Surprising Story Of The Bearded Woman

When P.T. Burnum debuted his bearded lady attraction at his sideshow, he wanted people to think it was a fraud. The 19th century circus entrepreneur believed that if people called him out and said that the bearded lady was a scam, it would cause a controversy that would sell more tickets once it was revealed she was indeed a woman with a beard. But when people met her, he got a surprising reaction. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian (The Point) hosts of The Young Turks discuss.

Were you surprised by people reaction to the bearded lady in the 1850s? Let us know in the comments below.

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“The “bearded lady” is a cliché—a staple of a carnival freak show, a sideshow, a Ryan Murphy show. But despite her success as a cultural meme, the original bearded lady elicited little more than a shrug.

Peering into the daguerreotype glean of a 19th-century Swiss woman’s portrait, it’s easy to see a man in a dress. But the woman in the photo, Madame Josephine Clofullia, was viewed much differently by her contemporaries. The bearded-lady gag, of course, relies on audiences to be astonished by contradiction: A woman with a beard? Impossible! It must be a man. But as she toured America in the 1850s, Clofullia’s audiences saw a mere curiosity, not the crime against gender that was billed. Only rarely, in fact, did they claim that Madam Clofullia’s beard compromised her womanhood or made her look “like a man.” Instead, they praised her elegance and touted her respectability. Her beard, in short, was largely irrelevant to her status as a woman. As a sideshow, she bombed.”