was tattooing as popular 100 years ago as now.....

[hawk]

Petri,

Sorry to take so long to reply, these holidays have me busy.

Anyhow, the "guest spot" reference is only a reference to how much people traversed all over with tattooing even before the turn of the 20th Century. Tattooers are separated into generations and all the generations were travelers, The first gen used riverboat, wagon and railroad and by the second gen it was the highway and railroad as there came a "Gateway to the West".

The St Louis route was common in the riverboat/railroad regards but the Roue 66 Highway changed not only the way tattooers traversed but also our customers and that set the movement of tattooers into motion, Rout 66 changed the St Luis action allot. It's so very crazy the way people got around back then and their method of transportation, just imagine how it had to be for Percy Waters to cross back and forth from Detroit Michigan to Anniston Alabama in a Model A sedan, no interstate and the Model A was faster than a horse but think of having it climb every mountain top and pour water on the brake hubs at the bottom from riding the brakes with your foot and all the mud puddles and weather in between, hell, imagine Hildabrant crossing back and forth across to the Northern Union Soldiers and the Southern Confederates during the Civil War, talk about "guest spots"!

Ace Harlan from North Carolina and Ralph Bayon from NYC went back and forth to Puerto Rico to tattoo when things got slow and they wanted to visit Family, they were both Puerto Rican and both were buried there eventually. Bill Jones was known to go down and visit Ace to hammer on things in the shed for their own study and creation of tattoo items such as Ace's flip lid tattoo tube, good people and good friends, artists not only in Flash and skin but artistry and innovation in iron, brass, bronze, stainless, etc..

Painless Jack Tryon ended up down South in Texas in later years and entertained many tattooers.

Allot of people wonder where unmarked and unsigned flash comes from and there was so many who copied and did their own renditions of the same pages, mixed them up in cutout form and produced whole new pages that some suspect to be their original idea's when they were actually very old, like the pages of flash can be read like the forward of tattooing's Family Bible due to the Family Circle of tattooers through those years of travel. Everybody did exchange as the traveled to add to anothers collection of "hot sellers" of designs.

To collect and study the change and evolution of the "battle royal", that lone design met allot of evolution by many, shading effects, toe sizes, image styles on all three creatures, some designed to be tattooed quickly and others more elaborate to prompt a bigger buck. The only anger one could stir with other tattooers is to sell to the shop around the corner that wasn't considered friendly and competition was tough between some and such an action of placing the money over the friendship could wind up getting the seller on a blacklist with others.

There was also allot of cross cultural art fusion long before Cliff Raven, Sailor Jerry and others with the Asian influence. For that you can see it in the 1900 flash when "The Mystic Orient" was very much in vogue and found to be mesmerizing to a Nation that few had a telephone or electric light and could only read about under lamp light the culture in the far East, just look at the satin pajama's Wagner wore when he sat for the photo with oriental outfit on while making it looked like he was tattooing, this is not to mention that the man behind the camera taking the photo was Percy Waters before he left Charlie's company in NYC to start his supply operation in Detroit. The Geisha Girl pattern is also very old and of the same period and was considered a "exotic/erotic" design for that era.

Truly a fantastic era, also an era that tattooers were free to dispense cocaine as a numbing agent for an extra fee, ha! Maybe that was how people achieved a body suit so quickly for the side show attractions I dunno.

Ted and Pearl Hamilton are fine examples for the traveling and tattooing show in a "circuit" form of the circus.

Owen Jensen and Paul Rogers were fine examples of those who made stops at shops and they had a long list of locations, some followed from East Coast to West to catch up with the sailors as if they were always in the same port as the sailors, ha! Walter Cleveland comes to mind when speaking of shop owners who constantly relocated to other cities in other States to stay alive and busy. Bert Grimm was a shop owner who kept the doors open with employees while he went on to other locations to visit and profit with friends when the shop wasn't busy enough for all who worked there, Burt proved you could be anchored at a shop location and move at the same time.

Tex Eddie Peace is a fine example of the shop magnate of his era owning and operating 3 shops in the Portsmouth VA area with August "Cap" Coleman working one in almost an exile from the ban in Norfolk VA and Tex still keeping the doors open at the shop in Augusta GA where Stoney StClaire visited and worked along with Huck Spaulding and visits from Percy Waters and others.

When the time came for some who needed to anchor themselves in a permanent location for one reason or another you could find them doing sideline sales from selling fish to photographs and some with part time jobs as it became difficult on some in the way of health to travel so much.

But in summery you can see how things were awesome in those days before the internet and how things haven't really changed so much other than the technology we use in communication and form of travel we use today. Sailor Sid used to love to set off the metal detectors off at airports years ago just to show them his junk, ha! Now it's a bit trivial when it happens.

Thanks for your interest Petri but to list every single event of the history would be a thick book, so I hope I helped paint the picture you asked for.

[gougetheeyes]

Hawk, come tell stories by the fire already. Seriously though, really enjoying reading your posts.. listing every event would certainly be a thick book, but I would read the shit outta that book.

[Petri Aspvik]

Holy shit hawk, THANK YOU! That was fucking amazing! Where the hell do you get this stuff!? Are you Chuck Eldridge? :D I want to be you when I grow up. Or know what you know. Because I always knew I dont know shit, but now it was proven! :D

[sonali321]

I liked too much this tattoo history. Thanks for it.

[hawk]

Holy shit hawk, THANK YOU! That was fucking amazing! Where the hell do you get this stuff!? Are you Chuck Eldridge? :D I want to be you when I grow up. Or know what you know. Because I always knew I dont know shit, but now it was proven! :D

Petri,

Glad you liked the read and I hope it answered some of your questions. Also, I'm in no way a comparison to C. W. Eldridge, He's the man! You will never find anyone more knowledgeable, or more importantly, impartial and neutral in needing an answer. The literature the Book Mistress provides is true treasure for us all, literally pennies on the hundred dollar bill for tattoo history and info.

The info people can find through good books is worthless if we people don't read them, I'm guilty myself, spent years trying to figure out something and all I had to do was read the book somebody told me to buy back when and I would have had the answer if I hadn't set it on the shelf just to brag of my library. This is to say that there is not much new under this Sun and reading instead of looking at them pictures will gain people tons of knowledge. C.W.Eldridge is a living encyclopedia of knowledge and I'm certain that he knows even more secrets of the personal lives than I do, there isn't much company that he hasn't kept and he listened to those people when they spoke and wasn't out for the handshake photo, not to mention all the shit he swam through in all his days. Example; I once believed that Bert Grimm's last machine for lineing that he was using when he passed was the heavy Jensen Special converted to a swing gate, Mr. Eldridge told me that it was one of the Jensen specials that were cast in aluminum for Bob Shaw, I asked "are you sure?" he replied "Yes, I held it in my hand", ha! That's what I call the strait dope on a matter some wouldn't pursue, I was under the illusion that Bert needed a heavy machine to keep that hand steady, I was wrong but thank gawd there was someone who knew the truth so that I couldn't go on telling others about what I believed at the time.

I have tried hard to convince some through the years about some of the points I have studied and found myself wasting my breath as some were too busy with making the quick dollar than to stop and dabble in what is still unknown to them, like how people stare down the machine and not the power supply, that's like having a mopar hemi and runnin cheap gas in it and wondering why it's not getting it's estimated MPG's, ha! I was there once myself and discovered that which led me to understand the way we act and carry on when I read what Mike Malone wrote about in how "we don't get the right receptors when we start out in understanding what is important and only gain them after time". I went years before I figured out that I could backdrill my contact screw and shove tungsten round stock into it, that tungsten will never wear out! Once set, I never have to adjust again until my points wear or I need to replace a spring, but why I couldn't figure out what would last a lifetime so late now in my life I attribute to not having the receptors for, only after fileing those contact screws for years did I figure out that I can have one for pennies that would never wear down and I wouldn't have to file. But then I didn't even have a copy machine for the first 25 years of my career.

Only when we get further down the road and have invested most of our adult life into what comes to be all that we know do we then start to dabble into what we never studied and discover things, and with every door you open there are two more and there is no end to study unless you give up altogether.

For instance, Ernie Sutton was tattooing long before he settled and anchored himself in CA, the early years were spent on the road and experiencing "life as a tattooist", then came the anchor time in CA and that opened the door of a partnership, that partnership then evolved to being known as a supply house, namely LATSCO. But what I can guarantee you is this, Ernie didn't care to chase anything down in his early years other than pussy and dollars in makin a livin and havin fun doing what he enjoyed. When the time came around his own approach in his work then became more serious, he came to study and look for improvement on what he did, he developed the receptors Rollo spoke of. Before the devolpmental receptors came to be, the generation before him had already figured it out, like Nick Melroy and his clipcord machine and before him Pop Liberty.

Allot went on in the those time frames, J.G.Russel elaborated on the tattoo machine and he was born in 1876! But it wasn't until his job as an electrician in a plant in Pittsburgh PA that he came to really get into casting frames and elaborating on things, what Russell came up with in one frame design was a solid machine that had such tight fitting tolerances that the contact binding post and the placement of the rear binding posts made for a solid machine that had very little flex to it, the kind that can be measured by simply squeezing the machine while it runs with your forefinger at the top of your upright and palm at the base of the frame where you can hear the flex of a machine in the sound, not much but still something and in the area that is neither mechanical or electrical of the elaborate door bell, ha!

My J.G.Russell machine is very solid and the need to ever change anything is not necessary in it's original condition, in other words, taken care of, the thing will run until you need to replace a spring or shim and a set of coils done correctly and a well made frame should last at least one lifetime if not several.

It's not guesswork to know that the studied contribute and to study those contributors we might just contribute something ourselves to this trade and none of us will ever know all the shit.

[Petri Aspvik]

THanks again! My own blog is my humble way of trying to do at least a fraction of the stuff guys like you and Chuck (and Harriet in Bookmistress, great place, I need more money) are doing.

[shaneenholm]

To throw in my two cents which is worth about half that these days... i do not think they called them guest spots.....guys just worked at various spots...If they got as letter saying it was good in norfolk..off they would go..the truth is during the circuses many tattooers opened shops on the off season....Closed them again when the circus started...Erik inksmith was telling me that paul rogers had regular customers that would wait for him every year....when he worked the circus...

However later trying to track the pike is insane...there were so many shops..there were shops on stair landings and then there were guys with the same name. Brooklyn blackie...the newyork one or the frisco one....

Another tidbit i picked up visiting with him last week was that paul said he never felt the depression...at all!!!!! But he was working at colemans and they had the sailors...Now what i know about wagner is the depression devastated him....so it is a pretty wide spectrum....even then....I have had many conversations with many tattooers about how it (history) turns into a big game of" telephone" you know sit in a circle whisper something to the person next to you and around the circle it goes coming back totally different than when it began.They call ti chinese whispers in england...if that helps...

I have a great letter owen jensen wrote paul rogers right before he died that he kinda runs down how he ended up where he ended up. That guy tattooed everywhere with everyone. It is a 18 page letter written about 3 months before he died and There are alot of references to the fleet being in or the fleet being out eastern and western....How he would open in san pedro while the fleet was in and then take off and leave the shop to Charlie barrs...only to come back after a stint with grimshaw and coleman and on and on..hopw he was Barbers machinist before becoming his own machinist....etc....That letter was the real eye opener to me about how a tattooer ended up everywhere...we see jensen flash from all over the U S

I never knew percy waters traversed from Detroit to anniston. wow...I thought he got in trouble for tattooing the mayors kid in anniston so he took off to NYC and the center of non-gypsy tattooing(for want of a better description) i do know that when he and wagner were at odds bill jones hipped percy to the machine shop that was for sale in Detroit and that is how he ended up there...only when he got real sick did he get back to alabama and then die..But it would not surprise me if he did travel back and forth.....Thanks for sharing that with us....

.But the beautiful thing about tattoo history there are pockets of info here and there and reading hawks post fills some of the gaps again Thanks for sharing Hawk..

Why history is so lost and i have probably stated this many times in the mags or forums or in many late night conversations with others that it was kinda the shame of the family if you were a tattooer...i have heard that from many people..why they changed names...etc....so why would it get documented....and also noone was really thinking how significant these events would be to us later.Tattooers in general( if you could generalize them) are kinda obsessive so that trait helps us in tracking a history that is so word of mouth.

another thing i see that happens is like when karen started tattooing it was colonel todds nephew that broke her in...(you can trace alot of us to Shaw and todd i talk about that with bob roberts in the tam i did with him) but at the time she was broke in they handed her a couple machines that were around the shop....well one of them was bob shaws shader9she still uses it today everytattoo)so at the time it was just another machine around the shop....now it is more...how many times i think about the buckets of waters and jonesy and jensens etc that were sitting around when huck started selling lite weights with quick change vices....well now...also the acetates...file cabinets full that noone wanted because the smelled like vomit....when i got some of owens stuff thru the death of Bill mokry(some of you may remember him..he slept on the national convention floor had a body suit from leeroy and jensen got a bunch of blue added and i guess later [people were calling him papa smurf)well that guys brother brought me his stuff...at bills request....later i found out they had thrown four trashbags of acetates and flash out!!!!! you know families and landlords think the stuff is worthless so out the door it goes...and it was worthless then....in ways..i know that sounds like blasphemy but not really to someone who aint into it....

It can become overwhelming....merry christmas

[hambone]

i have been dabbling in doing some reserch in my area of the woods for a few years..atoria was from a town about 30 north of where i am..spokane washington..she lived in colville(this has been reserched by others and posted on many pages already) ...as soon as things settle down a bit with my shop i want to dive further into this..red gibbons worked here in spokane at an arcade which i'm pretty sure i have the adress for somewhere...i need to hit up the library and records department for all the business in spokane...this stuff is so fascinating once you actually get into it...especially in towns that are not meccas for tattooing per say.thanks shane for the post...guys like you are whats keeping this alive for my generation

[hawk]

Percy left Detroit in 1939 and went back to Anniston. I have a nice photo that was sent to me of Waters standing beside his auto with his Daughter and another little girl about the same age (around five years of age), she was his Daughters playmate, namely "Betty" and she is still alive and provided that photo to a friend of mine who sent it on to me. Mud on the tires and all, I suspect he probably traveled back and forth like most anybody who's Family has a "Home Town", I'm sure exile from Anniston couldn't keep him from showing up for Christmas and I don't know how long the "thrown out" or "ran off" story has ran or even where it came from, seems nobody has anything written other than re spoken tales in print by people who heard the tale like the "telephone game" you speak of. I have heard lots of things like he was blind when he died but I can't prove or deny such without the hard facts.

The fact remains that Percy went back and kept going on with the supply business until he passed in '52, he bought up Frisco Bill Moore's molds in 1944 as he could see a demand for the equipment coming due to the War and could have more molds to pour when he needed them and for the most part they were very similar copies of what Percy made as Frisco started his supply business in the 30's when Percy was doing well already in Detroit, so if you find a Frisco Bill machine frame with Percy Waters coils and the thing is chrome plated and a bronze composition, that was Percy's doing after Bill passed away.

Thanks for the info on the Jensen letter, a real treasure and all the more reason to visit such a grave site and pay my respects. Jensen was certainly a "rounder" in his day with lots of locations to his credit. I have a letter from Jensen that states when Bert arrived to look over CA and bought some property and what Barr's was doing and how much he was tattooing at that time, even provides more info as to how Dottie had passed that year, how old Owen Jr. was and how Wagner and Waters had passed in the months before, all in a two page letter and very informative. There is allot of info out there if people take the time to dig, like who Owen's first Wife was and where she is buried, I'm certain that people care it's just very time consuming and somewhat trivial to others. Thanks for sharing Shane!

[hambone]

and thank you hawk..my previous post was before i read yours..wow...great stuff!

[shaneenholm]

no hawk thank you...I always wondered why the bill moore machine frames at some point were identified as waters....the same as all the first swinggates(the actual Bob Shaw model not modified jonesys etc)were all waters #2 with dual binders grinded off and rechromed....we were never sure if they used old frames or bought surpluses either from waters family or maybe Zies....

thanks I have alot stuff on jensen but he did not mention his first wife in any of it...but didnt i see apic of them together maybe on here. But I do know that Owen jr. was the center of his dads life and he had bought hima brand new camaro and owen jr. wrapped it a round a telephone pole and died. Jensen was never the same. That is all word of mouth but jensen had only been gone less than 10 years when i turned up.My father collects civil war guns and I was kinda innately drawn to history...any not just tattoo....

When Bob was working down on the pike he would see jensen in the shop and one time he went in there and the old man yelled at him '"I dont Know why those guys are sending a young guy like you in here to spy on me..." I always got a kick ot of that story....Maybe it is because thoughts of bob as a young man, areal young man makes me laugh...it is so easy to see as he still has that childlike spark ..................

again thanks for the posts hawk

[Lochlan]

If you enjoyed this tattoo history here are some other ones LSTers have written:

Swinggates and The Pike

Dan Higgs

Tattoo books

Old Tattoo Pictures

Chicago Tattooing History

Spaulding and Rogers

222 Tattoo

Scottish Tattoo History

Tattoos Today and Research

[Lochlan]

Here are some other japanese tattoo related post for those who haven't seen them:

Japanese tattoo politics

Full Back Piece Tattoos

Tattoo Artist that Sign Their Work

Let's talk about our travels and vacations

Japanese Style Tattoo Artists in CT

Koi Fish, Japanese Style Tattooers in the UK

Tattoos for Guys

Horitaka's State of Grace Bay Area Convention 2010

Tattooed Traveler Top Five Destinations?

[Deb Yarian]

Good thread Shane!

So interesting.

It's interesting the information we gather based on the area we started or come up in.

I mean there's tattoo history --- but then the regional history.

East coast, west coast, Midwest ,south.

[HettyKet]

Another great thread I don't know how I didn't find before. Brilliant, thanks to all who've posted but especially @shaneenholm, of course.

I'm just at the very, very start of working towards a suit inspired largely by the work of Charlie Wagner and George Burchett. Had had absolutely no idea that Charlie Wagner worked totally freehand!

[HettyKet]

My two main references:

Jean Furella Carroll - Charlie Wagner

Edith Burchett - wife of George Burchett

(Oh, was trying to add these to the end of my previous post - sorry about that!)

[temporarytattoo]

100 years back tattooing was popular only but the only thing is that it didn't have the latest technology as it have now.