Nineteenth Century Images of Albinism

albinos! albinos!

People born with the genetic condition albinism i.e. a deficiency of the skin, hair and eye pigment melanin, have been the subjects of public curiosity over the centuries. They have been purported to have all sorts of supernatural powers such as mind reading and they were at times even suspected of witchcraft. Entrapeneurs such as Phineas Barnum employed "albinos" to appear in his American Museum and as part of his travelling sideshow, such as the Lucasie family from Holland and the Martin sisters. Photographic images of albinos (and others with physical anomalies) were widely marketed during the nineteenth century and photographers who specialised in this genre were the studios of Charles Eisenmann of New York and Obermuller & Son also of New York. Matthew Brady, the famous civil war photographer had a studio opposite Barnum's Broadway museum and he photographed many of the "acts" which worked there. Brady's photographs were marketed by E. A. Anthony. The phenomen of trading in images of unusual people seemed much more common in America than elsewhere in the world and examples of photographs of albinos who publically exhibited themselves from other countries are exceedingly rare. This site shows a variety of American images which date from the 1870s - 1890s.






Nineteenth Century Images of Albinism