The Kahn Family

As I have no idea why I got so obsessed with researching this topic, and will likely never do anything with it, I’ve decided to put this unfinished research into the public eye on this blog.  Anyone who is inspired to take it further, please feel free to do so.  I’d appreciate a credit in any further work, but I’m more concerned with getting the research done than with being known as the one who did it.

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Happenstance led me to this advertisement in a Washington D.C. paper circa 1889.  The ad is for a touring show that went under the moniker “Uffner’s Royal Midgets.”  The two little people on exhibition were Lucia Zarate – a Mexican woman who was apparently the smallest women ever to live any length of time, 1 foot 8 inches tall, lived into her twenties – and “Major Atom” – the stage name of Samuel Kahn, one of at least two exhibition midgets to come out of the Kahn family.

I became obsessed with this ad for no particular reason, and eventually did a great deal of online research on the public lives of Major Atom, Lucia Zarate, Admiral Dot (Kahn’s uncle, Leopold), and a bit on General Mite (because he also once toured with Zarate).

Disturbingly little biographical work has been done on the lives of people such as these, whose entire existence was based in sitting on a stage, behind a rope, and being paid to live a life as a touring museum piece.  Only Tom Thumb has really received much attention as far as I can tell.  Admiral Dot and Lucia Zarate appear in small mentions in texts on the larger phenomenon of ‘freak shows’; Major Atom appears not at all.

(By the way, for the men, “[t]he military titles of the midgets are merely conveniences of their professional career.” ["A Wedding of Midgets," NY Times, 15 Aug. 1892, p 8.] Apparently a military title was intended to play up the strangeness of their size, emphasizing their ‘virile manliness’ in order to draw further attention to their lack of size.)

In an effort to fill this research gap, I have turned up the following information.

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 Samuel Kahn / Major Atom

(reportedly 15 lbs circa 1880.  No height information found.)

Details on Major Atom’s birth and introduction into stage-midgetry (that was a fun term to make up) are sketchy.  If the Atlanta Constitution is to be believed, he was born around 1869/70; in 1880, they claim once that he is “ten years old” (“The Midgets,” 9 Jan., p 4) and once that he is “11 years old” (“The Midgets,” 15 Jan., p 4).  This would seem to fit in with the claim that he is Leopold Kahn’s / Admiral Dot’s nephew (“Some Famous Midgets,” Boston Globe, 20 Nov. 1892, p 29), as it makes Samuel younger than Leopold.

However, the Washington Post claims, nearly ten years later, that Major Atom was born on 26 June 1864 (Display Ad, 15 Feb. 1889, p 2).  Though this could have been a typo in advertising copy, the claim is seconded (or ‘firsted,’ actually) in a prose article two days earlier, in which he is said to be “twenty-five years old” (“The Midgets at the Panorama,” 13 Feb. 1889, p 6).  There are a number of possible explanations for the variation in date.  First, it may be that the information packet from which both bits of copy were written contained a single typo that was reprinted as fact; this seems plausible.  Second, there may have been two different Major Atom’s; this is not very likely.  Third, they may have used Admiral Dot’s birthdate by mistake, as the two shared a last name; not very likely.  Fourth, his age may have been deliberately overstated so as to make his size seem more miraculous; this is the most plausible to me, though I’m not convinced that being 25 would have seemed much more impressive than being 20…

By all accounts (and these were sales-pitches, rendering them not overly trustworthy), Atom was an intelligent, attractive, and fun loving young man.  One paper devoted significant space to the intellect of Atom and his then touring partner General Mite, saying “they are not dull, as such little mites of humanity often are, but…are exceedingly bright and vivacious. They converse freely and with much animation and are always in a sportive humor” (“The Midgets,” Atl Const., 15 Jan. 1880, p 4).  His ‘attractiveness’ was part and parcel with his size, as he tended to be referred to as “the most symmetrical man of his size in the world” (“The Midgets at the Panorama,” Wash Post., 13 Feb. 1889, p 6), though another article did refer to his ‘beauty’ in isolation, describing him as “a beautiful little fellow, with round cheeks, big blue eyes and extraordinarily long lashes”; this same article also claimed that he won a “gold medal” at a convention of midgets in Milwaukee, implying, by phrase juxtaposition, that it was for his beauty (“Some Famous Midgets,” Boston Globe, 20 Nov. 1892, p 26).

Career

It is not clear whether he was introduced to his career by P.T. Barnum – common among the most famous stage midgets – or if his early years were controlled by a different party.  He was definitely on tour by the beginning of 1880, but probably much earlier.  He appeared in Atlanta, along with General Mite, for most of the second half of January of that year – first as part of a ‘twice a day’ exhibition at Concordia Hall (the 12th thru the 17th, at least), and then as part of the Library Fair (probably the 24th thru the 31st).  Prior to this engagement, the two midgets had been on display in Washington D.C.  But, by the time of their Atlanta appearance, the Constitutition was already calling them “the famous and wonderful Midgets” (“The Midgets,” Atlanta Const., 9 Jan. 1880, p 4).

His schtick, beyond his natural draw as a curiosity, was apparently to “dance and sing” (“The Midgets,” Atlanta Const., 11 Jan. 1880, p 4).  But this might have been the stock in trade of many touring midgets; General Mite was said to do the same thing in this article, and Admiral Dot was described later as “the singing comedian” of midgets (“Some Famous Midgets,” Boston Globe, 20 Nov. 1892, p 26).

In general Atom’s job was to sit on a stage, cordoned off by rope or railing, and be pleasant and unobjectionable eye-candy for paying customers.  Such ‘exhibitions,’ which “ladies and children may attend without the usual male escort” (Display Ad, WashPost, 23 Apr. 1882, p 4 – hence the descriptive term ‘unobjectionable’), would generally take place twice-a-day in two-hour intervals.  During his 1880 tour with General Mite, the Atlanta Constitution described the bulk of the ’show’ as follows:

“General Mite and Major Atom were exhibited on a long platform elevated about five feet from the floor, which was enclosed with a neat railing. At frequent intervals these diminutive specimens of humanity were taken from the platform and passed around through the crowd so that a closer inspection could be had” (“The Little Midgets,” 13 Jan. 1880, p 4).

The lifestyle was summed up quite beautifully, again in terms of the intelligence of the protagonists, in the “Some Famous Midgets” article from 1892 (Boston Globe, 20 Nov., p 26): “a tedious education would be unnecessary and cruel to the mite whose destiny is to hold a continual reception in a museum from 11 in the morning till 10 at night.”  While one could certainly argue that such a lifestyle was cruel and demeaning, it was also practically a guaranteed living; those few ‘freaks’ who managed to survive any number of years could always tour in order to make money.

By 1883, it was said that Major Atom was making $75 per week on the circuit.  This was an average sum.  The article said that “[t]here are over one hundred…[midgets] on exhibition” across the country at that time, and listed the salaries for nine of the most prominent – including the vast sums for Tom Thumb (“high-salaried”) and Lucia Zarate/General Mite ($500 per week as a pair), and the comparatively tiny pay for General Totman ($30 per week).  (“What Curiosities Earn,” LA Times, 1 June 1883, p 3 – reprinted from St. Louis Post Dispatch.)  A later overview of stage-midget salaries placed the ‘average’ salary at between $25 and $100 per week (“Some Famous Midgets,” Boston Globe, 20 Nov. 1892, p 26).  Another listed a range from $50 to $75 (“Sawdust and Gold Dust,” The Bookman Magazine 34.4, June 1910, p 407).  In any case, Atom was nearer to the top of the pay scale than the bottom, which says something about his size (pay was often simply a factor of smallness, which is why many started so young – they were smaller when they were younger) and also about his ability to pleasantly entertain.

Fame

Atom, whether due to his size or some other talents, was quite a success on the circuit – at least between the ages of ten and thirty (which seems to have been the range of most stage midget’s careers).  A number of pop-culture examples can be offered as evidence of the public awareness of his name.

There is, of course, the previously cited “Some Famous Midgets” article from 1892 – published initially in the Boston Globe (20 Nov. 1892, p 29), and reprinted a month later (under the title ”Chiquitos” for some reason) in the LA Times (20 Dec. 1892, p 29).  Atom was included in a laundry list of performing midgets, which also included Admiral Dot and Lucia Zarate.  It was, in fact, the widely reported news of Admiral Dot’s marriage (to the also little Lotte Swartwood) a few months earlier which prompted this article.  It seems thatDot and Atom attained a modicum of additional fame simply for being relatives, as this was a rarity for midgets – usually there was only one in a family.

Two significantly more interesting mentions of Major Atom exist, however.

First, in 1883, a bizarre false news report was circulated (I have found the article in the NY Times and Atlanta Const., and it is sourced to the Denver News), declaring that the “mother” of three midgets – Admiral Dot, Major Atom, and General Pin (2 years old) – had gone crazy over financial concerns and attempted to drown General Pin and herself in “the mill ditch in the bottoms” in Denver.  The parents are incorrectly identified as named “Frohm,” rather than “Kahn” – and, of course, it is inaccurate as well to claim that Dot and Atom were brothers, while Pin might have been entirely unrelated.  It is possible that this article was an advertising gimmick, as it includes the identifier “one of Sackett’s midgets” and describes General Pin in detail as “the smallest child ever born.”  Whatever the case, however, it is noteworthy that Atom and Dot were well enough known to become the centerpiece in a false news story.  (“A Midget’s Demented Mother,” NY Times, 31 July 1883, 3.)

A decade later, Major Atom was still commonly known enough to be included in a novel by Arnold Clark.  On page 167 of Beneath the Dome (published posthumously in 1894), two characters named Mort and Mrs. Snyder, while at a ‘curiosity’ show, have the following exchange.

Mrs. Snyder: “I am more interested in Major Atom.  Do you suppose he is really as small as he looks?”

Mort: “Probably not.  Probably padded.”

The exchange is completely isolated in the text, and Atom is never mentioned before or after this moment.  He is introduced as though the reader will recognize his name, unlike the other performers: “there was the snake charming, and the woman with the iron jaw, and Major Atom.”  (Though, admittedly, the name “Major Atom” and the identifier “small” would have conjured up thoughts of circus midgets for any reader unaware of who he actually was.)

At any rate, it seems justifiable that the Washington Post would, in 1889, refer to Major Atom in an advertisement as “The Famous King Midget” (Mar 2 1889, p 5).  He seems to have been quite well known indeed.

By 1896, both Atom and Dot – either by choice or necessity – abandoned the tour circuit and opened a hotel in White Plains, New York.  While it was said that Admiral Dot was the proprietor, the two were arguably equals, as the sales pitch of the hotel was that “a guest may be greeted by a freak at any hour of the day or night”; Major Atom performed desk duties for the night shift and Dot, presumably, did the same during the day.  (“Dwarf Hotel-Keepers,” Wash. Post, 10 May 1896, p 26.)  In ‘retirement,’ then, life was not much different.

Rough Timeline

Date	Event	Venue	City	Cohorts
5?-10 Jan. 1880	Exhibition	??	D.C.	General Mite
12-17? Jan. 1880	Exhibition	Concordia Hall	Atlanta	General Mite
24-31? Jan. 1880	Exhibition	??	Atlanta	General Mite
29 Jan. 1881	“Extremes Meet” Exhibition	G.B. Bunnell’s Museum	New York	Admiral Dot; Two ‘Giants’ (one ‘Arab,’ one ‘Chinese’)
4-9? Apr. 1881	“Herzog’s ‘World’s Wonders’ Exhibition”	Lincoln Hall	D.C.	Admiral Dot; many others
1-2 May 1882	“Barnum and London Show”	“Museum of Living Curiosities” (tent?)	D.C.	unknown
12?-27? Oct. 1883	Exhibition	Kohl & Middleton’s “South Side Dime Museum”	Chicago	Admiral Dot; a “full list of curiosities”
4?-? Dec. 1883	Exhibition	Kohl & Middleton’s “South Side Dime Museum”	Chicago	Admiral Dot; Capt. M.V. Bates and Wife (‘Giants’)
?-16? Dec. 1883	Exhibition	Kohl & Middleton’s “West Side Dime Museum”	Chicago	Admiral Dot; Capt. M.V. Bates and Wife (‘Giants’)
6 Apr. 1884	“Barnum and London Circus”	??	New York	??
7-14 June 1884	“Barnum and London Show”	tent	West and South of Boston (North Hampton, Springfield, Worcester, Providence, Fall River, New Bedford, Brockton)	Admiral Dot; unknown others
16-28 June 1884	“Barnum and London Show”	tent	Boston	Admiral Dot; unknown others
30 June-12 July 1884	“Barnum and London Show”	tent	North of Boston (Lynn, Salem, Dover, Sace-Biddeford, Portland, Lewiston, Haverhill, Lawrence, Manchester, Concord, Lowell, Fitchburg)	Admiral Dot; unknown others
?? ?? 1887	“convention of little people” (Major Atom supposedly wins a gold medal)	??	Milwaukee	??
11?-16? Feb. 1889	Exhibition	??	Boston	Lucia Zarate
18 Feb.-3 Mar. 1889	“Uffner’s Royal Midgets” Exhibition	Bull Run Panorama Building	D.C.	Lucia Zarate
22? Apr.-4? May 1889	Exhibition	Bijou	Boston	Lucia Zarate
11-? Aug. 1889	Exhibition	Bijou?	Boston	Lucia Zarate
14 Aug. 1892	Admiral Dot’s Wedding	Victoria Hall	New York	a number of circus midgets
10 May 1896 – ??	retirement/business venture	hotel	White Plains, NY	Admiral Dot

(Note: In the presence of the slightest indication that an ‘exhibition’ was of multiple days’ duration, I have assumed a minimum of one full week.  Also, I am assuming the presence of ‘blue laws’ at this time – which would have rendered entertainment halls closed on Sundays.  It’s possible that my week long ’exhibition’ dates can be extended by a day to include Sunday.)

An observation on the dates in the chart: though it may be an artifact of incomplete research, there are two particular time spans which stand out, in which Major Atom appears to have become practically stuck in a single city.  First in Chicago (1883), then in Boston (1889). If true, I can offer no thoughts on why this might be the case.

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 Leopold Kahn / Admiral Dot

(No height or weight information found.)

Extrapolating from his wedding announcement (in 1892 when Dot was roughly 28), Admiral Dot was born in the vicinity of 1865.  He was pushed into stage ‘exhibition’ by his parents at a very early age.  If the autobiography of P.T. Barnum is to be trusted (a questionable assertion), Gabriel Kahn and his wife brought Leopold to Barnum in San Francisco in 1871.  Though “[s]everal showmen had made them very liberal offers,” the parents apparently wanted Barnum and Barnum only.  Though Barnum claims to have been then retired from exhibition,

“the marvelous manikin was such a handsome, well-formed, intelligent little fellow, speaking fluently both English and German, and withal was so pert and so captivating, that I was induced to engage him for a term of years and gave him the soubriquet of ‘Admiral Dot.’”

With Barnum’s support, Dot supposedly made “more than a thousand dollars” over the course of his initial three weeks’ display in San Francisco at Woodward’s Gardens.  Woodward himself was also said to have made two thousand on the deal, which makes a total of $3000 in three weeks from a single midget.

Following this, Dot was introduced into Barnum’s touring show.  (Barnum, Struggles and Triumphs, 1871, p 745-6.)

After significant touring, in which he developed his reputation as a ’singing comedian’ and spent several months alongside Major Atom, Dot found himself part of a performing troup called the Royal Midgets (apparently unrelated to “Uffner’s Royal Midgets”).  This troupe, formed in the wake of a successful tour of the stage show “A Pupil in Magic” starring a troupe of German midgets (“Music and Drama,” Chicago Tribune, 4 Sept. 1891, p 4), was assembled for the purpose of trying to cash in with a stage show of its own – “Gulliver Among the Lilliputians,” written by McKee Rankin and Archibald Gordon (“Music and Drama,” ChicTrib, 2 Nov 1891, p 4).

The show was a fiasco.  Though the November 2nd article in the Tribune makes claims that there was a rather large and supportive audience on its opening night in Chicago, it was also described as “a worthless affair,” and poorly written (the third and final act “consist[ed] mainly of specialties introduced in a disconnected manner”).  By the end of the show’s week-long Chicago run, however, it had failed almost completely, and information was publicized describing the show as having been in trouble for quite some time.  The owner of the Chicago Opera House, where the show was to be performed, had advanced $1000 just to get the troupe to Chicago from Pittsburgh, where the show had bombed (“‘Royal Midgets’ in Trouble,” ChicTrib, 5 Nov. 1891, p 3).  In only its second performance, Tuesday night, “[t]he dwarves refused to go on…unless the house guaranteed their salaries” (“The Chicago Playhouse,” NYTimes, 8 Nov. 1891, p 13).  By Sunday, it was discovered that, though the show had initially contained “fourteen full-grown actors and twenty-six midgets,” only “thirteen Liliputians and a Gulliver” had arrived for the Chicago performance, necessitating the removal of the first act – which is why it was a three act play rather than four.  Apparently this was due to the fact that “salaries…[had] not been paid for four or five weeks” (“Gossip and Notes,” ChicTrib, 8 Nov. 1891, p 26).

It wasn’t entirely a bust for Admiral Dot, however, as he was said to have met his future bride (Mabel Gladis / Lotte Swartwood) while touring with the Royal Midget company.  In 1892, after 22 years of exhibitions and touring, he chose to marry.  The news was big enough to be publicized in major papers from New York to LA to Cincinnati – though they also took the opportunity to fill the announcement with gags about the childlike stature of the two engaged individuals.  For example, the appalling description that the two were to head to New York to “get the consent of their papas and mammas…[though i]f they refuse the midgets are both of age and will get married just the same” (“Midgets to Marry,” LATimes, 2 June 1892, p 4).

Though he ‘retired’ as a hotelier four years later, Admiral Dot was remembered as one of Barnum’s most famous midgets.  A 1902 book called About Stage Folks, credits him (under his stage name) as “the smallest fireman in the world” at his home in White Plains (William E. Horton, p 50).  The 1903 text A Book of Curious Facts of General Interest Relating to Almost Everything Under the Sun included a section on dwarves which called Dot “a clever little singer and dancer” and “the handsomest of all dwarves” (Henry Williams, p 58-9).  By 1910, he was practically legend for The Bookman magazine, who reported that he had once earned $700 a week as a touring midget (Vol 31 Num 4, June 1910, p 407).

More work exists on Admiral Dot than on Major Atom, though the bulk of his online presence is now dominated by brief biographical sketches on websites devoted to the wider phenomenon of touring freaks.

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 Lucia Zarate

(Between 18 and 20 inches tall; roughly 5 pounds; probably died age 28)

Zarate, from Mexico (apparently), was born 24 January 1863 (Display Ad, WashPost, 15 Feb 1889, p 2).  As “the smallest midget ever living any length of time” (“Some Famous Midgets” article), Zarate is a special case.  She is described often in the historical record, as such her personality can be much more substantially elaborated here.

The author of the “Some Famous Midgets” article, Frances M. Benson, took great pleasure in describing her, calling her “a brown little thing,…homely as a little monkey and a perfect chatterbox, talking constantly to anyone who would listen to her squeeky, mouse-like voice.”  Benson further described her temper; Zarate would apparently “fly…into a perfect rage at any…neglect and scold…like a little shrew.”

A much more entertaining description of Zarate comes from the children’s magazine St. Nicholas.  In the July 1879 issue a letter was published calling Zarate, then only 15, a “Living Doll,” describing her thusly:

Her head is no bigger than a man’s fist, and she is but a little taller than the seat of a dining-room chair; one of her tiny hands will go through a large finger-ring, and she has dear little feet about two inches long.

She has a Mexican countenance, with dark complexion and large nose, and her black eyes look out from under heavy eyelids, but she is very bright and lively, and has a very high temper, which she sometimes shows.

She walks about as if she knows she is better dressed than most of the ladies who are looking at her.

A follow up letter in the next month’s issue, from a young Chicago girl named Josie L. Fox, is perhaps the sweetest thing ever written about a touring midget.

[S]he was in St. Louis a year ago giving exhibitions in company with several other little people, Admiral Dot, Miss Jennie Quigley, and General Mite. We were all staying at the same hotel, and I used to see Admiral Dot and Miss Jennie Quigley every day in the dining-room and halls. One day, my sister and I were invited into Lucia’s room to play with her, and we had a grand game of hide-and-seek. She is so small she could hide in the funniest places you can imagine. Once she ran under the bed without stooping at all; and she hid in her papa’s slipper and fairly screamed with fun when we found her. A roll of paper lying on the floor tripped her tiny feet, and she fell and bumped her dear little nose, but this only made her laugh the louder. I would like to have her for a plaything all the while.

Whatever she ‘was’ – be it “homely as a little monkey,” a ’screaming shrew,’ or a ‘laughing living doll’ – and whatever moral perspective we take on ‘freak shows,’ Lucia Zarate, at least for this one little girl, was one of the greatest joys (and toys) in the world.

It is unclear when and how Zarate died.  Most accounts say she died at age 28, in late 1891 or early 1892.  One highly untrustworthy source from 1896 claims that she “was frozen to death in the West about four years ago”; though it seems to get the death date correct, it butchers her name, calling her “Lucy Zaretta” (“Pranks of Nature,” Godey’s Magazine Number 789, p 302).  However, the Book of Curious Facts… from 1903 describes a “Luzie Zarate” as “the smallest dwarf now before the public” (emphasis added), saying that she is 31 and 9 3/4 pounds (p58-9).  We might conclude this to be true, despite the seeming seeming 7 year error in age, if we assume that she was overstating her age in her earlier appearances to seem more exceptionally small; the weight gain (from nearly five to nearly ten pounds), and her seeming over-childishness in 1979 (when she was supposed to be 15) would also fit that explanation.  However, in order to accept this account we must disregard the vast number of articles which declare her to have died at age 28.  It’s possible there was simply another Mexican midget touring under a variant of the famous Zarate name.

Little else about Zarate can be offered here.  The bulk of the rest of my information on her comes from her joint tour with Major Atom in 1889.  Doubtless, however, she was one of the most famous and well paid touring midgets of her time as her size was exceptional.

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(Image credits: newsprint imagery from ProQuest sources.  The cropped photographs come from full size internet sources: the Syracuse University Library, and MissionCreep.com.  Variants can be found elsewhere, however.)