African American Conjoined Twins, Cabinet Card Photograph (Signed by both)
New York: Eisenmann Photographic Studio, [c,1880s]. Black and white photograph by Charles Eisenmann. Mounted on card, approximately 4 1/8" x 6 3/8".
The McKoy twins were born into slavery in Whiteville, North Carolina in 1851. The girls were conjoined at the lower spine and shared a pelvis. They each had a full set of limbs and stood at an approximately 90 degree angle from each other.
At just 10 months of age their mother's master sold the twins to a South Carolinian named John C. Pervis for $1000 and a share of proceeds from exhibiting them as freaks of nature. Thus began their life in sideshows.
The girls were encouraged to consider themselves as one person and called themselves Millie-Christine. They were bought and sold and handled by several managers prior to 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation ended their enslaved status. By this time they had been showcased in fairs and freak shows in several U.S. cities, Montreal, Canada, and even England.
Millie and Christine were eventually reunited with their mother and received an education through the support of a wealthy North Carolina merchant who had had an early financial stake in the girls when they were merely an oddity for exhibition. In addition to their education they learned to dance, play music, sing, and could speak five languages. Millie and Christine now embraced a show business career emphasizing their singing, and for the rest of the century they toured as "The Two-Headed Nightingale," even appearing with P. T. Barnum's circus.
The twins died in 1912 when Millie contracted tuberculosis, succumbing to the disease on October 12. With surgical separation an impossibility at the time, Christine was apparently euthanized 12 hours later.
This cabinet card photograph shows the two women in mid-career, probably in the 1880s, posing in a striped dress with white collars in the New York studio of Charles Eisenmann. The card is signed "Millie-Christine" twice on the back in pencil, in slightly different hands, as each woman signed the joint name they had been encouraged to use their entire lives.
An amazing relic from the lives of these two remarkable and resilient women.
Some light soil, a few spots to image. Slight rubs to card extremities along with a few shallow chips. Image remains clear. Additional light soil and a patch of surface abrasion to back of card, not affecting pencil signatures. Overall a very good example.
Item #2212
Price: $1,250