History of Tattoos in America

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Shotsie Gorman. I'm here as a professionsl tatoo artist for Expert Village. Tatoo artists didn't settle down for permanant locations in the United States until the beginning of the twentieth century. Somewhere around the late1920s was around the time that tatoo artists began to establish permanat locations, primarily around military bases in large cities, such as Boston, New York, San Fransisco and San Diego. It wasnt really until the 1960s that tatooing crossed over into popular culture in a big way. I think this may have been because of the women's movement. Women were finally in control of their bodies. Birth control was introduced in the United States for the first time, women actually could be sexual without the worry of getting pregnant, they were becoming more politically active, so they were getting tattooed. Everyone got tatooed, rock n' roll stars, movie stars, they were our aristocracy. These days it's sports stars that are getting tatooed. Tatooing is now a multi-million dollar industry rather than a ritualistic religeous rite of passage, which is were the origin of tatooing began."