From the waist down, Myrtle Corbin was actually two women. Read the article: www.factinate.com/people/fact... Visit the site: www.factinate.com/ Facebook: / factinate TikTok: / factinate Instagram: / factinate
Myrtle Corbin is my great great grandmother in law. She was a strong and amazing woman. My mother in law is the spitting image of Myrtle! We have photos of her not ever made public. Thank you for focusing on the good and what she accomplished!
@@karenneill9109 no there isn't but it's often ignored from stories like these. She was obviously a very savvy woman and should have been represented as such
A lot of them still don’t. They’re on the dole, they hate the “do gooders” that took away a good living. They got to travel the world, meet interesting people. I personally think it should be UP TO THEM what they want to do with their own lives. And nobody, able bodied or not can tell if somebody is a POS to this day. 🤷♀️
My grandpa was a “freak.” He was a “fishman.” He had terrible psoriasis, and the rafts of psoriasis looked like scales. He had issues working -torquing the skin caused the skin to bleed. He got a job in a freak show, and made a good living. My gran and he divorced when my (perfectly normal) mom was small, and he toured the country making good money - until “them dang do gooders” decided that physical defect equaled mental defect and he (and those like him) didn’t realize he was being taken advantage of and closed down the shows - without a thought as to how these people who were not mentally challenged were going to get jobs, survive, etc. He went from having a home and a job to a drifter that was chased out of anywhere he tried to get a job. He ended his days living with his brother, shunned and hidden. For the “freaks” often the inner world of the sideshow with the other freaks was the only place they felt normal.
Your grandpa might have had ichthyosis, rather than psoriasis. The name comes from the scale-like appearance of the skin ("ichthys" = "fish" in Greek). Ichthyosis is caused by one of several different genetic variations. If he had two copies of one of the ichthyosis gene variations, then he'd have ichthyosis; your mom would be a carrier; and you'd have a 50/50 chance of being a carrier. It only costs about $200-$300 to run a genome these days, might be interesting to see if anyone is a carrier.
@@bcjb720 WOW that's very impressive knowledge you have there. And that's incredibly nice of to share that with the individual above in regards to their Grandfather and his struggles. I agree too, that getting a genenom test would be very interesting. Regardless of the results, honestly.
I’m probably being controversial here, but I think she had a good life. She found love, had a good income, had babies and lived to a reasonable age for the time. Lots of healthy ‘normal’ people of that time had none of these things. I don’t feel sorry for her, I admire and salute her and all that she achieved. Very nice video, thank you.
She may have had a better life than she would have if she was born now. Her wage was enormous for the time, and I would not be too quick to judge the parents, in that age if you could not make money you could literally starve. The Halloween decorations are modern so we are no better. I don't think she would like being called tragic.
Yeah, I thought the narrator was a bleeding heart liberal... I've had a harder life than her, but you'll know it by looking at me or my accomplishments
Given our modern understanding of biology what’s our excuse for the nastiness we impose of LGBTQ and gender fluid people - especially given the fact that they represent a tiny proportion of the population.
Still would be today. Humans wisdom hasn't advanced in any time/way whatsoever!! 150 yrs ago and we haven't grown, matured, educated ourselves, mellowed, grown in empathy or anything of the sort for decade after decade! 😮😢 Actually, truly sad. ❤😊❤
She was rich and famous, had her pick of the best doctors in the country and raised 4 successful children. Frankly I'd love to be her instead of being completely broke all the time and unable to get the medical care I need not because it hasn't been invented yet, but because it's priced stupidly high. Heck even basic household items I need cost 100x as much as the "normal" version just because it's for the disabled.
She sounds like a very amazing woman. Even though she was treated cruelly it sounds as if she lived life with courage. Im glad she found happiness with her husband and children. May she rest in eternal peace.
Nothing comparable about viewing a family that are not physically handicapped. This is 2024. Life is lived under cameras.. Not our choices. Everywhere we go. Kids are used to it. No exploitation involved whatsoever. These people Barnum hires were exploited
The difference there is that in those days there was no social security and so the men had to find ways of working to earn a living. Alas, poor Josephine Myrtle's father was more of an opportunist and instead of protecting his daughter, as is a father's duty, he chose to exploit her. Shameful man.
@@Djulimee I definitely agree. Unfortunately we have seen other opportunists such as these poor kids on tv (Shirley Temple among many) or in music and now social media is empowering a whole new set of opportunistic parents. SMH, I don’t understand why people seem to think they have the right to live off their kids.
@@teschchr122 The patriarchal construct treats women and children as property rather than autonomous beings. Despite much progress, that mindset still exists globally.
My grandmother was raised in an orphanage in the early 1900s in Minnesota. She told me that people dropped off their deformed babies and often times the babies were allowed to starve to death in a dark room all alone. The baby would be given just enough food to survive but no one held the baby and it eventually died. That was back before social security disability and the church thought it was better to allow the baby to die than to suffer all its life. The orphanage had barely enough food to eat. Sometimes the children ate oatmeal that had been donated and the oats had bugs. She told me that hearing a baby cry haunted her because she thought about the suffering babies. When she became an adult she adopted my father who is mixed with black. Interracial marriage was not legal then.
They would have to remove one leg from each side for her to appear "normal". Then she would still have had two vaginas. If they removed one of them then she would have still had one regular size leg and one small one. Seems she would be better off the way she was born.
@@ijoinedthedarkside333 Not every where is like the US, in the UK and the majority of Europe medical care is free. In the UK all medical care has been free (pay for in taxes) since the 1940's.
I understand the physical invasion of pretty much h any doctor . I was born in 1960 with displaced hips. For the next 10 years I had to pretty much allow any male to investigate me. Do you understand how embarrassing, humiliating that is ? Can't even imagine what she went through.
I a sorry that you went through this. In 1960 I was also born, as a D.E.S baby. I have had more photos taken of my internal vagina and uterus plus later ovaries to be used as "medical information." for "text books". Now I try to laugh it off, make a joke of it, and am just thankful that it has taught a lot of others about it.. In my 60's now I look at it as my private modeling albeit unpaid lol it hurts in the past but as someone once said to me, "you survived, were brave, and have moved on to a better life". I repeat that to you and hope it gives you some peace.
Doctors are very strange people with no sense of personal boundaries. I had my son by C-section and after the baby was removed the doctor called in some interns and they spent about five minutes rummaging around talking about how organs look different when they're living. Thankfully my son came back after being cleaned up so they had to sew me up. It was surreal.
I know somebody who's child had a rare disease and they always had various doctors examining her at the children's hospital which upset her. In fact once she had an visiting American lady professor come to see her who was really kind and gentle and explained far more to the parents in one session that the usual doctor did. Also kept in touch afterwards.
I visited the Barnum Museum in Florida and was horrified by the way people with deformities were exploited by the circus owner. Later, it was explained that they were happy there. They had found each other. Separately they were freaks but together they were normal.
@@deborahtaylor9754 Circus acts incorporating wild animals have been kept out of NYC for some time now. But it was because of PUBLIC DEMANDS that it was stopped.
That would have been the RINGLING museum if it was in Florida. The Barnum museum is in Connecticut. I've been to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. They have a wonderful collection of art, in addition to their circus museum.
@@VisionaryGardener Yes. My memory was of the wife. She created many needlework designs of pillows, a piano bench cover, etc., using PETIT POINT designs, which uses much smaller stitches and a smaller, fine pointed needle. This means a lot more work and more of a task for eyesight. I was a little horrified, so much tedious effort, in the hot & humid Florida weather. She was a waitress when her husband found her. He was a rich celebrity. My thought was he must be a horrible person. Then I went to the museum where many of the, “Freak,” posters were displayed. I was kinda sorry I had visited there.
I never heard of this brave and very strong lady, but I think Myrtle Corbin is a freaking hero! She took the bad break that an accident of birth dealt to her and made a great life for herself, giving life to three children and, for that time period, lived a long life. Hurray for Myrtle!
@@annabellelee4535 exactly. Most had no other opportunities to earn a living, and they made the best out of their situations. Stopping freakshows put a lot of people out of work.
@@pianoreigns I have talked to sideshow performers quite often and yes, they love their jobs. They made good money until someone got all offended and banned them from performing. Why are you disgusted by them? I'm not disgusted by them. I've even met "Lobster Boy" aka Grady Stiles and I don't find even Grady to be disgusting. What he did was disgusting though.
I think 59 years is actually really good for someone born with this sort of deformity back that long ago. A lot of people without deformities didnt live that long.
This poor woman..going though life with this abnormality. The courage..and strength it took to face each day..had to be tremendous. She had a strength that enabled her to cope. I am sure she had some weepy nights..wondering why. How Barnum treated his workers and animals...is.was cruel and revolting. It makes me sick at heart.
Not everyone sits around feeling sorry for themselves. She obviously didn't, which is why she had such a great life. Especially for those times. She had an excellent life. One to be envied, not to be cried over. Barnum wasn't a saint but he gave disabled people a way to have a life. Paid them very well, access to healthcare. She found love & had children. The way he treated animals was typical of those times. This narrator is a bleeding heart. She would never want all this pity!
@@RachelLinks-pk6drhaving your disability on display for the world to see and having people gawk at you and make comments about your body just so that your parents can make money ….yeah that’s pretty bad. People should not exploit their children. Dad should have put all that effort into working.
I must take slight issue with you on one point. I was a medical secretary for many years. Invariably, no matter which hospital, there was a medical dictionary which was large, very old and filled with hand drawn illustrations. The doctors meant no unkindness by calling them "monsters". Any extremely rare or hitherto unknown deformity was labelled as such. It was a medical definition. Generally back then, the babies died, were stillborn and were sometimes helped out of the world because the physical defects were such as to be considered incapable of life and the mother was told the baby was stillborn. They had no treatment or cure. People were poor with no social medical care. Of course it sounds dreadful but it was ignorance not unkindness. I have been in a pathology museum with things in jars and they can be alarming enough to see, even now. Anyway, I just wanted your viewers to know that.
Methotrexate (the medication showed when they were discussing her fatal infection) is a chemotherapy medication frequently used to treat Psoriasis as well as Psoriatic and/or Rheumatoid Arthritis. Odd choice, as they were lamenting the lack of antibiotics. 🤷🏻♀️
I’m old enough to remember as a child (under 10) when the Annual Fair came to town, they had a section that had all the “Freak Shows” (as they were referred to back then). We weren’t even allowed to walk through that area - we would skirt around it. I was one of 7 kids. Both of my parents absolutely hated this kind of abuse / taking advantage of someone’s disability. By time I was a tween these shows had been banned in our city. They may have still been part of the Fair, but they weren’t allowed to set up. Amazing that Corbyn has such a “full” life.
Like it or not most of those who appeared in Circus "Side Shows" were happy to exhibit themselves. People with those type of "disabilities" had no other way of earning a living, were gawked at anywhere they went anyway and they actually made very good money exhibiting themselves. There is a documentary about former side show participants, they all speak with great resentment about how their chosen livelihood was ended by "do-gooders" who needed to mind their own business. According to the "mule faced woman" she was formerly earning $5 thousand dollars a month on the circuit but after laws were created to "protect" her she was forced to live in a tiny travel trailer and live on a little more than $1 thousand dollars a month in social security. People with "disabilities" are smart and fully capable of making decisions for themselves, they don't need anybody who is offended to "protect them". And this narrator has is WRONG! The "freaks" in the documentary spoke highly of Barnum, the was no need to portray him as some abusive "slave owner". I think the documentary (shown on PBS) may have been called "After the Sideshow".
@@user-ch9if6px6r The same, I could not stand it that people were called "freaks," even when I was tiny. They are people that are born differently that is all.
I am wondering why her doctor husband didnt suggest the infected leg be amputated in order to save her life. Amputation of limbs was done, especially since Civil War times...so many doctors had training and experience in that type of surgery.
How is it outrageous that the doctors said she was a twin who didn't completely split? That's what her condition, Dipygus, is- twins that have not separated and one absorbed into the body of the other twin.
Yes, I agree that dipygus is the deformity that is caused by incomplete mono zygotic twinning; an incomplete absorbed twin. Why they thought it was strange, was because it was very rare, these doctors probably only read about it, and it was shocking to see back then. Also, newspapers, articles, scientific journals all hyped up the condition to attract readers, and followers.
@@tuft9250It’s not *completely* incorrect. There is speculation that this may be “a cause” of dipygus. The truth is, medical professionals don’t really know what causes the disorder, or if there are multiple factors contributing to the disorder. There have been studies showing a genetic expression that may be the reason that some people are born with dipygus.
@@ace6285 OUCH! Are you perfect? Do you always think of everything from every angle? That Must stop you from doing much as you won't have the time, you'll be too busy thinking.
@@northernlady212 The epidemic of people who don’t think and advise the same for others has led us to the idiocy we see all around us now. Of course, perhaps the commenter was making a joke.
Great story! I'm just upset that you called her Corbin the whole time. It felt a little undignified. I think she deserved to be Myrtle throughout the story.
Thank you for an excellent video. It's so nice to hear people talking about people. Gives much more feeling than if some AI voice reported at me for half an hr
Sad. But at least she was able to earn a decent amount of money. I know it was a terrible way to do it, but all her private business was already public knowledge. And we can't be hard on societal norms of 150 years ago, look at the absolute disgrace we have in trashy social media and reality tv. 150 years from now people may be looking at us and saying can you believe what these people were doing?
Born in Bono, Johnson County, Texas on 22 May 1896 to James Clinton Bicknell and Josephine Myrtle Corbin. Clinton Francis Bicknell married Alma Cordelia Jameson and had 3 children. He passed away on 8 April 1966 in Temple, Bell County, Texas, USA.
One thing that people forget all of time is that they look at someone with a disability is that they do not see the "ability" that is within the person. As with the word "disabled" the "able" gets lost - no one is perfect (and if you think that you are, you are on the wrong planet).
I feel sorry for the child. She had been exploited by both her parents and by Barnum. Her childhood had to be unbearably sad. And adulthood didnt sound much better. She doesnt look happy in the pics. I hope she found some happiness at some point in her life. ❤😢
Honestly in most pics of that time period no one really looks happy. Given that this was during the 1800s where one had to sit entirely still so as not to ruin the exposure that is a contributing factor to the often serious look people of the time had.
@@annabellelee4535 I would definitely like to think so. In a book I read about her it seems her husband liked the money she could make going on tour too.
With aaaaall respect to this poor woman and all tragedy and hardship she went through her life, with the statement that she had everything double down there, does it mean she had double periods? And hiw did her digestive system work? Things came out both ways? I mean people only saw her legs but she must have been dealing with so much stuff all her life!
I wondered the exact same thing. Especially when he stated that she was confused as to being pregnant on the left side when she said that the right side was being used for… that purpose. Or did I misunderstand? So, two separate uteri?
Yes, if she had double uteruses, therefore she had double periods. She would also have had double bladders, and she had double clitorises. Not necessarily would she have had double stomachs, and it didn't seem like it, or she would have been wider above the waist. She also had double anuses, because it was implied she had "double of everything down there." How that worked one could only imagine. It's crazy how we're still analyzing and dissecting this poor woman's body apart after she's been laid to rest. Curiosity, will get the better of people. Maybe donating her body to science would have been a better choice. Her spirit is long gone, but her body remains a novelty.
@@SapiophileGoddess It makes more sense when you understand that ovaries aren't neatly sealed to the ends of the fallopian tubes. Sperm can leave the fallopian tubes and enter the abdominal cavity. So they could have then entered the unsealed end of the other uterus' fallopian tube. It's all highly unusual but so is being a four legged woman.
What she had to endure as a person from ignorant people, glad she was able to work and support her family and still keep her great disposition. This video was great, can you please do a video on PT Barnum, never knew how evil he was to animals and people. ( I am not criticizing you, but Methotrexate is not an antibiotic but a med given as a chemo med. Also for people that have auto - immune problems like Rheumatoid Arthritis and patients that have psoriasis etc)
Also remember that for a woman to show her leg above the ankle was considered shameful. I suspect she was raised with the same puritanical attitude everyone had at the time. It was embarrassing in a way it would not be today.
Barnum was not the originator of the phrase "Suckers, there's one born every minute." It was used against him in court by a banker in a case over the "Cardiff Giant."
I’m a Bicknell by birth. When I was a teenager, my dad told me we had a relative that had 4 legs. I thought he was joking until he took out a small black & white photo of Myrtle when she was young. It seems that the man she married, Clinton Bicknell, was closely related to my grandfather. I think first cousins. So, I’m not blood related to Myrtle but I definitely am related to her descendants. I have a photo of her grave that my sister took some time ago. I’m fascinated by her life story. On a side note, I believe Blount County is in Alabama rather than Tennessee.
In India in recent years a boy was born with four legs and four limbs attached at the abdomen plus a girl born with four arms and four legs in both cases it was a parasitic twin. Both had surgeries to remove their parasitic twin the boy in 2010 and the girl in 2007.
There's an Indian god or goddess rather like that. I think I've heard about a high number of similar people in India 🤔 I wonder if there is something in the Indian genetics 🤔
Her parents did keep her in long dresses. But her "selling point" was to show her 4 legs. That could only be done by having her in either a short dress, which wasn't in style then or have her raise her skirt to show them once the audience had paid to enter the tent where she performed.
Her parents were smart. Take her to make great money showing just her legs. Or become homeless and starve to death. They didn't take all her money like the parents did in the 1940's (the little rascals , the gang and I ) and all the way up until the 1980's. They did what they needed to to survive.
She was likely a set if conjoined twins. If the zygote doesn’t split all the way you will have conjoined twins. Depending on how and where it separates will determine how that conjoining looks.
The subject of this story is named Josephine Myrtle Corbin. Why does this story constantly refer to her, even as a little girl, by her last name only? This is especially confusing as the same story mentions her family members who of course all bear the last name Corbin. Even after her marriage, the narrator still refers to her as Corbin, even though her last name at that time was almost certainly that of her husband.
She earned a fantastic salary, found a man who didn't love her for her money, had several children and lived to be 59 years old. That right there is amazing for the time (150 years ago). I think it is safe to say she was happy.
Better than what!? She was loved by her parents, strangers were paying a great deal of money to look at her legs, she married and had babies, she wasn't homeless and hungry.
Her father did for several years before PT Barnum came into the picture. I'm guessing that he thought she was old enough to be left with him. After all, there were children who were given to trades people as an apprentice to learn the trade, thus ensuring the child would have a better life than the parents.
I think you have been harsh on Barnum. One needs to remember it was a very long time ago. He provided a better than average income for individuals that would have otherwise made no money. Many of his sideshows went on to live great lives with the income they earned. They also found living there a comfort because they were around others with distracting features and all their needs were met.. I am not saying the man is perfect or didn't do some questionable things, but he wasn't all bad. Most of his employed people loved the man for the chance he gave them. Lastly, Ringling and Barnum merged in 1919 but Ringling and Barnum worked together for years prior. If she hated her life with Barnum, I highly doubt she would have returned to Ringling and Barnum. Nice documentary, just a bit exaggerated.
Sadly 😥 it is true in some circumstances of working as a freak in a show There comes a feeling of camaraderie with other members of Entertaining the lewd Ghouls whom want to be shocked.....paying a penny for a clance. Maybe safe yes especially in the callous past where difference was monstrosity. Unfortunately it separated understanding of difference by making it a side show act .
Yes, he certainly could have offered them a much lower salary if he had chosen to. Clearly he valued them as performers and was more generous as an employer than he could have been. There were certainly worse employers at the time.
Did she leave a diary,or journal? If not we have no idea what her feelings were.Salute to this strong,intelligent woman! ❤❤Wonder what the FAKES were using,as fake legs ? Needles to say human NATURE,has only gotten worse.
She wasn’t one foetus absorbing her twin but an incomplete siamese twin. In the case of identical twins the fertilised egg splits completely before the first cell division and develops into two individuals. When it splits after the first cell division the split is often incomplete, which leads to a siamese twin. The extent to which the two halves are connected varies widely, from just some soft tissue and blood vessels to two half bodies fused together and two heads and ultimately to someone with three or four legs or arms.
You're absolutely right. However, the term "Siamese" is a smidge on the racist side - "conjoined" is the modern term. (Though it absolutely is the name they would have used in Myrtle's lifetime.)
The medical field has vastly changed since Corbin died in 1928 at the age of 59. And her death was almost 100 years ago. Even in the last few years we have made great strides in all of the sciences. We cannot judge the past by what we think they should have known when we have much more information than they did.
Unfortunately, it was normal for the times to show off "freaks". She could have had a mostly normal life if she had been born today. I don't think Barnum was quite as bad as you made him out to be. He paid them well - they would have lived in destitute isolation if they hadn't worked for Barnum. Don't roast me for saying that! I don't agree with Barnum's business methods at all.
Completely different times from today, the way people lived and the trends that went by.. even today people exploit their own kids online, look at pageant moms or even kids born with deformities are probably even more exploited today because of technology..
It’s not even that long ago they stopped using elephants and other animals in circuses .. people find it barbaric and not so long ago, I was born in the 80s, I rode on an elephant at the circus and back then it was normal! I was a kid, but now we have so many ways to educate ourselves, there’s no excuse for ignorance like the old days
Wonderful documentary on such an interesting woman. 😊 Granted, Barnum did treat his animals and his sideshow attractions like crap… But I often feel that there’s a point overlooked, here. Back in those days, a malformed person was literally called a “freak” (whereas today we use it for people with strange appetites or body modifications as opposed to misfortunes of birth). They weren’t viewed kindly by society, there weren’t a lot of jobs any of them could hold due to their disabilities, and the government didn’t have disability and SSI back then. Their best bet for survival was finding some means of making money and, unfortunately, being a side show freak could pay quite well if you had someone that knew how to negotiate a contract. Even if you didn’t, you were with others that were also malformed and didn’t view you as a “freak”. You were accepted, which was more than what the rest of society would give you. Plus you got fed and had a roof over your head. That wasn’t anything to sneeze at for a lot of these people back then. Should you feel sorry for them? Eh… yes and no. They did get treated poorly, but at least they had a sense of belonging and a means to support themselves. It’s more than they had in the day before circus sideshows… If you’d like a good example, watch Tod Browning’s “Freaks”. The movie has a weird plot line, but they used real sideshow “freaks” in the movie. These were incredibly amazing people, especially if you look them up on Wikipedia and read their life story. Some of them were so talented because of their disabilities and they actually had pretty decent lives.
More than decent. They had a community and friends. If they had thought about it, they could have built a town with a general store, a bank, a hotel and a church.
There is something extremely unsettling that people would want to go to a "freak show" and gawk at people whose physical appearance is outside the norm. To paraphrase John Bradford's remark in the 16th century, "There but for the grace of God go I."
@@sylvia106 Point taken. But Factinate shows us the human side of everyone they showcase. I don't think people who attend freak shows are interested in anything more than the superficial.
Omfg can we please stop judging the past based on the standards of today!?! Being a "freak" was akin to being a drag queen today; some people were jerks but most thought they were awesome. Granted there was a lot more ignorance and eugenics was quite popular, but by the standards of the time being a star in a freak show was a great life. Why'd you think people worked so hard to faked it? This was a great time to be disabled in many ways. Having a rare and visible condition led to doctors fighting to offer care, to help figure out how and why, to fame and riches and the freedom that brings! Nowadays we're either given a pill and sent packing with no explanation of our condition, or pushed into having procedures just to make us seem more normal so people don't treat us like we're stupid or children. She certainly doesn't need your pity, and neither do those of us alive today! We need your support, encouragement and friendship JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!!!
