This is a photograph of Maud Wagner in 1907, who was allegedly the first known female tattooist in the United States.

Maud Stevens Wagner was born in 1877, in Lyon County, Kansas. Wagner worked as an American circus performer, where she performed as an aerialist and contortionist. She frequently worked for numerous traveling circuses, which is where she met her future husband, Gus Wagner. Gus was a tattoo artist himself, to which he described himself as “the most artistically marked up man in America.”

Wagner exchanged a date with Gus for a lesson in tattooing, which was where her love and admiration for tattoos skyrocketed. They were married several years later, and had a daughter together, Lovetta, who also became intrigued with the idea of tattooing and started at the age of 9. Wagner became an apprentice under her husband and started learning how to give the traditional ‘stick and poke’ tattoos — regardless of the tattoo machine already being invented during this time. – Maud and Gus Wagner were two of the last tattoo artists in the United States who would tattoo by hand, instead of using the already established tattoo machine. This gave Wagner the title of the first known female tattoo artist in the U.S. Wagner left the circus and traveled around America with her husband, where they both worked as tattoo artists; being credited for bringing this practice to the inland of the U.S.