Maud Stevens Wagner, a circus performer and tattoo artist, is buried at Homestead Cemetery in Chase County, Kansas. She is immortalized on her gravestone as America’s First Lady Tattooer.
Much attention has been given to Maud, mostly due to this iconic photo of her taken in Los Angeles in 1907. It is preserved at the Library of Congress thanks to her husband and tattoo artist, Gus Wagner, who is believed to have provided it to them.
Maud is believed to have met Gus Wagner when she was performing as an aerialist (or acrobat or contortionist) in the circus. Gus promoted himself as a globe trotter and “the most artistically marked-up man in America,” having received over 900 tattoos across the world from his travels that covered most of his body.
It was Gus who gave Maud her first tattoo: a military insignia from the Civil War as tribute to her father. Maud agreed to marry Gus if he would teach her how to tattoo. Gus was known for being the “last of the hand tattoo artists,” but this photo of him giving Maud her first tattoo (believed to be in 1903 or 1904) captures him using an electric machine, not hand tools.
Within a few years of her first tattoo, Maud was covered from neck to toes. She was not the first tattooed lady, but the photo of her baring her shoulders and looking defiantly toward the photographer was widely distributed. Gus used her image for marketing their tattoo business, making her one of the most well-known tattooed ladies of the time.
Maud and Gus probably met in 1903 or 1904, around the time he first tattooed her. Most resources say they met at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904, the same year they reportedly married, but at least one photo of them has been dated to 1903.
No marriage certificate or proof of their marriage has ever been found, but October 3, 1904 is generally agreed to have been the day Maud and Gus were married. However, the 1905 Kansas census shows 28-year-old Maud Stevens living at home with her family, not with Gus.
Maud is often treated as just a footnote in the story of Gus, sometimes nothing more than “the wife of” a successful man. But make no mistake: Maud is the story.
Despite Maud’s wide reach and all of the photos we now have access to of her, surprisingly little is known about her. Aside from a precious few historical records, photos and clippings from her husband’s scrapbook, and some questionable and unverifiable lore, we don’t have much documentation about her life.
We do know that Maud was born in Emporia, Kansas in 1877 and grew up there. She moved to Chase County with her family around 1900, near Homestead, now a ghost town. Maud also lived in Kansas as an adult with her husband and daughter.
Maud gave birth to her first daughter in Chase County, Kansas, where eventually the couple “kept a menagerie at their Flint Hills farm. One room of their house contained cages with birds, lizards, snakes, toads, and turtles. Maud was quite fond of her Gila monster, though everyone else seemed relieved when it died; they were sure she would get bit.” Her daughter Sarah died not long after she was born, and Maud refused to give birth to another child in Kansas. Her second daughter, Lovetta, was born in California.
Many blogs and books repeat unverified lore and legend about Maud as fact. Some have even written historical fiction about her in an attempt to give her some kind of fantastic backstory. One claim that gets repeated is that Maud’s name was actually Nora and that she “never liked her given name,” so she changed it to Maud when she joined the circus.
In reality, she appears in the 1880 census as a three-year-old child named Maud (misspelled Maude), who likely wasn’t old enough to express dislike for her given name. It is possible that the name Nora sounded too similar to Dora, her sister, so her parents called her Maud instead. But every census record, as well as every other historical document that we have access to during the time she was alive, indicates that her name was Maud.
Some resources (one won an award in a factual story contest) have suggested that Maud taught at the Normal School in Emporia, lecturing students on skulls. I did find a teacher at the Normal School named Nora Stevens, but Miss Stevens never married, was adjudged insane in 1927, died in 1943, and is buried in Emporia. Plus, we have no historical evidence that I’m aware of that Maud ever went by Nora.
I haven’t found any evidence that Maud was ever a lecturer at the Normal School, not as Nora or Maud, and not under the surnames Stevens or Wagner. But she probably was a circus barker, or “talker,” at some point. She and Gus also amassed a large collection of skulls and oddities that they would display in their traveling “Horrors of the Deep” show, and Maud had her own extensive bug collection that made her a “famous entomologist.”
Another recently published resource says that Maud considered going into nursing, and almost married a doctor who wanted her to fake removal of the appendixes of his patients, which Maud allegedly refused to do. But the only source for this information is a thirty-year-old remembered conversation involving a distant cousin of Maud’s second daughter who, as far as I know, didn’t have first hand knowledge of this, and has no proof of the claims.
Even though we have few verifiable facts about Maud, she definitely captured our attention without them. She has had her own Wikipedia page for over a decade, while her globetrotting husband, who promoted her and made sure she would be remembered, is still waiting for his.
“My wife’s a tattoo artist too. She’s an actress and a contortionist; and I’ve got her back and arms covered with the prettiest tattoo work you ever looked at.” Gus Wagner, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1904
“The artist and madame, the wife, are themselves two of the finest galleries of the tattooing art to be found. Madame [is] liberally decorated on every available spot except the face and hands … she began her collection only eight years ago when Herr Wagner himself made the first drafts for a decorative system which now has spread ‘to even the toes.’” Source
Maud and Gus traveled across America and Mexico together. Maud and her sister Dora performed aerial acts as the Stevens Sisters, and Maud and Gus owned and operated Wagner’s Traveling Museum, the Wagner Amusement Company, and Wagner’s Old Curiosity Shop where they showcased “a baby mermaid,” a Chinese boxing dwarf, “the human-headed octopus,” and other oddities. Maud and Gus also ran several tattoo shops in different states.
By 1930, Maud and Gus had stopped traveling and had made a home in Chase County, Kansas, where they were able to show off their work and collections locally and travel less frequently. In 1940, Gus was struck by lightning in Oklahoma and he never fully recovered. “Chase County’s widest traveler” died the following year, a few days shy of his 69th birthday and was buried at Homestead Cemetery, near the home he once shared with Maud.
Gus’s original grave marker is still there, but does not appear to have his initials engraved in it like Maud’s does.
Maud outlived Gus by twenty years, and part of that time she was living in Chase County at the home she once shared with Gus.
During the last twelve years of her life, she lived in Oklahoma with her daughter Lovetta, an artist and tattooist (with no tattoos). Maud died of cancer in 1961 at age 83 and was buried next to Gus.
Their infant daughter named Sarah is also buried here, and Maud’s parents and her sister Dora are buried here too.
Additional Resources
Maud Stevens Wagner, Find a Grave
Maud Stevens Wagner: Mona Lisa of American Tattoo (referral link)
Why we’re still talking about Maud Wagner, YouTube
The Women of Tattoo Series – Maud Wagner, Storyline Ink
Tattooed lady Maud Wagner shocked 1900s America in the best way
Tattooed Ladies: The History Chicks : A Women’s History Podcast
History Uncovered Episode 19: Maud Wagner, The Taboo-Defying Tattoo Pioneer
Graves of Maud and Gus Wagner, Atlas Obscura
Lyon County History Center, Instagram
Gus Wagner: Globe Trotter and Hand Tattoo Artist (referral link)
Seaport Museum Explores ‘Maritime Roots’ of Tattoos in America
Gus Wagner, Old School Tattoo Expo
The Foremothers of The Tattoo Trade- The First Female Tattoo Artists in the world
January Deep Dive: Early Female Tattooists
America’s First Female Tattoo Artists Pictured in Santa Barbara
Maud’s Circus by Michelle Rene
Gus and Maud Wagner Tattoo Artists Sideshow Banner
Tattooing in the Civil War Was a Hedge Against Anonymous Death
Subversive Bodies: Talking about Tattoo Taboo and the Marvelous Maud Wagner
American Tattoo: The Art of Gus Wagner
In Holland, Marietta Daily Leader, Marietta, OH, Apr 6, 1897
A Man Much Tattooed, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH, Nov 15, 1903
The Original Gus Wagner, The Courant, Cottonwood Falls, KS, Nov 5, 1908
Traveling Museum Here, The Ogden Standard-Examiner, Ogden, UT, Sep 2, 1909
Great Preparations for the Big Fair, The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, UT, Sep 3, 1909
The Wagner People Arrive, The Ogden Standard-Examiner, Ogden, UT, Sep 3, 1909
Partner Wanted, Muskogee Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat, Muskogee, OK, Oct 10, 1915
Tattooing on the wane, The Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO, Aug 8, 1916
Tattooing on the wane, Tulsa World, Tulsa, OK, Sep 15, 1916
Wagner’s Old Curiosity Shop, an animal collection, The Town Talk, Alexandria, LA, Oct 12, 1922
“Horrors of the Deep,” Republican-Gazette, Gove City, KS, Sep 18, 1924
“Globe Trotter” Here, Republican-Gazette, Gove City, KS, Sep 25, 1924
Concerning Gus Wagner, Republican-Gazette, Gove City, KS, Nov 6, 1924
Civil War Vet Dies, The Emporia Gazette, Emporia, KS, Nov 2, 1926
Famous Entemologist at Carnival, Council Grove Republican, Council Grove, KS, Jul 11, 1930
Have you ever seen a snake like this?, The Collyer Advance, Collyer, KS, Sep 24, 1931
Globe Trotter Calls Tattoos Big Asset, Kansas City Journal, Kansas City, MO, Mar 21, 1939
Cowgirl Gives Rodeo Artist Inspiration, The Hartshorne Sun, Hartshorne, OK, Jun 29, 1944
Mrs. Maude Wagner, The Lawton Constitution, Lawton, OK, Jan 29, 1961
Tattoo art a family tradition, The Odessa American, Odessa, TX, Sep 4, 1993
Under their skin, The Buffalo News, Buffalo, NY, Oct 17, 1997
Tattoo artist left his mark, Staten Island Advance, Staten Island, NY, Nov 26, 1999
Series shares subversive history of women and tattoo, The Indiana-Penn, Indiana, PA, Mar 22, 2000
Tattoo Like a Lady, The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY, Nov 20, 2022
Not for the squeamish, The Herald (Glasgow ed.), Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland, Aug 13, 2023
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