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Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos: A Social History of the Tattoo with Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Corner Punks, 1950-1965 by Samuel M. Steward, PhD.
Reviewed by TammyJo Eckhart
Samuel M. Steward’s Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos: A Social History of the Tattoo with Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Corner Punks, 1950-1965 is part biography, part historical study, and part psychological investigation. That’s a lot of parts, but do the parts make a worthwhile whole for the reader?
Given that a movie about Kinsey will be out this season, reviewing this book feels rather timely. Samuel M. Steward was an academic who became disillusioned with the ivory-tower world and wanted a radical change. He became a tattooist, but his academic colleague, Kinsey, got him to keep track of what he did and share the information with him. The idea was that an “insider” with proper research training could learn much more than the sex researcher could. The result is this book.
The book is divided into 12 “parts” with two appendices included about the literature and history of tattooing. Each part shows that it is clearly written by an academic, in that each part is focused on one theme. However, Steward’s writing isn’t dull or dry because he includes his own observations and feelings as well as those he could pull from his clients. I’ll give a very brief account of what is included in each part of the book, but one really needs to read it to get a better understanding of what Steward is doing.
Part 1 is his personal account of how he went from professor to tattooist. As someone in academia let me say that the change from one career to another was common in one area: competition and the use of charisma to compete. Part 2 looks at how he got started against some heavy odds in the tattoo business.
Part 3 shares how Kinsey got involved and how Steward became an investigator. Once a scholar, perhaps, always a scholar. Part 4 is the most academic of the entire book. Here are 29 motivations that Steward discovered for getting a tattoo; 25 of them are sexual in nature to some degree.
Part 5 looks at some common folklore he heard about tattooing. Most of these involve what the tattoo means or how it will heal over time. Part 6 is an overview of his clientele through the years; this is the longest section of the book. Part 7 focuses on one particular group: sailors and those who want to be around them.
Part 8 examines the various reasons for getting or not getting tattoos. What is interesting here is that Steward did not just tattoo anyone who walked in his door with the fee in hand. He seems to have used his understanding of the motivations to determine who would be safer to tattoo — safer both for their own mental health and for his business.
The rest of the book moves away from the clients and concentrates on the tattooist and on tattooing itself. This includes, in part 9, a look at various great tattooists Steward met and, in part 10, how the tattoo can be seen as a legitimate art form. Part 11 looks at the subculture that tattooists both join and help to create. Part 12 bemoans the advent of changes in tattooing as it became regulated, which was necessary for health reasons, but was also a reflection of society trying to limit personal expression.
Something that would have increased my interest is photographs of some of Steward’s work and the work of other tattooists. This would illustrate, both figuratively and literally, some of the generalizations that he makes and would also help drive home some of his discoveries. Also note that the binding is a bit fragile, so handle with care.
Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is an interesting study of a period of time when tattoos were popular and yet still taboo in America. While women and girls do show up, the focus is really on masculinity and this particular way of expressing it. If the history or psychology of sexuality interests you, this is a good book on one particular slice. If you are looking for specifics about tattooing or erotic images, this is not your book.
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