Ella Harper (January 5, 1870 – December 19, 1921), known professionally as The Camel Girl, was born with an extremely rare orthopedic condition that caused her knees to bend backwards, called ''congenital

genu recurvatum Genu recurvatum is a deformity in the knee joint, so that the knee bends backwards. In this deformity, excessive extension occurs in the tibiofemoral joint. Genu recurvatum is also called knee hyperextension and back knee. This deformity is more ...

''. Her preference to walk on all fours resulted in her nickname "Camel Girl". In 1886 she was featured as the star in W. H. Harris's Nickel Plate Circus, appearing in newspapers wherever the circus visited. The back of her pitch card reads: Harper received a $200 per week salary for her appearances (). The money she earned via this role likely afforded her opportunities in life she may not otherwise have had. Harper married a schoolteacher named Robert Savely in 1905; she died in 1921 at the age of fifty-one. She is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

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* 1870 births 1921 deaths 19th-century American people 19th-century American women 20th-century American people 20th-century American women American people with disabilities Burials at Spring Hill Cemetery (Nashville, Tennessee) Deaths from colorectal cancer in Tennessee Entertainers with disabilities Sideshow performers {{US-entertainer-stub