Since my first post about Charmion only scratched the surface, I thought I'd give some more info about a few different aspects of her story here. I hope everyone finds it worth reading.
First, Charmion was a marketing genius. She was one of the most photographed people in show business, her flexed arms ubiquitous in the newspapers of the era, and she gave out free pinback buttons with her image on them at each show. Charmion herself reported in 1905 that sheโd given out a quarter of a million buttons over the previous year. I don't know how accurate that number is, but there was definitely a huge number produced and you can often find them for pretty affordable prices on eBay to this day. Charmion would also sometimes give away chocolates, clothes, and other souvenirs to the women in the audience.
Second, during her travels, Charmion made time to personally advise women who needed help with their fitness goals. During her time in New Orleans in 1902, for example, she let it be known that the hours of 5 to 7 would be set aside for any woman wanting a โconferenceโ with her to discuss matters relating to โphysical culture.โ
Third, Charmion could be considered one of the first female bodybuilders. Through rigorous workouts (including curling fifty-to-seventy-pound dumbbells and one-hour bag-punching sessions), Charmion intentionally tried to build her muscles as large as possible, which was incredibly rare for a woman in that era. Even circus strongwomen, who showed off their strength publicly, often downplayed their muscularity, but Charmion was eager to show off her muscles and actively tried to grow them. Apparently, it worked. By her own account, when she began her career the (already very fit) Charmion weighed 98 pounds at a height of 5โ1โ. She afterward gained enough muscle that by 1902, she was a solid 130 pounds. Charmion wouldโve also felt at home with modern bodybuilders in the sense that on-stage posing was a major part of her performances. After she had finished disrobing on the trapeze, she would conclude her show by standing onstage and flexing her biceps before turning around and displaying her back muscles. The audiences were as flabbergasted as youโd expect. โWhen she hunches her back,โ said one newspaper, โit looks like a cage of boa-constrictors interlaced in a snake-fightโ; โher shoulders and arms appear a knotted mass of muscles,โ said another.
The less pleasant aspects of Charmion's story are the misogyny and prudishness that Charmion dealt with with throughout her career. There were attempts (some successful, some not) to ban her act in New York, New Orleans, London, and Berlin, and she had to contend with right-wing attacks throughout her career. Here are a few newspaper quotations to show the kind of opposition she encountered:
Times Herald (Washington, D. C.), May 10, 1898: โHer performance is a simple attempt to provoke all the lower passions of which mankind is capable, without passing the limit the law has placed on such an exhibition. It is for this reason that Charmion is revoltingly disgusting, coarse and disagreeable. It is because of this that no man, who realizes what he is doing, or respects himself, will care to take his mother or sister to the National Theater this week.โ
Sioux City Journal, May 15, 1898: โCharmionโs object in her trapeze act is indecency.โ
The Times (Washington, D. C.), May 15, 1898: โIt seems revolting to think that men would go to a place of amusement with the sole idea of witnessing such a performance, but that women should willingly accompany them is nothing less than disgusting.โ
The Courier and Argus (Dundee, Scotland), Aug. 5, 1898: โโฆit is scarcely possible to conceal the fact that Charmionโs performance takes us very much nearer to the frank indecencies of the Parisian variety theatres than we have hitherto strayed.โ
Daily Gleaner (Fredericton, New Brunswick), Oct. 26, 1898: โwe hail with gratification the drastic criticism by a section of the New York press of such debasing performances as those first given by a woman called CharmionโฆCharmionโs act had grace and beauty to recommend it, and except that it was performed by a woman it was no worse than the undressing act of the equestriam [sic] acrobat in the circus; but it was the natural forerunner of the others, and so should never have been permitted in a theatre making pretence to decency.โ
The Times, January 1, 1899: โCharmionโs โturnโ was revolting.โ
Toronto Saturday Night, January 18, 1902 [speaking about Charmion disrobing on the trapeze] โThere is an unpleasant suggestiveness inseparable from such an act.โ
The Kansas City Star, September 19, 1904: โHer turn is offensive to modesty.โ
As infuriating as these comments are, the happy irony of the conservative attacks on Charmion is that they only made her more powerful. As even her critics sometimes admitted, the controversy stirred up by those critics served to make her act more intriguing and helped increase her popularity. For a woman devoted to liberating women from the constraints placed on them by the society, her message must have been even more meaningful because so many men tried to constrain her and she overcame that adversity. You can see how little success her critics had by the fact she was one of the most popular vaudeville stars in the world, sometimes earning the equivalent of almost $20,000 per week in todayโs money.
Of course, not all men disapproved of Charmionโs act, and she had her fair share of male fans. But almost all her critics were men. And though there must have been lesser-known female critics, thereโs only one example I can find of a woman (at least initially) disapproving of her. That woman was Elizabeth Grannis, president of the Purity League, an organization that supported the kind of repression and prudishness that Charmion fought against her whole career. Grannis, with a committee of Purity League members, attended a performance one day in 1901 to โjudge for themselvesโ whether the act was as โimpure" as alleged. After the performance (during which Charmion daringly threw a garter into Grannisโs box), a local newspaper said, surprisingly, that Grannis โwas pleased by the things done and undone by the actressโ and โwas delighted with the actressโ control of her muscular system.โ Charmion, likely not a fan of the Purity League, was not mollified by the praise. Asked about Grannis later, she bluntly said, โI scarcely approve of her.โ
If you all are still interested, Iโll share more posts about Charmion. Iโm mildly obsessed with her and thereโs loads more fun facts and stories about her. Thanks for reading.