A popular dime museum attraction from 1891 to 1895 was Bella (or Belle) Carter from Blue Bank, Kentucky, called "The Mare Woman". Born normal, Bella was five years old when a mole in the center of her back began to sprout hair. Carefully cultivated, this hair grew to more than a foot in length and was as silky and shiny as the hair on Bella's head.
Bella's impressive – if brief – dime museum career included the Palace Museum (New York City), the Trenton Museum (Trenton, NJ), Huber's Museum (NYC), the Gaiety Musée (Fitchburg, Mass.), the Lincoln Dime Musée (Lincoln, Neb.), Wonderland (Salt Lake City), and the World's Museum (Fort Wayne, Ind.). There were at least four "Maned Women" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but none boasted as handsome a mane as Bella's.
Photo: Naevus pilosus (hairy mole), from Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by Gould and Pyle.