Charles Eisenmann

1855-1927

American (New York, New York)

Charles “Chas” Eisenmann was the most notable and prolific producer of cabinet cards in Victorian-era New York City. From his Bowery studio, he produced some of the most well-known images of sideshow "freaks", sideshows and living museums in the area, as he capitalized on the Victorian fascination with them. In the late 1880s, his cartes-de-visite were wildly popular among the middle class, and have become huge collector items to this day. 

Eisenmann was born in Germany in 1850 and emigrated to the United States some time before 1870, settling in New York City. At an early age, Eisenmann established a photography studio in the Bowery. A lower class area that was the hub of popular entertainment, the Bowery was known for its cheap photographic galleries and dime museums. Here Eisenmann discovered his clientele. Dime museums were modeled on P.T. Barnum's American Museum on Broadway which exhibited various human "curiosities" as well as many unusual and questionable "scientific" exhibits. Similar in many respects to the circus sideshows, these museums featured human "freaks" who displayed their odd physiognomies and performed before gawking visitors. To help these performers market themselves, Eisenmann and his successor Frank Wendt supplied them with small photographs that they could sell or distribute to publicists. Precisely why Eisenmann was drawn to and focused on this peculiar clientele is not known, though there was evidently money to be made.

Among Eisenmann's subjects were the famous as well as obscure. They included the "father" of the sideshow, P. T. Barnum, and performers like General Tom Thumb, Jo Jo the Dog-faced Boy, the Wild Men of Borneo, Annie Jones the Bearded Lady, and the Skeleton Man. He also photographed Siamese twins, giants, dwarfs, armless and legless "wonders," albinos, tattoo artists, and even abnormal animals, such as two-headed cows. While many of these "freaks" were genuine, many were not, having been created out of the imagination and costuming talents of sideshow managers.

Eisenmann's career in New York began to decline around 1890, and in 1899 he relocated to Plainfield, New Jersey. Wendt joined Eisenmann during this period, at first becoming his business partner, and then son-in-law. Around this same time the warm-toned albumen print process began to disappear, and to be replaced by the cooler silver gelatin process. The change in process did not favor Eisenmann's techniques. Wendt furthermore lacked Eisenmann's technical skill, resulting in a noticeable drop in the quality of their output by the end of the century.