Commercial Tattooing – What’s Old is News

By Sean Graham

This week, I’m joined by Jamie Jelinski, author of Needle Work: A History of Commercial Tatooing in Canada. We talk about Jamie’s interest in the history of tattoos, the connection to art history, and the beginnings of tattoos as an industry in Canada. We then discuss questions over regulation and the criminalization of tattooing before chatting about some of the unique case studies in the book.

Historical Headline of the Week

Steven Dyer, “Tattoos in the workplace, how has society’s perception of ink changed?CTV News, September 21, 2024.

Sean Graham is a cultural historian, an Adjunct Professor at Carleton University, and a contributing editor with Activehistory.ca

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