Tom-Ton : fat boy : weight 645 lbs. age 21.

This is a souvenir postcard printed in black on white card showing ‘Tom-Ton’, an obese young man in boots, stockings, shorts and a smock sitting in a carved wooden chair against a dark background. He is smiling and his eyes looking to his right. He appears to have been born Theodore A.Valenzuela, in Mexico in 1895, making a career as a circus sideshow or freak-show "fat man" ultimately weighing 1600 pounds. He appears to have died from myocarditis, dropsy and suffocation of the heart in 1926. Freak shows were part of a heritage dating from the Victorian and Edwardian times which were very popular, travelling around the country putting on shows in local theatres or as part of a circus. In addition to very fat people there would have been others who were extremely, thin, small, tall or with various sorts of physical deformity (Siamese twins etc.) as well as full body tattoos, the most poular incorporating disability with novelty performances. Souvenir postcards were a way of the shows making more money and give us a record today of growth and weight disorders at the time, as well as other physical disabilities..