NOTE: there’s just no way around the fact that this is now considered reckless animal abuse, and thankfully has been eradicated around much of the modern world (but not all, sadly). Stark lived in a different time, though… is something that I hope can be considered in this case.

Mabel was thus considered America’s first famous female tiger trainer. Amazingly, she practiced until the age of 79yo, when she was unceremoniously fired when her employer’s insurer dropped her coverage. She died by suicide three months later, unable to bear life away from her big cats.

All credit to u/dannydutch1 for this discovery and the key text & facts. More here:
https://www.utterlyinteresting.com/post/mabel-stark-the-world-s-first-female-tiger-trainer

I can highly recommend Danny’s site, which seems to specialize in controversial figures & happenings across the contemporary era. Always with lots of historical photos!

  • JohnnyEnzyme ( JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social ) OPEnglish
    7·
    22 hours ago

    Then you might as well say that everything across history that might offend someone later is “whitewashing.” The point is that she lived in a time when audiences largely felt these things were okay, and now we don’t, starting with the OP (me).

    You can point the finger anywhere you like of course, but the reality is that this was a show spectacle, whereas nowadays we treat most domestic animals (and wild ones, really) with far more horrific cruelty, but the difference is that we do it out of sight. Ever read about what animal husbandry is like these days…?

    The person who chose to attack a tiger with a whip, knowing that it was cruelty to animals.

    My understanding of these trainers (ideally) is that they used their whips for control, not for the purposes of “attacking” the animals. The object was to use the loud whip-cracking sounds to intimidate the tigers and keep them in obeyance. Attacking them directly would be a fool’s errand IMO, as it would be hard to damage them much, and would quite likely enrage them.

    My attempt was to present an even-handed transmission of Danny’s post, but I guess it’s inevitable that a holier-than-thou type would try to take things out of context and stir shit up here, huh?