Mother of Modern Tattooing
This weeks’ featured woman in history is Mildred Hull, the mother of modern tattooing. Flash Day is next weds 3/26 and don’t forget about the New England Tattoo Fest that Caroline and Casey will be attending at Mohegan Sun. Also, Spring has sprung! Time to ditch your winter skin care routine and start your spring skin care routine!
“No, it isn’t a handicap to be a woman in the tattooing business.” - MH
New York City, The Bowery, the intersection of Bowery, Chatham Square, and Division Street in the early 20th century. What would later become New York’s Chinatown was the birthplace of modern tattooing. At the time, the Bowery was home to a whole host of influential artists, who we now know as the founding fathers of the tattoo community, but for Women’s History month, we are going to discuss the mother of modern tattooing.
Born on April 23, 1897 in New York, Millie, as she was known to her friends, begins her story, “Ushered into the world 37 years ago on April 23, on a tough, tenement-choked Hamilton Street, not far from my present establishment, I was a sturdy little urchin from the word go. School never made a hit with me. After attending Transfiguration R. C. Parochial School and Public School 117, I quit cold at the age of 13. I don’t think the authorities shed many tears. They saw very little of me anyway. My resignation made my absence official.”
Millie found work as a burlesque dancer, but soon found out that she could make more money in the circus. She goes on to explain, “The operator of the tattoo parlor saw an opportunity to bleed me dry financially. I had a few weak spells as a result of the tattooing, but mainly I suffered anemia of the bankroll. The sideshow tout told me I was a sap to be like the other girls. Why, if I’d get tattooed all over I could make $80 a week with the circus, and that would be only the start. The figures made me a trifle dizzy.”
She was completely tattooed with a month by the legendary Charlie Wagner. She described the experience like this.
“They started with my arms. Two more treatments disposed of my legs as low as my instep. Spaced by days, there followed two applications on my thighs, the operation feeling like a mild burn as long as the needles made contact with my flesh. Then there were four more treatments, delicate, painstaking, on my sides and back. And finally color ran riot on my chest. Was I embarrassed to have these men treat my body? What does a woman do when she visits a doctor?”
In the late 1930s, after studying under Charlie Wagner himself, Millie opened her own shop in the Bowery. Her Tattoo Emporium was located at #16 Bowery in the back of a barbershop. It is rumored that tattooing was banned in NYC during that time which could be the reason most tattoo artists set up shop in tiny locations such as a back corner inside other businesses, under stairways and even in horse drawn carriages. The barber shop where Millie worked was a clean space with a male clientele, the perfect spot for the only woman tattooist in the city.
She became known as the Queen of the Bowery and obviously pushed the boundaries of acceptable female behavior. It is said that she was a member of the infamous Butterfly Club, a group of women (usually prostitutes) that had a butterfly tattoo on their vulva as a symbol of sexual liberation. Knowing the modesty of the times there is no proof, photographic or otherwise to confirm that this club even existed. Other influential and inspiring accomplishments were the mere facts that not only was she a self sufficient, employed woman, she was a talented business owner who ran a very successful business for over 25 years in a tough part of town that catered to the depravity of soldiers and sailors.
This makes her next achievement all the more impressive. In 1936, she was featured on the cover of Family Circle. This was a magazine that provided tips to help the modern housewife to run the home efficiently. In an age where almost all women were housewives, Millie’s fully tattooed body was proudly displayed for the masses, extolling the unprecedented determination to blaze a trail for other women tattooists and for women in general to break down gender barriers in other industries.
https://www.instagram.com/bradfink/reel/CwQj5ldB1NS/
Unfortunately, of all her incredible successes, Millie lost her lifelong battle with depression. She committed suicide by poison in a Bowery restaurant in 1947.
"MILLIE, TATTOO LADY" IS FOUND DEAD HERE.
New York Times, Aug. 16, 1946
A woman said by the police and by former associates to have been known to countless seafaring men the world over as "Millie Hull the Tattoo Lady" was found dead yesterday in a rest room in the Gladworth Company, Inc., restaurant at 199 Worth Street. Her entire body, with the exception of her face and hands, was covered with Tattooing.
Proprietors of tattooing establishments on the Bowery said "Millie" had been known to them as for a long period as an expert in the tattooing "art," and had worked in a number of tattooing places. Sailors for whom she had wrought designs in the past sought her out when they desired additional tattooing, they said. Occasionally she took summer vacations to work in sideshows.
No one questioned by the police, however, appeared to know any other details about "Millie." On her person was found a savings bank book bearing the name Mildred Lee, but no address, and showing $135 on deposit.
When found lying on the rest room floor by Carmine Cerone, the restaurant manager, "Millie" was wearing a yellow blouse, blue slacks, blue bobby sox and brown and white sport shoes. Beside her, the police said, was a bottle of pills.
The police declared that she had been ill and apparently had died of natural causes. She was believed to be about 50 years old.
https://www.nyctattooshop.com/mildred-hull-new-yorks-first-female-tattoo-artist/
https://www.tattooarchive.com/history/hull_mildred.php
https://www.widowtattoo.com/blog/tattoo-pioneers-mildred-millie-hull
