The History of Tattoos and Body Modifications   

                                                 By Autumn Heyerly

 A tattoo is a generally permanent form of body art that is formed by using body-safe ink and a tattoo gun that pricks the skin thousands of time to insert the ink. For a lot of people with tattoos they have an important meaning. However, for some people, they get tattoos to express themselves. For this reason, tattoos are fairly popular with 30 percent of Americans having at least one tattoo.

Tattoos have been around for thousands of years and have a lot of cultural significance. However, the modern tattoo, or what we think of when we hear that someone got a tattoo, started in the mid to late- 19th century in New York. New York is considered the birth place of modern tattoos, mostly because its where Martin Hildebrand, the first professional tattoo artist, started his business. He started tattooing soldiers so that they could be identified if found dead on the battlefield.

We don't normally think that people in the Victorian era would have tattoos but not only did many people have tattoos, women got them too.Even thought the trend of tattoos in America was started by men there were plenty of women that got them too.There was a lot of royals and very important people in Britain that had tattoos, though many of them covered up.

“Body mods” or body modifications are procedures that a person does to one’s body to alter it. That means tattoos and piercings are technically body mods. However,  most people mean when they say “body mods” is when a person gets surgery to alter their appearance,such as implanting fake horns under the skin ,tongue splitting and gauging the ears . Similar to tattoos they are used to help people express themselves and feel comfortable in their skin. 

People have been doing body mods for hundreds of years, and all over the world. For example, in China it used to be popular to preform a practice called foot binding. Foot binding is when a young girls toes would be broken and folded under then wrapped tightly. This was done by the child's parents to increase her chances of getting a husband because at the time it was part of the beauty standard. Another example of this is tight lacing corsets. Most people know about how woman in the West in the Victorian era would try to get the smallest waist possible.They achieved this look by tightly lacing their corsets. Corsets themselves are not very dangerous, but tight lacing is, Victorian women would tie their corsets so tight that it would restrict their breathing. Not only that, it perpetuated stereotypes that woman were frail because they would faint. T​​hese examples of body mods aren’t very safe, but they are still things that people did to alter their body. 

As you can see body mods and tattoos are fairly similar but also very different. There is still a stigma around people who get body mods and tattoos. Most of the time the people who get them are people who didn’t “fit in” when they were younger, so they change their body to help them feel more comfortable in their skin. Just like how people cut and dye their hair, some people might get piercings, tattoos, or body mods. So yes, sometimes people change themselves and they might look “weird” but its important to know that it’s their body so they can do what they like with it.

Work Cited

Bradley University. “Body Modification & Body Image.” Bradley University, <bradley.edu/sites/bodyproject/disability/modification> Accessed 8 February 2023.

The A (St) (St)

St, Lori. “The Art and History of Body Modification.” Lightspeed Magazine, <lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/the-art-and-history-of-body-modification.> Accessed 8 February 2023.

Waxman, Olivia B. “Tattoo History in the United States—How They Became a Thing.” Time, 1 March 2017, <time.com/4645964/tattoo-history/.> Accessed 8 February 2023.

Olson, Amy. “A brief history of tattoos.” Wellcome Collection, 13 April 2010, <wellcomecollection.org/articles/W9m2QxcAAF8AFvE5.> Accessed 8 February 2023.