[Carte de visite (CDV) of Bearded Lady Annie Jones] by [Jones, Annie; Charles Eisenmann (photographer)] - 1890

New York: Charles Eisenmann, 1890. First Edition. Photograph. Very good. [ca. 1890]. Carte de visite (albumen photographic print mounted on card), approximately 4 1/8 x 2 1/2 inches. Photographer's stamp on verso. Some fading, light wear, and very minor foxing. Very good.

Annie Jones (1865-1902), billed as the "Esau Child" as a girl and later as the "Esau Lady," was the most famous bearded lady of the 19th century. She toured with P. T. Barnum for many years as a member of his congress of “freaks," a term she is said to have campaigned against. An 1898 press release from the Barnum and Bailey Circus in advance of a European tour announced that Jones had called a meeting on January 6, 1898 to protest the word and find a less "oppobrious" alternative. The event, as Leslie Fiedler notes in FREAKS, may have been "dreamed up by the Barnum and Bailey public relations staff" (the release had made a point of noting that the meeting had been chaired by Sol Stone, the Human Adding Machine, and its minutes taken by the Armless Wonder with his feet). She was, in any event, a leading, lifelong member of the Barnum troupe before her early death from pneumonia at the age of 37.