January 15, 2012

'She's a Character Who Could Have Stepped Out of Melville or Hawthorne'

An English Professor Explores the Meaning of a 19th-Century Chin Tattoo 2

Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Olive Oatman was a teenage pioneer heading West with her Mormon family, when she was abducted by Indians. Traded to the Mohaves, who tattooed her and raised her as their own, she has inspired a character in TV's "Hell on Wheels."

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By Michael Stratford

On the television show Hell on Wheels—a new AMC drama about the building of the first transcontinental railroad—one of the characters, Eva, bears a large tattoo on her chin. That mark, or one just like it, has been a focal point of the research of Margot Mifflin, an associate professor of English and journalism at the City University of New York. Ms. Mifflin wrote a biography of Olive Oatman, the historical inspiration for Eva. Her book, The Blue Tattoo, explores