Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

18 Introduction
Prompted by the overt distaste expressed by members of the
American elite. media stories of venereal diseases contracted in
unhygenic tattoo establishments. and the increased popularity of
tattooing within socially marginal subcultures. tattooing fell into
disrepute in the United States by the 1920s. Additionally. it came
to be seen as a deviant practice because heavily tattooed men and
women were commonly exhibited as curiosities in circuses and
sideshows. P. T. Barnam displayed tattooed dwarfs. tattooed wrestlers.
tattooed ladies. and entire tattooed families (most notably
Frank and Annie Howard). The Depression spurred this definition
of the tattooed-person-as-freak as unemployed men and women
became heavily tattooed in order to find some means of earning a
liVing (Parry. 1971 (1933): 58-78; Fried and Fried. 1978: 159-165;
Eldridge. 1981).
The Thttoo Renaissance • Since the mid-nineteenth century
western tattooing was practiced entirely outSide the institutional
constraints of a professional art world. Tattoo images tended to be
relatively crude and highly conventionalized with death symbols
(skulls. grim reapers, and so forth). certain animals (especially
panthers. eagles. and snakes). pinup styled women. and military
designs predominant. The traditional clientele consisted of young
men from working-class backgrounds who tended to acqUire a
number of small. unrelated. badge-like designs with little thought
to continuity of body placement (Rubin. 1983; Fried and Fried.
1978: 158-169; Fellowes. 1971). Practitioners were commonly
from the same social background as their clients. unassociated
with the larger art world and primarily motivated by economic
gain. The basic skills involved in the tattoo craft were typically
acqUired through apprenticeship with established tattooists and
the dominant occupational values emphasized technical skill
rather than aesthetic qualities.
By the mid-twentieth century, tattooing was firmly established
as a definedly deViant practice in the public mind. Despite the
short-lived flirtation of European and American elites with tattooing.
members of the middle class saw it as a decorative cultural
product dispensed by largely unskilled and unhygienic practitioners
from dingy shops in urban slums. Tattoo consumers. in turn.