Book review in the NY Times for “Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo" by Margot Mifflin: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/books/bodies-of-subversion-explores-womens-tattoos.html?smid=pl-share
Above: Tattoo by Stephanie Tames
Below: Tattoo by Saira Hunjan
Excerpt from the review:
“Bodies of Subversion” is delicious social history. Tattooing was an upper-class social fad in Europe in the late 19th century. Winston Churchill’s mother had a tattoo of a snake eating its tail (the symbol of eternity) on her wrist. The fad spread to America. In 1897, Ms. Mifflin writes, The New York World estimated that 75 percent of American society women were tattooed, usually in places easily covered by clothing.
By the 1920s, tattooed women were mostly to be seen in freak shows and in circus acts, where they could make more money than tattooed men. They offered, the author avers, “a peep show within a freak show.”
Tattoos lost their appeal for nearly everyone shortly after World War II. One reason was because “tattoos perpetrated in concentration camps had added a ghastly new chapter to tattoo history.”
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