A Girl and Her Pets

Talk about a unique pet portrait! This vintage photo shows just how brave lion trainers were back in the day. A female circus performer sits atop a lion during some downtime at the circus. She’s wearing her glamorous costume with ballerina shoes. It’s our best guess that she was a trained dancer as well as a lion tamer.

While we don’t know this woman’s name, she was undoubtedly part of a larger trend in circuses at the time. It was all the rage to have a female lion tamer on staff at a circus. The added element of danger drew in audiences from far and wide. The job was extremely dangerous, but it provided a sense of liberation and employment that many women couldn’t achieve at the time.