Charles Eisenmann (October 5, 1855 – December 8, 1927) was a famous New York photographer during the late 1880s who worked in the Bowery district.

[2] Although a number of his photographs were of obvious fakes (called "gaffed freaks"),[3] many others were genuinely anomalous, including the giant Ruth Goshen, the four-legged girl Myrtle Corbin, and the Siamese twins Chang and Eng and Millie and Christine.

In his book, Secrets of the Sideshows, Joe Nickell points out that Eisenmann used a number of notable humbugs or gaffs.

The models were locals from the Bronx with hair made frizzy and wild by washing in beer, who earned money for posing.

His career suffered a downturn with the introduction of Gelatin silver process photography which made photographs more inexpensive and available for mass consumption.

[10] For a few years, he sold photographic equipment and took conventional portraits in Plainfield, New Jersey but by 1907 he had disappeared from the public record,[11] some believing he went to Germany.

[12] A number of Eisenmann's favorite subjects can be seen depicted in The X-Files episode "Humbug", namely Jojo the Dog-faced Boy and Chang and Eng Bunker.