A woman who was born with four legs spent her days at a “freak show” to make ends meet.
Josephine Myrtle Corbin’s birth in 1868 was a typical one, except for the fact that she was momentarily in the breech position.
From Tenessee, Josephine was an American sideshow performer born as with dipygus.
This meant she had two separate pelvises side by side from the waist down, as a result of her body's axis splitting as it developed. Also, each of her smaller inner legs was paired with one of her outer legs.
It is said that she was able to move her inner legs, but they were too weak for walking.
Doctors who examined Josephine after she was born said she was strong and healthy and growing steadily.
A year later, a journal published that she “nurses healthily” and was “thriving well".
Doctors deciding that it was just an anomaly. After all, Joesphine’s parents had had seven other children, none of whom had the same condition.
It was only later determined that she was born with dipygus, meaning she was born with two pelvises side by side.
When she was 13, her father showed her to interested neighbours and charged them a dime each. He then realised her money-making potential.
He gave her the moniker “The Four-Legged Girl From Tennessee” and printed promotional brochures and placed advertising in newspapers inviting people to come to see her.
The pamphlets described her as a girl with “as gentle of disposition as the summer sunshine and as happy as the day is long".
She was a huge hit as a sideshow attraction for the rest of her life. Instead of bringing the curious onlookers to her, she eventually began travelling around the country.
Josephine was able to earn up to $450 each week by visiting small towns and cities and performing for the public.
Eventually, the famous showman P.T. Barnum heard about her and hired her for his show, with whom she worked for four years.
She eventually decided to retire from the sideshow business when she was 18 as she’d fallen in love with a doctor named Clinton Bicknell.
Once she turned 19 the pair got married and soon started having children together.
While the first time she found out she was pregnant she fell ill and had to have an abortion, she ended up eventually giving birth to four healthy children.
Due to financial reasons, Josephine ended up back in the business as a woman at 41. She was seen in Huber’s Museum in New York in 1909.
For five years she entertained thousands and sometimes was seen in Dreamland Circus Sideshow and other Coney Island times. When 1915 rolled around, she had enough money to finally leave the industry behind.
In 1928, she succumbed to a streptococcal skin infection and died. While antibiotics make the condition curable now, there was no such medication accessible in the 1920s.
Later that year she was buried and covered in concrete. They did this to prevent grave robbers from stealing her body.
Music: Cosmic Drift - DivKid
Source: Daily Star, BizarroBazaar, Wikipedia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patryn.worldlatestnews
Josephine Myrtle Corbin’s birth in 1868 was a typical one, except for the fact that she was momentarily in the breech position.
From Tenessee, Josephine was an American sideshow performer born as with dipygus.
This meant she had two separate pelvises side by side from the waist down, as a result of her body's axis splitting as it developed. Also, each of her smaller inner legs was paired with one of her outer legs.
It is said that she was able to move her inner legs, but they were too weak for walking.
Doctors who examined Josephine after she was born said she was strong and healthy and growing steadily.
A year later, a journal published that she “nurses healthily” and was “thriving well".
Doctors deciding that it was just an anomaly. After all, Joesphine’s parents had had seven other children, none of whom had the same condition.
It was only later determined that she was born with dipygus, meaning she was born with two pelvises side by side.
When she was 13, her father showed her to interested neighbours and charged them a dime each. He then realised her money-making potential.
He gave her the moniker “The Four-Legged Girl From Tennessee” and printed promotional brochures and placed advertising in newspapers inviting people to come to see her.
The pamphlets described her as a girl with “as gentle of disposition as the summer sunshine and as happy as the day is long".
She was a huge hit as a sideshow attraction for the rest of her life. Instead of bringing the curious onlookers to her, she eventually began travelling around the country.
Josephine was able to earn up to $450 each week by visiting small towns and cities and performing for the public.
Eventually, the famous showman P.T. Barnum heard about her and hired her for his show, with whom she worked for four years.
She eventually decided to retire from the sideshow business when she was 18 as she’d fallen in love with a doctor named Clinton Bicknell.
Once she turned 19 the pair got married and soon started having children together.
While the first time she found out she was pregnant she fell ill and had to have an abortion, she ended up eventually giving birth to four healthy children.
Due to financial reasons, Josephine ended up back in the business as a woman at 41. She was seen in Huber’s Museum in New York in 1909.
For five years she entertained thousands and sometimes was seen in Dreamland Circus Sideshow and other Coney Island times. When 1915 rolled around, she had enough money to finally leave the industry behind.
In 1928, she succumbed to a streptococcal skin infection and died. While antibiotics make the condition curable now, there was no such medication accessible in the 1920s.
Later that year she was buried and covered in concrete. They did this to prevent grave robbers from stealing her body.
Music: Cosmic Drift - DivKid
Source: Daily Star, BizarroBazaar, Wikipedia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patryn.worldlatestnews
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