So here is one of the many interesting little want ads from my old favorite, the New York Clipper, from April 1884.
The Circassian Lady would be someone who looks vaguely exotic and has long gorgeous hair - here is a post from last year about Circassian hair preparations and the ladies who used them. As for the Electric Lady, perhaps she was wearing one of these corsets.According to The Circus In America, the Washburn and Hunting Circus was only in existence in the year 1884, so perhaps they had trouble filling jobs such as these. Leon Washburn did go on to put together other short-lived circuses, though (Washburn and Arlington 1891-2, and Washburn and D'Alma, 1905-6).
8 comments:
The Circassian Lady sounds like she is from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation!
Great Ad. I enjoyed reading about
the Circassian hair preparations. Thanks for my daily dose of the strange and interesting!
Maureen
Looking4Ancestors - She does, doesn't she? :)
Maureen - It is fun, as is your blog too - I am really enjoying it!
Would Rapunzel have qualified as Circassian Lady, or did she look too occidental?
oh the Circassian women were always beautiful (I think). But it is sad that the catalogs always made them out to be these savage women.
Bearded Lady- They were really lovely, mostly; and the hair preps prove that people wanted that kind of gorgeous hair, too (the men also, I found)
Bill - I think she would have had to dye her hair brown and say she was from Turkey, which is what a lot of them did.
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