A Woman to Know: Maud Wagner
She agreed to go with him on the condition that he ‘tattoo her all over and teach her to tattoo.’ — Alan Govenar
She agreed to go with him on the condition that he ‘tattoo her all over and teach her to tattoo.’ — Alan Govenar
(image via Library of Congress)
In 1904, Maud met Gus at the World’s Fair. Maud performed aerial acrobatics and contortionism with the traveling circus; Gus set up a tattoo stand for hand-poked tattoos. Maud was immediately drawn to the mustachioed man, but also to his elaborately inked designs. When he asked her out, she agreed on one condition: the date had to also involve a tattoo lesson.
They traveled the country together as a husband-wife tattoo team, sometimes also performing as “tattoo attractions” at sideshows. They taught their daughter, Lotteva, how to hand-poke tattoo when she was just nine years old. When Maud passed away in 1961, her daughter honored her as America’s first known female tattoo artist.
Add to your library list:
Bodies of Subversion: Women and Tattoo (Margot Mifflin)
The Tattooed Lady: A History (Amelia Klem Osterud)
Read more:
A secret history of women and tattoo (The New Yorker)
Graves of Maud and Gus Wagner (Atlas Obscura)
The first female tattoo artists (Open Culture)
The Untold Story of the Badass First Female Tattooer (Yahoo)
Maud Wagner, the “Inked” Woman (The Vintage News)
Read more:
Tattooist & Singer: Maud Wagner (I Don’t Know Her)
Maud Stevens Wagner (Brain Junk)
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