The Bowery Wizards: A History of Early American Tattoos

The art of tattooing is as old as written language but it would require the contributions of a few 19th century New York tattoo artists -- and a young inventor with no tattoos whatsoever -- to take this ancient art to the next level. This is the story of the electric tattoo machine, how it was first perfected in a tiny tattoo parlor underneath a New York elevated train and how this relatively simple device changed the face of body art forever.

You can listen to The Bowery Wizards: A History of Early American Tattoos online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Bowery Wizards: A History of Early American Tattoos is an episode from The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences by Greg Young.

This episode is 23:58 long.

This episode was published on May 19, 2017.

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