page_title: Mattie Lee Price
section_title: Known as Gaza
hierarchical_section_title: Mattie Lee Price / Known as Gaza
caption_attribution_description: English: From the Ken Hark Circus Collection
context_page_description: Mattie Lee Price of Bartow County, Georgia, United States, was just 14 when she became the second of the Georgia Wonder girls to come out of Georgia, USA during the winter of 1883–1884. Georgia Wonder girls were pre-vaudeville acts in which the young women performed feats of strength, usually pitted against men. They used fulcrum and leverage techniques to lift heavy men in chairs, twist hickory sticks out of strong men’s hands, and other feats of strength. There were variations of the act that included balance tests. "Lulu" Hurst, of Polk County, who was 15 at the time she began her act, started the phenomenon. She gave a magic demonstration at her father’s farm in late December 1883. Dixie Haygood, with the stage name of Annie Abbott, was also a famous Georgia stage magician, performing an almost identical act.
context_section_description: In early 1894, Mattie Lee Price began using  "GAZA" or "Mysterious GAZA" instead of her real name.  Mr. Brigg of England challenged Mattie Lee Price's act at Frank Hall's Casino in Chicago, Illinois in January 1894.  He proclaimed her act to be one of physics rather than one of magical, magnetic, or electrical power.  A contest between Mr. Brigg and Mattie Lee Price was arranged where Mr. Brigg used demonstrations, drawings, and a stereopticon to convince the audience that they could use these same physical forces to better harness their horses and more efficiently pull loads.
  Soon after the Brigg affair, Mattie was advertised with the Walter L. Main Circus in 1894 and billed as "Gaza the strong woman." She was a featured act on a lithographic poster printed to promote her.  Part of the advertisement reads:  "The Magnetic Wonder a Human Magnet of Strength and Weight the phenomenon of the 19th century, lifting hundreds of pounds of dead weight by just placing her hands on it, twisting bars of iron, resisting as much force as can push on a 12 foot pole by simply placing her hands at one end. It cannot be justly pictured, no words adequate to describe it."
  In 1895 Mattie was with the Barnum & Bailey Circus as part of the concert. She was listed as "Mattie Lee Price, The Mysterious Gaza.  The Georgia Wonder." During the summer of 1897 Mattie Lee Price was with the Great Wallace Shows (circus) out of Cincinnati, Ohio and billed as "Gaza the Magnetic Girl."
caption: 1894 "Gaza" Walter L. Main Circus Poster (From the Ken Hark Circus Collection).
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