Charles Eisenmann was born in Germany in 1855, and he plied his photographic trade on the Bowery in New York City from the 1870’s through the early-1890’s. He was considered the premier photographer for freaks, dime museum, novelty and sideshow acts passing through NYC for some 20 years.
He photographed many hundreds of well-known sideshow acts, and many little-known performers, as well as very famous folk like P.T. Barnum, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, Blind Tom, and many other celebrities of the theatre and circus.
His carte de visite’s and cabinet cards are some of the most sought-after artifacts in the collecting field of 19th Century photography.
Eisenmann can be seen in his own photos occasionally, posing next to Giants for scale.
In 1893 he sold his business to his protege and son-in-law Frank Wendt, and moved to Plainfield, New Jersey where he continued to take more mainstream photographs, though still occasionally making photos of novelty, variety and circus acts that passed through New Jersey.
In his later years he was head of the photography department for the industrial giant DuPont, taking photos of its employees for company directories and ID cards. Eisenmann died in 1927
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