Almost from the time the first backend shows came together to form a carnival midway, there was a midget show among them. The difference between a midget and a dwarf is that a midget is a perfectly formed human being in minature where as a dwarf has  normal size head and body with short, stunted arms and legs. 
One of the more famous midget troupes was Bob Hermines, Lilliputian Village. Bob Rebernigg's father owned a circus in Vienna and his stepmother, Hermione, who's brother owned a big tent circus, deicded in 1934 to put an act together feturing a few performing midgets. It was a great sucess and toured Austria until 1937. The political climate was woresning in 1937 and Bob and his mother decided to export the act out of the country.( Adolf Hitler eventually rounded up all the midgets and dwarfs and sent them to the gas chambers of the concentration camps for execution as he considered them an inferior species ) He knew that they would all need a solid act to get the big money and with his circus experience taught them to become acrobats, wire walkers, boxers and airiaest. In addition each one had to learn to play a musical instrument. Hermione hand stiched all the costumes. They toured Italy and were a hit in all the major cities but Hermione fell ill and died during the latter part of the season. She was deeply mourned by her husband, step son and all the little people who had loved her. They went from Italy to Paris where they got a contract to play the 1939 Worlds Fair in New York appearing in it's top attraction "Little Miracle Town", They played various dates throughout America ending up with the World Of Mirth Shows in 1945.They were a feature show on the Royal American Shows in 1952 and did several movies in the off seasons. The Hermine midgets made up part of the leprechaun crowd in Three Wise Fools in 1946 and also appeared in Danny Kaye's The Court Jester in 1956. Mimi Krisch,one of the midget performers, wore a beard during the filming and even Danny Kaye didn't realize she was a woman until after filming was over. Pepi Krisch, her husband, billed as "Pepi Hermine", appeared in the movie Putney Swope in 1969 as the president of the United States, with a fellow trouper Ruth Hermine as his wife. The Hermine troupe made their final appearance together in 1978. The troupe's home base was in Flushing, New York, where many of the performers are buried. Bob Hermine's midgets were sucessful not just because they were little people with extraordinary talents but because of the insight and dedication of their manager, Bob.

Top row, from left: Marie (Mary) Wood (with cymbals), Friedrich "Butch" Karollus (with drum), William "Willi" Haasz (clown). 
Bottom row, from left: Friedrich "Fred" Soucek, George Ruff, Maria "Mimi" Krisch, Theresa Roblicka, Elisabeth "Böszi" Zöllner (or Tollner), Alois Sapek, 
Josef "Pepi" Krisch, Louis Vasek, Mathilda "Hilda" Karollus (majorette).