Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

17 Introduction
pain and necessitated far less skill and experience on the part of
the tattooist. Consequently, the number of tattoo practitioners
and clients increased dramatically during this period.
In 1876 Thomas Alva Edison patented an electric stencil pen device
for making punctures on paper patterns used in sign painting
and embroidery. Fifteen years later O'Reilly received the first
American patent for an electromagnetic tattoo machine (which he
called the "tattaugraph") which was, with only minor modifications,
adapted from the Edison design. In 1904 Charlie Wagner
was awarded a patent for a significantly improved tattoo machine
with two electromagnetic coils set transversely to the tube and
needle assembly rather than the rotating coil design of the
O'Reilly instrument. The basic tattoo eqUipment used by contemporary
tattooists has changed little since then (Eldridge, 1982;
Fried and Fried, 1978: 159-166).
O'Reilly's colleague Lew Alberts, who was originally a wallpaper
designer, became a prolific creator of tattoo patterns. His work is
of particular importance to the course of western tattooing because
he reproduced sheets of his designs and sold them to fellow
tattooists. A large percentage of the highly conventionalized tattoo
designs found on the wall "flash" of contemporary tattoo shops
originated in the design charts created by "Lew-the-Jew" in the
late nineteenth century (Fried and Fried, 1978: 166; Levy et aI.,
1979: 856).
Early in the twentieth century tattooing began to loose favor
among the American elite and increasingly came to be seen as the
vulgar affectation of the unsavory types who frequented the Bowery
and similarly disreputable urban areas. Ward McAllister, a
member of New York's Four Hundred, expressed the typical upperclass
viewpoint when he stated to the press that tattooing was:
certainly the most vulgar and barbarous habit the eccentric
mind of fashion ever invented. It may do for an illiterate
seaman, but hardly for an aristocrat. Society men in England
were the victims of circumstances when the Prince of Wales
had his body tattooed. Like a flock of sheep driven by their
master, they had to follow suit (quoted in Parry, 1971 [19331:
102).