I haven’t been collecting much lately as I’ve been focused (pun intended) on shooting and creating images more. However, in a casual perusal of Ebay the other day I found this image. I’ve been wanting a CDV of Che Mah for a while. This one is rather faded and not in the best of condition, but I jumped on it as A: it was a reasonable price, and B: CDVs of Che Mah don’t show up all that often. I’ll shop around for another one in better condition later, but having this one fills a gap in my collection.

About Che Mah:

Like many sideshow performers, Che Mah had an exotic backstory. It was claimed that he was born in Ningpo in 1838 off China’s coast on the island of Choo-Sang and discovered by Barnum on one of his worldwide scouting expeditions. The reality is likely more mundane. After his death the book This Way to the Big Show: The Life of Dexter Fellows made the claim that he was Jewish and from London.1
Regardless of his ethnicity and country of origin, Che Mah was a popular attraction and throughout his career he worked in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Kohl and Middleton dime museum in Chicago and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Unlike many of the more diminutive performers of his day, he married a women far larger than he. His first wife, Louisa Colman was a normal-sized trapeze artist, his second, Norah Cleveland, weighed 200 pounds. Norah and he divorced after 14 years of marriage on the grounds his wife would not provide enough sex.2

Upon retirement, he bought a farm in rural Indiana but working a farm proved to be too difficult. He sold the farm and brought a house in Knox. Che Mah died in 1936 and was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Knox, Indiana.

1.Hartzman Marc, American Sideshow. New York: Tarcher. 2006. 27. Print.
2.Homberger, Francine. Carny Folk. New York: Citadel. 2005. 1-3. Print.

Courtesy of the Sideshow Slideshow

Note the signature in the upper left of the verso. It appears to be hand-signed in ink, so that may well be his actual signature.