Joseph Carey Merrick Research Paper

Joseph Carey Merrick was born on August 5, 1862, in Leicester, England. At a young age he began to develop physical deformities that became so severe that he was forced to become a resident of a workhouse at age 17. Seeking to escape the workhouse several years later, Joseph found his way into a human oddities show in which he was displayed as The Elephant Man. In 1873, when Joseph was just 11 years old, his mother died of bronchial pneumonia. Joseph would later describe her passing as the “greatest sadness in my life.” His father remarried to their landlady less than a year later, and Joseph dropped out of school to find work, and eventually finding a job rolling cigars in a factory, but his right hand had become so deformed that he could no longer do
And by this point, Merrick’s deformities were so severe, and his speech was impaired as a result, that people were either frightened of him or unable to understand him, and despite his efforts, he was met with little success. When one day his father beat him severely for not earning enough money. Merrick soon went to live with an uncle briefly before becoming a resident at the Leicester Union Workhouse at age 17. Merrick found life in the workhouse intolerable, but unable to find any other means of supporting himself, he was forced to stay. When the chairman of the London Hospital, Carr Gromm, was unable to find another hospital to care for Merrick, he decided to publish a letter in the The Times describing Merrick’s case and asking for help. Gromm’s letter resulted in a public outpouring and enough donations to provide Merrick with a home for the rest of his life, and several rooms in the London Hospital were converted to living quarters for him. Merrick’s fame also resulted in his being aided by members of the British upper