A souvenir stage show program featuring numerous black and white photographs; publisher unknown, but featuring the article “Little by Little: Why is a Midget and What’s His Life Like? Come Visit a Troupe of Them, and a Woman Who Guides Their Destinies” by John Proctor, as originally printed in The Family Circle; 32 pages, circa 1938.

I am not going to mention names, or even localities… but I have my eye on several little people who are something very special in the line of midgets – one of them no larger than a one-year-old child – and the slightest hint might serve to lose them for me. Midgets are not so scarce as you might think… but picking those who are both extra-small and sufficiently talented to be coached for the stage is something else again.

Many little people are brought to me by their parents… and when my troupe was at the Texas Centennial, I was astonished to find how many midgets there are in that part of the country. Dozens appeared for a tryout… Sometimes word gets around about a particularly talented midget in a remote part of the country, and sometimes people send me tips by mail. Right now I have a waiting list of 35.

The entertainment field offers midgets their best chance for contentment, and so I find that parents are usually willing to entrust their offspring to me. No, we don’t sign any contracts. The Rose name is so well known that I am able to take the children on the customary conditions – that I pay the parents a certain amount of salary, give the midgets pocket money, and take care of their traveling and living expenses…

I give each member a dollar a day for meals. They generally eat in pairs, and although their appetites are larger in proportion to their size than those of normal persons, they can make out very well with a regular table d’hote lunch or dinner. One of the pair eats the fruit cocktail, and the other takes the soup, and the next day they will reverse the order. They share the meat and dessert courses, and most restaurants are accommodating about providing extra plates, as it attracts business to have midgets as customers. But the little people hate to be stared at while they eat, although I’m afraid that is a penalty suffered by all show people who are at the mercy of their public. And for the same reason they dread going shopping in large stores.

She is 18 years old, 45 inches high, a singer, dancer, contortionist, roller skater, and imitator, doing a take-off on Mae West, which I think is far more entertaining [than] the original. Her billing as ‘The Pocket-size Mae West’ is regarded as a compliment by Mary Ellen, but these old eyes have been peering at ol’ Diamond Lil in the flesh ever since her burlesque and small-time vaudeville days – beginning around 1914 – and if there ever was any resemblance between the hefty Mae and the dainty, soft-skinned, fragile little Mary Ellen, it must have been some day when I was out to lunch.

Midgets don’t sit in high chairs to eat their meals – and they don’t eat prepared baby foods. They eat the same sort of food that we all enjoy – these teeny, weeny people – the only difference being in the startlingly diminutive portions which they consume… These folks are so very, very tiny that many persons suppose they must live on foods adapted to extremely young children.
On the contrary, most midgets are distinct epicureans, demanding the very highest culinary skill in the preparation of their food. While the quantities they consume are virtually infinitesimal, the quality must be faultless or they will register their dissatisfaction in no uncertain manner.

Vance Swift, the comical midget magician…, is quite an extraordinary culinary expert aside from his ability to perform feats of legerdemain. When he gets a chance, he loves to arrange and plan special menus from soup to nuts, and fully as cleverly as any chef two or three times his size – Vance is only a little over thirty inches tall. [Gosh!]

[Swift’s] favorite recipe is paprika quail, which usually forms the piece de resistance of the banquets he arranges. His concoction of celery hearts stuffed with caviar also are a gourmet’s delight.”

MIDGET – DWARF – PIGMY – LILLIPUTIAN
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

A MIDGET is a reproduction in miniature of a perfectly proportioned normal human being, whose greatest height is four feet six inches, and whose smallest known measurement is one foot seven inches.

A DWARF is a person stunted in growth, but generally thought of as having some deformity.

A PIGMY is the next classification in height to a Midget, ranging from four feet six inches to four feet eleven inches. The PIGMY is racial and begets its own kind, thus propagating and perpetuating the PIGMY race, while Midgets seldom give birth to Midgets.

A LILLIPUTIAN is the inhabitant of Lilliput, a fabled country created in the mind of Jonathan Swift in his classic “Gulliver’s Travels”, a political satire. The LILLIPUTIANS were diminutive people in this work of fiction, and their name has come to be broadly used for Little People anywhere.



JUST IN CASE YOU WONDER WHY

Question: Why are Midgets Midgets?
Answer: In some cases the thyroid gland is very small, permitting the child to grow only until the gland is used up. Then the actual growth of the child stops, but the brain continues to develop the same as in normal people.
In other cases the responsibility rests with the pituitary gland, lying in a depression of the skull and attached to the base of the brain. When this gland does not develop properly, growth is halted and we have Midgets.

Question: Are there different classifications of Midgets?
Answer: Yes, there are three classifications – the Primordial Midget, the Infantile Midget, and the True Midget.

Question: How do these differ?
Answer: The Primordial Midget is a Midget at birth, generally of normal parents. Except for stature, he develops in sex and mind like a normal person.
The Infantile Midget is normal at birth and develops mentally but rarely sexually.
The True Midget is born normal, develops normally in mind and sex, except that the age of puberty is in the late ‘teens or early twenties.

Question: How do Midgets grow?
Answer: Normal mankind cease to grow in the early twenties as the bone ends close. The Primordial or born Midget reaches his extreme height at twenty-five and never grows after that age, as his bone ends close like those of a normal person.
In the Infantile and True Midget classifications, both are born normal, the growth is generally retarded at or before the fifth year, after which Midgetism occurs.
Midgets of both of these classes sometimes grow amazingly after thirty, as their bone ends are not closed. Although they may grow into the Pigmy class, they seldom if ever reach normal height. The period when abnormalities occur in growing is “the age of onset”. One develops into a Midget or a Giant, generally before puberty and more often under the age of five.

Question: Is Midgetism inherited?
Answer: Midgetism is not supposed to be hereditary, as cases of Midgets from generation to generation are seldom if ever known. Midgets rarely beget their kind. Any normal person may give birth to a Midget or a Giant.

Question: What quantity of food do Midgets eat?
Answer: Because Midgets’ metabolic rate is one and a half times that of normal individuals they must eat and drink more in relation to size to maintain sufficient energy. A Midget may eat one-twenty-fifth of his entire weight at a single sitting, and drink enough liquid to provide a bath. They can often “drink under the table” a normal person.

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PLENTY OF SUN AND FRESH AIR
Another Question frequently asked is ‘How do Midgets keep so physically fit and strong?’

The best answer is that they are well looked after and that they look after themselves well. Further, they are all encouraged to take as much advantage of the sun and air as possible.

The Midgets are all sun-bathers, and they never miss an opportunity of getting a sun-bath or a swim. During the summer they go out in parties and find a secluded spot where they can play games and swim with the minimum amount of clothing.