Tattooed by O’Reilly: The First Electrically Tattooed Attractions
Researched & Written by Carmen Forquer Nyssen
In researching tattoo history, one of my most exciting (and previously undocumented) discoveries was that New York Bowery tattoo artist Samuel F. O’Reilly electrically tattooed several attractions for exhibition prior to obtaining the first electric tattoo machine patent on December 8, 1891. When I published my Early Tinkerers of Electric Tattooing essay, about his experimentation with various pre-patent tattooing devices (dental pluggers, Edison stencil pens, and so on), I mentioned these first electrically tattooed men by name. However, since the article was focused on tattoo machines, I didn’t illustrate their history in much detail. But a complementary article is in order.
So now, without further delay, I introduce to you an overview of three of Sam O’Reilly’s extraordinary pre-patent attractions tattooed by the electric process.
Step right up folks! And marvel at the magnificent, first electrically tattooed wonders: Tom Sidonia, George Karlavagn, and George Mellivan.
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Tom Sidonia (1869-1954)
Quite likely the first of O’Reilly’s creations tattooed with an electric machine was twenty-year-old Novia Scotia native Tom Sidonia, who worked as a harness stitcher in Boston. According to an August 13, 1950 Richmond Times Dispatch interview, Sidonia had gone to New York for a short vacation when he decided to undergo the tattooing process. Once completed, his beautiful and groundbreaking tattoo work—consisting of stunning designs such as George Washington on his right leg, the Crucifixion of Christ on his left leg, St. George and the Dragon on his back, and the battle of the Alabama and Kearsage on his front side—made him an instant sensation on the dime show scene.
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As Sidonia told the Richmond Times Dispatch reporter, “Before it was finished, I had an engagement showing myself in Boston at Austin and Stone Museum.” Late 1889 and early 1890 ads, in the Boston Herald, confirm that the young, 5 ft. 3 in., Sidonia was a popular addition to the well-known Boston venue in Scollay Square, and several others. This was two full years before O’Reilly was granted his tattoo machine patent!!!
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Tom Sidonia Dime Museum Billings, alongside the earlier hand-tattooed attractions:
1889 Dec 31: Assembly of high class tattooed marvels, Austin & Stone’s: “The man tattooed by electricity was especially attractive to the crowds.”
1890 Jan: Austin & Stone’s Museum: “The Twelve Marvels of Tattoo-Registered for only six days longer-Nora Hildebrandt, Fred Hildebrandt, Bertha Cardentinus, Seidaunia, May Brooks, W.H. Brooks, Capt. Frank Thornton, Maude Thornton, Egbert Baum (Wesley Baum), Lulu Baum, Capt. Frank Howard (real name Franklin Howard Packard), Annie Howard (real name Annie Jane D. Morrison).”
1890 Jan 2: Austin & Stone’s Museum: “And the most world-renowned boy SIDONIA. The only living being ever tattooed by electricity.”
1891 Jan 13: Pilling’s World Museum: “Sidonia, the 1st man to be tattooed by electricity“
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George Karlavagn (Real name George Kelly) (1868-1951)
The story of how Pennsylvania-born George Karlavagn encountered O’Reilly and offered himself as an experimental subject for electric tattooing has been lost to history. It’s just as unclear when exactly he was tattooed. But dime museum and sideshow advertisements indicate it was at least a year before O’Reilly obtained his patent.
According to a Boston Herald ad, by November of 1890, Karlavagn, like Sidonia, had been invited to perform on stage at Boston’s Austin & Stone’s Museum. Even though his predecessor had already earned the title the year before, he was billed as the only person tattooed by electricity, and impressed audiences with the three evocative words signed in “filigree” on his lower back, “Tattooed by O’Reilly.”
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By the looks of Tom Sidonia and George Karlavagn, it appears that O’Reilly shrewdly handpicked young, handsome models for his first electrically tattooed attractions. What better way to draw in crowds and advertise his innovative tattoo work!
In fact, one wonders if O’Reilly had a plan in mind when he introduced his wonderful, electrically tattooed creations so soon before his patent was in place. Revealing his revolutionary new method, if his goal was indeed to patent it, would have been risky, whether or not he was the only one experimenting with tattoo machines. But perhaps, even if he was in competition with others, he was so far ahead of the game that he wasn’t worried about usurpers catching up to him and stealing his ideas.
One thing is certain. O’Reilly was an astute practitioner, showman, and businessman. While it it’s unknown if he initially intended to patent an electric machine, the presentation of these first electrically tattooed attractions, with their good looks and exceptionally well-executed tattoo designs, was an ingenious tactic. It not only proved his mastery of electric tattooing, but also the worth of his inventions.
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George Mellivan (Real name Gustave Hermann) (1856-1919)
Albert Parry, in his 1933 book Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange Art, asserts that George Mellivan was tattooed by Sam O’Reilly. A pre-1904 cabinet card photo of Mellivan archived in the Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology collection also notes (on the backside) that he was tattooed by O’Reilly with the electric method.
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As with Karlavagn, Mellivan’s tale of becoming an electrically tattooed man is somewhat elusive. Unfortunately, his name was often misspelled in newspaper ads, making it difficult to track his early history and travels on the dime show circuit. The earliest record I’ve come across naming him as a tattooed attraction is a December 6, 1891 Austin & Stone’s advertisement in the Boston Herald, printed two days before O’Reilly was officially granted his electric tattoo machine patent. While this particular snippet doesn’t specify that Mellivan was an electrically tattooed man, writings soon after describe him as such.
An October 8, 1893 Pittsburgh Press dime museum pitch, introduces him as “…Mellivan, the human, living, walking art gallery, the only man in the world tattooed by the scientific process (Thomas Edison), the finest and most artistically tattooed man in the world…”
An 1894 medical journal, Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (Vol 1), discussing the now “rapidly done” tattooing with an Edison pen, refers to both Tom Sidonia and George Mellivan:
“A Nova Scotian [Sidonia], tattooed from head to foot, has among other designs that of ” St. George and the Dragon” on his back; while a Texas ranchman [Mellivan], six feet two inches tall, underwent the torture of eight weeks’ profanation of his body in order to appear blue, brown, and red, with an irreverent imagine on his back of the Immaculate Conception and thirty-one angels.”
It’s difficult to say which of his early machines O’Reilly employed to tattoo Sidonia and Karlavagn—his early dental plugger tattoo machines or another type—but Mellivan was inked with some version of a tattoo machine adapted from an Edison pen. The question is was it O’Reilly’s patent model or another rendering?
Whatever the case, Mellivan was a fitting canvas for O’Reilly’s modernized, skillful art. Although he was a bit older and perhaps not as attractive as his cohorts, he made an equally striking subject given his tall stature.
As a point of interest, George Mellivan’s stage name, his surname, was probably borrowed from the brand of late 1800s sewing needles, often used in making hand tattooing implements.
(Note: Both George Mellivan’s stage name and birth name, Gustav Hermann, are documented on his Florida death certificate, file #11012).
Electric Tattooing Pioneers
Tom Sidonia, George Karlavagn, and George Mellivan probably weren’t the only attractions Sam O’Reilly (or others) tattooed by electricity before the first electric tattoo machine patent was registered. Yet they were among O’Reilly’s top masterpieces and their introduction to the dime show circuit inspired a new era of tattooing.
Despite the exceptional tattoo work done on the three men, they didn’t immediately displace attractions tattooed by the “old method.” Instead, clever dime museum managers, who had already begun capitalizing on the abundance of tattooed attractions in the late 1880s by exhibiting them together as a “congress of tattooed people” or “galaxy of tattooed people,” incorporated electrically tattooed men into the act to add a whole other level of awe.
Aside from the wonderment of the display, the visual contrast between the old and new tattooing methods effectively advertised the attributes of electric tattooing to a wider audience. Additionally, as part of these acts, many of the tattooed attractions, including Karlavagn and Mellivan, took up tattooing with electric machines and wowed show-goers by tattooing people on stage. The sensational publicity of an already revolutionary innovation invited a slew of newcomers into tattooing. The best of them became the generation of tattooers who carried the craft into a modern age and cemented O’Reilly’s pioneering legacy.
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Galaxy of Tattooed People on the 1800s Dime Museum Circuit
Including Samuel O’Reilly’s brother John O’Reilly, who was at least partly tattooed by electricity. See my research at: John O’Reilly: Tattooed Irishman.
1886 Feb 20 New York Clipper pg. 774:
Pittsburgh-Chalet Museum -The tattooed convention is the feature to the curio hall this week, the wearers of the [?] colored skins are Capt. Mors Chignon, [two unreadable names], Mille and Mors Hildebrand, Frank De Burg and Captain Frank Hadley (Fred Hadley).
1888 Dec 26 Boston Journal pg. 12:
Austin & Stone’s-Tattooed Australians: “The Frasers, Count Daroff, Frank and Annie Howard, Wesley Baum, Nora Hildebrandt, Lillian Marco, Mary Brooks, Capt. McIntosh, Frank [?], Harry DeCoursy, [?]”
America’s First Tattooed Convention
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1889 Mar 2 New York Clipper pg. 813:
Kohl, Middleton & Co-Curio Hall: “Ball and reception of tattoed [sic] people, including Frank and Annie [sic], Nora Hildebrandt, Capt. DeCoursey, John O’Reilly, Wesley Baum, Ida List, Frank Thornton, Donald McIntosh, Lule Woodson, Mary Brooks, Miss Frazer, Capt. Cassadoria, Lillian Marco, and Wm. Brooks, who is undergoing the operation of being tattoed [sic].”
1889 Mar 9 New York Clipper pg. 837:
“The following tattooed people are in attendance at the first tattooed convention and reception, now being held at Kohl Middleton & Co.’s Museum, Minneapolis, Minn.: Frank Howard, Annie Howard, Nora Hildebrandt, Capt. DeCoursey, Lulu Woodson, Wesley Baum, Donald Mcintosh, Lillian Marco, Frank Thornton, Ida List, Mary Brooks, Capt. Cassanodria, Lizzie Frazer and Wm. Brooks”
1890 Dec 27 New York Clipper pg. 653:
Boston-Austin & Stone’s Museum: “There are also to be seen in the lecture hall a dozen of human beings whose bodies are completely covered with tattooing in the highest style of art, six males and six females, viz: May Brooks, Nettie Baum, Madeline, Blanche Seymour, Stella Worth, Mlle Cassinora, Will Brooks, Sidonia, Harry Baum (Wesley St. Clair Baum), Prof. [John] Riley, Sig Cassinora, and George Millivan [sic].”
For further context see:
Ever-Evolving Tattoo Machines article by Carmen Forquer Nyssen in TTT: Tattoo. Includes timeline and my research on the first electrically tattooed attractions and early electric tattoo machines.
For the momentous historical dynamics that led up to the commencement of electrical tattooing and its role in solidifying what became the tattoo trade, see my original research at the following Buzzworthy Tattoo History features. They highlight a menagerie of societal facets, including but not exclusively, the merging of sailor culture, circuses, dime museums, inventions, photographers, early New York gangs, saloons, and more!
Make sure to also follow the links listed within these articles for more of my pertinent research.
Barnum and Bunnell’s Tattooed Humbugs: Manifesting a Tattoo Trade
A Tattooed Affair: Earliest Tattooed Attractions
Saloon Tattoo Shops of New York City’s 4th Ward
Birth of the Tattoo Trade: New York Bowery
Published on: April 1, 2017 @ 16:42:43
Questions or Comments? Email:
carmennyssen@buzzworthytattoo.com
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