Nora Hildebrandt, The Tattooed Lady
Martin Hildebrandt came to America from his native Germany in the early years of the 19th century. He set up a tattoo parlor in New York City in 1846 and made a good living inking sailors and soldiers. And he honed his trade practicing on his daughter, Nora. She soon went from being her father’s personal human canvas to being a human curiosity. As a young lady, she first exhibited her heavily-tattooed body in 1882, and before long, she had sparked the interest of P.T. Barnum himself.
In all, Nora’s had some 370 tattoos, covering almost all of her body. At first, when she was touring with Barnum in the 1890s, she followed the example of some of the more famous Tattooed Men and made up a fantastical back story. She claimed, for example, that she had been taken prisoner by American Indians, tied to a tree and tattooed. Soon, however, she got tired of peddling the myth and instead was honest. Unsurprisingly, most of the audience simply didn’t care, either way, they were just happy to look at her and marvel.
While some of Barnum’s ‘human curiosities’ enjoyed long and successful careers, Nora’s was relatively brief. In the 1890s, she was a novelty, the first female to join a long line of Tattooed Men. But soon, she was no longer unique. Irene Woodward appeared on the scene and won the attention of New York City. Not only was she more conventionally attractive than Nora, she was more driven and honest about her body art from the start. Indeed, Woodward is often regarded as the ‘original tattooed lady‘, since she was the first female to get herself inked purely as a career move.