The History of Tom Thumb written in 1621 orginally tells the tale of a boy no bigger than his fathers thumb. This mini book was printed in 1934 as a children's rhyming tale of Tom and his escapades.
Charles Sherwood Stratton rose to fame in his lifetime (1838-1883) by becoming the real life embodiment of Tom Thumb. He linked up early in his career with P.T. Barnum and together they made a lasting mark on the circus world. P.T. Barnum commodified the popularity of Tom and his equally as tiny wife Lavinia, by procuding pamphelts like these.
Tom was also unusual in that his life still took the common trajectory of marriage and children. Although his family stayed within the bounds of freak life, his wife and children we also dwarves.
Other sources of freak paraphenalia were magazines like the above. Originally individual volumes these stories were meant for mass comsumption, short snippets of inmofration keep the demand coming for freak stories. The Eccentric Magazines as seen above hold both male and female freak characters in thier pages.
