in Europe and America
Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainabout 1,690 – 1,940 · From the first tattooed men brought to London to the last sideshows
What it is
For two and a half centuries, the main way a European saw a tattooed body was on a stage, with an entrance fee.
The long version
Tattooed people from the Pacific and Southeast Asia were brought to Europe and displayed; later, European and American performers had themselves covered in order to be displayed. The human zoos and the sideshow ran on the same premise and often the same circuit.
Inference — a photograph of a tattooed person from this period is therefore rarely neutral evidence. It was made to be sold, the pose was chosen for the sale, and the caption was written by whoever was taking the money. This site uses those pictures where they are the only pictures, and says so beside them.
Connected to
- Who wrote it down The same problem in another medium.
Named here by
- The photographs Where those pictures came from.
Where each claim comes from
| Field | Tier | Source | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| default | cited | Human zoo — Wikipedia (en) | |
| text_th | inference | written in Thai by this project, not machine-translated |
Sources
- Human zoo — Wikipedia (en)
- Sideshow — Wikipedia (en)
- Sailor tattoo — Wikipedia (en)
cited Cited — a named source, linked · harvested Harvested — fetched from an open dataset, with its licence · tradition Tradition — general knowledge of the tradition, hedged · inference Inference — this project's own reasoning from the above · field Field — someone stood there