Throughout history, the temptation is to label people, conditions and situations according to a set of social criteria, box them up neatly and file them under 'fact'.  With minority groups, this is both fundamentally impossible, and fraught with academic peril.  Shared physical characteristics such as dwarfism no more make people a group of identical mannequins than do celtic arm-band tattoos.  In the 18thC, dwarfs (dwarves are the invention of the Brothers Grimm and players of Warhammer, and have no place here) were known as 'little people', which is exactly the same term as is now decreed most acceptable to little people themselves.    

Dwarfism can manifest in several ways, more than just being short: limbs can be out of proportion, either short or long, or bowed, the spine can be curved and ribs formed in a way that does not aid easy breathing.  Muscle weakness and wastage can also be a problem, which would be difficult if you came from a family of labourers or farmers.  If you were born into a clerical family, or a family of apothecaries, it is likely you would have simply followed their course in life.  Otherwise, if you had no other recourse, or were of a calculating nature it is likely you would have decided to exhibit yourself as a curiosity.  Most dwarfs, though often under the umbrella of an organisation, made the decision to exhibit themselves.  The very young clearly didn't, and there are a few advertisements which turn the stomach, particularly one for a fifteen year old boy who sounds to be suffering from progeria (rapid ageing) rather than dwarfism, whose 'head was bowed to his breast' and who 'laboured under all the infirmities of very old age'.  However, there are plenty of records suggesting adult little people deciding to exhibit themselves for a short time to reap the very lucrative rewards.  Just such a pair were the Skinners.  

Robert Skinner (standing 2 feet and 1 inch high) from Ripon had met his future wife Judith (one inch taller than her husband and from Wales, which seems to have had a high incidence of dwarfism) when they were both on tour in the North.  Legend has it that in 1719, Robert saw an advertisement proclaiming the date upon which Judith would be exhibited in London, and hot-footed it from Liverpool to propose.  She accepted, and they were married in St Martin-In-The-Fields Church one week later.  After a spell exhibiting themselves, they set up home in Chelsea and had fourteen children of average height.  Yes, that's 14. With such a large family to support they decided, in 1742, to exhibit themselves in Westminster at intervals over two years in order to raise some money.  They were quite the characters about town, being described as 'very good-looking, perfectly straight and well made, witty, intelligent and jocose'.  Their exhibition proved very successful and they had a small carriage made so that they might tour St James's Park, 'No larger than a child's chaise, drawn by two dogs, and driven by a lad of twelve years old, attired in a purple and yellow livery'.  After the two years they retired and lived in comfort until Judith died in 1763.  Robert isolated himself and died the following year in Ripon, 'of a broken heart', leaving a fortune of over twenty thousand pounds.

The Skinners, it seems, had accepted the interest in their condition and exploited it, rather than being exploited.  They seem to have had a happy and productive marriage, and displayed themselves proudly, as people of a certain station (and certainly able to afford a carriage, even if it was no bigger than a go-kart), rather than 'freaks'.  In the 18thC death notices, there are many accounts of the lives of little people, usually as part of the Announcements section.  On November 17th, 1764 the death of Edward Jay, Essex livestock breeder and well-known Smithfield character, was announced, 'who was no more than three feet and a half high, had not any joint at his knees, and was entirely straight to his hip-bone.  He had only one arm and hand with which, however, he could make a pen and buckle his shoes without stooping.'  In 1768, The London Chronicle records that 'a few days ago was married Mr Richard Mallard, the English dwarf, to Miss Mary Crow, the Irish Lilliputian, both of Crane-lane.'  In April 1776, The Annual Register records the death of one Mr Bogers, master of the Sun alehouse in Borough, 'who was four feet three inches high'.

If you were born with dwarfism, but were lucky enough to be perfectly proportioned, the employment opportunities were myriad.  Dwarfs have long been famous court accessories (you had to be funny, or charming as well though; it wasn't enough just to be small), and servants in grand houses.  Little people of very diminutive appearance were known as 'fairies' and commanded a high price for hire.  They were beautifully outfitted and lived a life of relative luxury, which as far as I can see, is a great deal better than being pelted with fruit in the street for being a freak, which is what every period film would like to have us believe.  Dwarfs were particularly highly prized in Spain, for some reason, and Velasquez depicted some of them in his paintings, which I have used here for illustration, as they are quite beautiful.  However, not all little people took to the servile life quite so easily, as this advertisement in The Post Boy of 1717 shows:

Ann had been the servant of Dr Barham in Great Carter Lane, but had evidently found service not to her taste.  Quite how she removed all this lot is a mystery, but it does show she was outfitted in fine style.  It also appears she got away with it, as I never found any mention of her, or her employer in court records.  

It is too easy to press modern sensibilities onto the mute figures of the past, but the final story of this post illustrates the bizarre and human reality of being physically abnormal in the 18thC.  To cut a very long story short: in the early 1780s a Miss Catherine Kelly (34 inches tall) and a Mr Charles O'Byrne (7ft 7inches tall) were being exhibited as part of a London 'tour' and decided they would do better alone, people being so amazed by their disparate heights.  They went on tour, and when they reached Cornwall, a young man, 'a dealer in Manchester goods' fell in love with Catherine, and pursued her to Marazion, having been 'inflamed by this female at Totness'.  Catherine and Charles decided to annul their partnership.  Charles must have been corresponding with Mary Anne Colston of Lincolnshire for some time, as he married her only a week later (when 1500 people attended the wedding for a gawp).  He went on to become a celebrated London figure.  

Catherine Kelly and her anonymous husband continued on their tour, and when she fell pregnant, their revenues increased.  By the time they reached Norwich, she was far into her term and in 1785 aged 29, she died giving birth to their child.  'Catherine Kelly, the noted Irish Fairy, who was only thirty-four inches high...that morning, about six hours after her death, delivered of a large and full-grown child, twenty-two inches and a half long and weighing seven pounds, by Messrs. Morgate, Donne, and Kigby.  The child lived about two hours after its birth.'