Located in downtown Winston Salem, North Carolina, the Tattoo Archive was founded in Berkeley, California in 1980 by C. W. Eldridge. The Tattoo Archive is a working shop which does custom tattooing. It is also home to our online store selling tattoo collectibles from around the world. Here, you can also find the BookMistress' tattoo books and the Paul Rogers Tattoo Research Center (PRTRC), a nonprofit corporation with the primary goal of preserving tattoo history.

The mission of the Tattoo Archive is to promote the history of tattooing through research and education. A wealth of information is available just for the asking, to the casual visitor and academic alike. Requests for access to materials and information available for research should be made in writing.

A real-time visit to the Archive in downtown Winston Salem is like a step back in time. The walls tell the story of tattoo history with images from bygone eras of tattooists and tattooed people, as well as tattoo history in the making; including illustrations from contemporary artists. The Archive also hosts changing exhibits on tattoo history.

Thanks for visiting our web site -- we hope you'll enjoy it. If you're ever in our neck of the woods, please stop by and meet Chuck, the BookMistress and Moose. In the meantime, please enjoy a TOUR of our shop.