Midterm Essay Assignment
HUM 376
Fall 2020
Dr. Thomas, theory@sfsu.edu
Due Sunday, April 18th @ 11:55PM via TurnItIn
The paper must follow all of the requirements as specified in the course syllabus (including for UDC or Segment Three writing requirements). It must be 4 pages, typed, double-spaced, and meet the
definition of critical, college-level, writing. You ARE REQUIRED to include quotes from the
assigned text(s) for each prompt. Include pages numbers for citations of course materials (articles,
books, book chapters). The format should follow basic college style: Use italics for titles of books or
films, e.g. Making San Francisco American. Use quotes for titles of articles or book chapters, e.g.
“Playing in the City” from Making San Francisco American. For quotes longer than three lines you
need to offset: that means indent and single space. Do not use quote marks around offset quotations.
For citation format, you can simply put the page number in parentheses at the end of a quote, e,g,
(17). If you do not indicate the source of your quote before the quote itself, you can include that
information in parentheses with the page number, e.g. (Berglund, 17). If you use any outside
sources, you are required to cite them (with a full citation in a footnote). You are NOT required to
include a formal Bibliography or Works Cited. Again, You ARE REQUIRED to include quotes
from the assigned text(s) for each prompt. (You are free to use quotes from the films, but this does
not substitute for using quotes from the assigned texts.) I want you to teach me what you have
learned in the first half of the semester. You are free to go over the required page length if you feel
you need to in order to fully answer the question(s). I would never penalize someone for doing
additional work. However, if you go under the required page length, I am required to grade you
down.
Everyone is required to answer question 1. Choose and answer one more from among the
remaining essay questions (so your paper answers a total of 2 questions in a 4-page format).
Again, You ARE REQUIRED to include quotes from the relevant text(s) for each answer. Do
not repeat these questions as part of your answers.
1. Using Berglund’s “Imagining the City,” critically discuss the California Mid-Winter
International Exposition of 1894 and what it tells us about San Francisco modernism. Cite
specific examples of how we can think critically about this fair (e.g. commodification, race,
gender, modernity, nature, etc.) in relation to modernism. You may also use Olalquiaga’s
discussion of the first World’s Fair in her “The Crystal Palace” as an additional critical
source. (Required)
2. Critically discuss one of the unique cultural spaces analyzed in either “Living in the City” or
“Playing in the City” in Berglund’s text. Feel free to refer to other texts. Your answer should
focus on at least one substantive issue discussed in class (e.g. class, race, commodification,
nature, modernity, etc.). Bringing more than one of these issues to bear on your reading is
encouraged. Feel free to draw from any additional works you may be interested in.
3. Critically discuss Ishi: The Last Yahi. What kinds of problems does Ishi’s “capture” as the
“last wild Indian” point to? (You will have to choose a textual source, e.g. Solnit, that may
not specifically be “on” Ishi to provide textual support for your paper)
4.
Using Berglund’s chapter on “Playing in the City” as a critical source, discuss Madams of the
Barbary Coast and the history of prostitution in SF. You can include discussions of the
Barbary Coast, Chinatown, etc. Your response should discuss substantial issues (e.g. gender,
race, slavery, etc.).
5.
Using Berglund’s “Making Race in the City,” critically discuss Chinatown as a space of
tourism and spectacle. What kinds of critical issues does this bring up (regarding, for
example, commodification, Orientalism, exclusion, and race)? Use specific examples in your
discussion.
6.
Using Celeste Olalquiaga’s “The Crystal Palace” and/or Berglund’s “Playing in the City” as a
critical source, critically discuss Sutro’s Baths as a uniquely “modern” space of amusement.
How was Sutro’s an example of modern architecture, including its Victorian interior, and
what modern practices and relations were bound up with this space?
170
CHAPTER FOUR
flirtatious sociability of the promenade created an environment in which the
Mechanics’ Institute’s vision of harmonious class relations linked to a do
mestic ideal might be realized. Just as men were cautioned against being too
radical, women were warned not to be too smart, too worldly, too domestic,
or too desirous of equality with men. If, as a result of courtships begun
around the fountain, hard-working men married respectable women,
worked in honorable trades, and created stable family units, they laid the
groundwork for a society organized around middle-class values and an in
dustrializing economy that provided the foundation for making San Fran
cisco an American place.
CHAPTER FIVE
Imagining the City:
The California Midwinter
International Exposition
The California Midwinter International Expo
sition—also known as ffie Mid
winter fair—was held in San Francisco’s Gold
en Gate Park from January 27
to July 4, 1894. Following on the heels of the Wor
ld’s Columbian Exposition,
it showcased selected exhibits from
Chicago’s spectacular commemoration of
the 4ooth anniversary of Columbus’s journey to
America as well as an impres
sive number of new exhibits at its specially cons
tructed fairground, Sunset
City. The driving force behind this extravaga
nza was Michael H. de Young,
the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, who
had also been Commissioner
of California Exhibits at the Chicago Fair. In Chic
ago, he determined that
San Francisco could reap economic and social
benefits from hosting a similar
fair. The city, like the rest of the nation, was
reeling from the effects of the
economic depression of 1893.1
De Young envisioned staging a publicly funded
venture that would rein
vigorate the local economy and advertise San
Francisco by showcasing
California’s temperate winter climate and agricultur
al bounty to visitors and
potential migrants alike. He called a meeting
of the local businessmen with
him in Chicago, pitched his idea, and despite
some skepticism, he extracted
pledges totaling over $%o,ooo—enough to get
the enterprise off the ground.
Although it had taken seven years to bring the Colu
mbian Exposition to frui
tion, in eight busy months fair organizers set
up a corporate-style administra
tive structure and ran successful local fund-rais
ing and publicity campaigns.
They arranged for many of the exhibits from
the Chicago Fair to be carried
by rail to San Francisco, developed an impressiv
e number of new exhibits, and
designed and built Sunset City. While the rush
to completion was evident in
‘7’
CI-IAPTER FIVE
172
areas where landscaping was sparse as well as in the delayed opening of some
exhibits, the Midwinter Fair was nevertheless even more of an economic suc
cess than its promoters had hoped. By the time the fair closed onJuly4, 1894,
nearly two-and-a-half million people had attended (see figure 33).2
As the first American international exposition ever held west of Chicago,
the Midwinter Fair provided San Francisco elites with an opportunity to
local, national, and international audiences.
present an image of the
While the Mechanics’ Institute fairs were small and local, their long history as
a ritual cultural frontier offered important lessons in how to coordinate an
event like the Midwinter Fair and use it to convey an ordered vision. The
leaders in business, finance, and industry who joined de Young in organizing
the fair pursued their course with the blessings of the mayor, the governor,
and other state and local officials. Although central, northern, and southern
Californians all had their representatives on fair committees, the Midwinter
Fair’s lead.ipg organizers wcpdrawnJrorn San Francis9p]itical,economic, and intellectual elite. These men sat at the helm of a city that, al
removed from conquest had become, by 1890, the
largest city on the West Coast and the eighth largest in the country. In plan
nin and desininu Sunset City they created a paean to America’s landed em
pire that showcased San Francisco—the jewel in the crown of western expan
sion and a burgeoning yet still relatively new American place that had its roots
in the formative crucible of the frontier. With the frontier having been
deemed officially closed by the Census Bureau in 1890, many of the fair orga
nizers believed it was time for San Francisco to shake off some of its boomtown reputation. As banker and civic leader James D. Phelan announced at
the Midwinter Fair’s inaugural ceremonies, “We celebrate to-day this great
fact—a history-making fact in the annals of the world—that the American
people have reached the Pacific Ocean, and that civilization, having sprung in
the remote east and pursued its destined course, has reached the western edge
‘The eastern nations sink, their
of the American continent in California
glory ends, I An empire rises where the sun descends.’ “3
The fair’s displays that exhibited local progress in manufacturing, agricul
ture, industry, and technology captured one component of what the arrival of
civilization meant in California. But another part of what civilization’s pres
ence on the continent’s edge signified were the ways California, and especially
San Francisco, had gone from the social disorder of the gold rush years to a
society organized along lines that were much more in keeping with national
city
IMAGINING THE CITY
‘73
to
.
.
.
I
figure
The California Midwinter International Exposition, 1894—the first
inter
national exposition held west of Chicago, which hosted the 1893
Columbian Exposi
tion. (Robert B. Honevman,Jr. Collection of Early
California and Western American
Pictorial Material, Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley)
norms. Through this process, this frontier region became
recognizable as part
of the nation. Through the fair, tijtes fashioned a story about
the city as a dis
tinctive place—with its own history and vision for the future—jplaced
ihi
cQntours of the national story and central to the nation’s
s
development. On this level, the A’lidwinter Fair—as the elaborate
fantasy of
pjpus ye PQ
iIirc—served as a cultural frontier that embodied the
kind of ordering hierarchies that this elite had imagined, and
had to some de
gree realized, for the city itself. Despite the fact of continual,
stubborn social
disorder, San Francisco in 1894 was not the socially fluid place
that it had
been in 1849. And, at the fair, just as in the city itself the elite
ordered vision
was at times successful, and at other times disrupted and
undermined by peo
ple and forces beyond its control. Four aspects of the
Midwinter Fair shed
particular light on the connections between the sociar hierarchies
this extrav
aganza represented and the vision of social order it promoted
the symbolic
--
I
74
CHAPTER fIVE
of history articiilajp
significance of its Orientalist architecture, the version
at the fair as work
is4imng Cp ikithe gender politics of women
leisure, nd the economic
ers and as spectacle m the context of commercialized
for healing class divisions.
tensions disclosed at an event promoted as a balm
as odat
Ka1purpose of nineteenth-cennuy expoiioiw
that constituted civil
the technological achievements and social hierarchies
eleven other interna
izatic)n. Although Chicago and San Francisco—and the
a vision of order and
tional expositions held between 1876 and i9,6—shared
gender relations,
progress grounded in white racial dominance, patriarchal
styles of architecture
and industrial class relations, they each chose different
During the planning
and design that fit with local and regional conditions.
under the assumption
stages, San francisco’s Executive Committee operated
, for the development
“that there was time enough, and artistic energy enough
cture. Its members
of a marked individuality” in the Midwinter Fair’s archite
characteristics of
hoped that the buildings would capture “something of the
ition was to be built.” De
the locality and the people in whose midst the Expos
that one way to avoid
Young, as the fair’s Director-General, had suggested
to “make their studies
“the architectural reminiscences of Chicago” would be
sh, and old Mission
from the Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Moori
design the buildings
buildings.” ‘vVhen the local architects who competed to
tions “had been
submitted their creations, it was found that de Young’s sugges
the Chicago Fair
kindly received and largely acted upon.” The architecture of
alist.4
was neoclassical; in San Francisco, it was broadly Orient
spectacular ex
The Midwinter Fair’s Orientalist theme was given its most
Grand Court of
pression in the five main buildings that formed Sunset Citys
Horticulture and
Honor: Manufactures and Liberal Arts, Mechanical Arts,
Court’s build
Agriculture, Fine Arts, and Administration. Each of the Grand
sed “an interesting
ings combined a variety of Oriental styles and each posses
toward the Ori
individuality” and “unconventionality.” As a whole, this turn
placed on balance,
ent presented a marked departure from the emphasis
expression of a
order, and architectural uniformity in Chicago’s White City’s
facades. A. Page
hierarchically organized society in its imposing, symmetrical
Administration
Brown, the chief architect of the Midwinter Fair, designed the
East Indian in
Building using an eclectic mix that included both Moorish and
and Liberal Arts
fluences. He was also the architect for the Manufactures
in its architec
Building, which had “something of the old Mission character
ise blue dome
ture, with Moorish detail” and featured a much-noted turquo
IMAGINING THE CITY
i7
and golden cupola. The Horticultural and Agricultural Building, the
work of
Samuel Newsom, was “distinctively characteristic of the early Spanish period
in California.” C. C. McDougaJl Fine Arts Building was described as
Egyp
tian and “covered with hieroglhs” with “a suggestion of the
temples of
India in the pyramidal roof.” The Mechanical Arts Building, the creation
of
Edmund R. Swain, was “East Indian in appearance” and was said to bring to
mind “the Jumma Musjid at Delhi” and “the Pearl Mosque at Agra.”
Finally,
the buildings of Sunset City were not white but painted colors chosen
to
evoke a sunset over the Pacific. Pink, turquoise gold, vermilion, and
greenish
gray accents enlivened their creamy ivory facades (see figure 34).5
The literature of promoters and boosters_taken at face value—offers
one way of reading the symbolic significance of Sunset City
Orientalist
architecture. According to The Official History “the marvelous city of towers,
minarets, domes and castles” reflected “the spirit of California.” This was de
fined as encompassing “the individuality of Californians” as well as
their
“dash and daring.” This spirit likewise included “the freedom, the liberality,
the open-handed hospitali which are proverbially Californian
characteris
tics.” It also embodied “the strangely beautiful blending of the East
and the
West.” Taken together, Sunset City exemplified “the most complete
expres
sion of a new civilization”o
But just below the surface, there were other less sanguine meanings
sug
gested by the Midwinter Fair Orientalist architecture. Although this
particu
lar style did not express the mastery of order and balance implied by
neoclassi
cism, it nevertheless symbolized an ordered VIsi0n• By choosing
Orientalist
architecture, Sunset City’s planners actively looked to the imaginings of a
powerful, imperial Europe to symbolize the new civilization of the United
States in th Pifi West. Sunset City embrace of Orientalist
styles was
undergirded by an understanding of the Orient—kjiown as Orientalism_
that developed as Europe extended its imperial control over parts of
Asia,
India, and North Africa. Through the selective appropriation of
culturalar
tifacts as well as styles of architecture and design, Europeans
produced what
came to be recognized as the authoritative representation of the
Orient. In
this representation, which was based upn a sense of ownership
Europe con
structed “the Orient” as inferior to the “Occident.” In doing so,
Europe
strengthened its own identity and reaffinned its dominance over colonized peo
pies and jJaces. Sunset City Orientalism, although founded upon
European
precedent, was both more broadly and somewhat differently conceptualized as
176
CHAPTER fIVE
IMAGINING TI-If CITY
I
figure
The Manufactures Building. The Midwinter fair’s architecture was
broadly Orientalist. This building, one of the five that constituted Sunset City’s grand
court of honor, was designed by A. Page Brown to convey both Mission and Moorish
influences. (I. W Taber, photographer. Souvenir of the California Midwinter Interna
tional Exposition 1894, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley)
a result of local conditions. In addition to encompassing East Indian, Egyp
tian, and Moorish qualities, it also claimed the power to represent Chinese,
Japanese,
TiColumbian Exposition’s 1vVhite City hJTfèred Americans a uto
pian vision of a well-ordered city. It emphasized the consolidation of the
country’s landed empire and displayed the United States as a country ready
to dominate the other nations of the world. If some of the first ideological
steps toward realizing the nation’s nascent overseas imperial ambitions were
taken at Chicago, the second steps were taken at the San Francisco fair. The
Orientalist architecture of Sunset City represented San Francisco as “The
Imperial City of the vVest” and communicated a more aggressive and tar
geted imperial position. Sunset City declared the United States—by way of
San Francisco, its far \‘Vestern commercial, financial, and military outpost—
F
a force actively reaching out toward and desir
ing dominance over Asia and
Latin America. In this sense, Sunset City look
ed outward, to order places
and people beyond the city. “It is through
this ocean gateway,” Taliesin
Evans’s popular guide to the fair reminded
its readers, “that the commerce
of the nation with the Orient, with the land
s of the Pacific, with Australasia,
the Russian and Asiatic Possessions, British
Columbia, the western coasts of
South and Central America and the bulk
of the commerce of Mexico
passes.” Just four years later in 1898, the Unit
ed States annexed Hawaii
while troops en route to the Spanish American
War—which resulted in fur
ther overseas imperial acquisitions—were stati
oned at San Francisco’s Pre
sidio precisely because of its strategic locat
ion as a base for American expan
sion into the Pacific.8
In extending and adapting Orientalism’s form
ulation, Sunset City wove
together a web of outward facing positions
that expressed the kinds of rela
tionships that the United States in the Pacific
West desired with those be
yond its borders and inward looking stances
that reaffirmed local power re
lations. Sunset City’s use of Orientalist
architecture represented deep
desires and anxieties connected to the local
conditions and imperial ambi
tions of San Francisco and California vis-à
-vis the American ‘West, the
American nation, and the XVestern Hemisph
ere. For example, following the
logic of European Orientalism, the fair’s prom
otional literature’s renditions
of Mission and Spanish Colonial styles creat
ed a “mythical architectural
past” that echoed an equally mythical social
history. The fair’s Official Guide
blithely suggested to readers that “whatever
this Spanish period may have
been to the people who actually lived in it,
to modern Californians it is a
heritage of legend and romance.” According
ly, the period was represented
as one of “old grey Mission churches, with their
tiled roofs, pillared corri
dors and high altars, crumbling into rust
and dust;” “low, weather stained
ranch houses where the haughty Dons lorde
d it in feudal fashion, and where
the sound of the guitar and the castanets still
seem to linger;” and “ruined
presidios where swash-buclder soldiers pass
ed their days in rough, careless
gaiety.” Remnants of this not-so-distant
past could be seen “in many a sug
gestive bit of architecture or display of
costume, custom or handiwork
within the walls of the Midwinter Expositio
n.” Through these kinds of rep
resentations of Mission and Colonial style
s—that existed more in the imag
ination of Americans than they ever had in
the reality of Mexican Califor
nia—the Midwinter Fair, echoing mainstrea
m histories of the region,
IMAGINING THE CITY
CHAPTER FIVE
17$
glos lifted
, in which civilized An
ity
ros
ne
ge
of
t
ac
an
semi-barbaric state
presented conquest as
Californios out of the
ful
lor
co
d
an
tic
an
position of
the lazy, yet rom
entation spoke to the
res
rep
is
Th
.
ed
ish
gu
dispossessed colo
in which they had lan
the state’s borders as
n
thi
wi
ios
orn
lif
Ca
can nations
Mexicans and
l image of Latin Ameri
rfu
we
po
a
ed
est
nif
urage the United
nized peoples and ma
rked to justify and enco
wo
t
tha
e
tiv
mi
pri
d
as decaying an
sture.9
perial and bellicose po
States’ increasingly im
the Orientalist archi
king ordering visions of
loo
ard
tw
ou
d
an
ard
Sunset City’s
The inw
buildings that formed
of
gle
ran
ad
qu
the
tecture manifested in
al structures and ex
a number of concession
by
d
rce
nfo
rei
re
we
Histoiy ex
Grand Court
daries.10 As the Official
un
bo
rt’s
cou
the
nd
yo
hibits that existed be
ng of the character of
ement assumed somethi
ng
rra
“a
ll
era
ov
r’s
fai
ncentric circle
plained, the
ildings with an outer co
bu
al
ion
sit
po
ex
y
rel
an inner circle of pu
t a visitor to the fair
s along this outer ring tha
wa
It
.”
es
ur
at
fe
al
ion
and Esqui
of concess
se, Japanese, Hawaiian,
ine
Ch
the
s,
ng
thi
er
oth
would find, among
rpose of the various
Official Souvenb; the pu
the
to
ng
rdi
co
Ac
.
its
rely educa
maux exhib
up these displays was pu
de
ma
t
tha
gs
tin
set
e
buildings and villag
an and other localities
Esquimaux, China, Jap
ii,
wa
Ha
of
es
lag
vil
ent, and the
tional. “The
in the lands they repres
als
gin
ori
the
of
ns
tio
are perfect reproduc
a living and moving
no book could teach.
ich
wh
n
so
les
t
jec
ob
exhibits repre
whole is an
e, as the reality these
tru
s
wa
s
thi
se,
sen
a
encyclopaedia.” In
than not, displays of
al mission. More often
gic
go
da
pe
a
ve
ha
ist logic to in
sented did
Islanders used Oriental
ic
cif
Pa
d
an
,
ns
ca
eri
Asians, Native Am
d barbarism of the ex
ference, strangeness, an
dif
ial
rac
the
in
rs
ve
the Colum
struct obser
exhibits had appeared at
se
the
of
me
so
h
ug
tho
hibited groups. Al
ainst a different local
co they were arrayed ag
cis
an
Fr
San
in
,
ion
sit
peoples and
bian Expo
m the exhibition of these
fro
ed
riv
de
s
ing
an
me
t
context. The social
relatively high percen
nce of San Francisco’s
ue
nfl
co
the
m
;
fro
ism
se
rac
ti-Asian
cultures aro
ually long history of an
eq
its
nt;
sce
de
ian
As
age of residents of
nts; and the nation’s
tive American inhabita
Na
’s
ion
reg
the
of
st
of the inhabi
the conque
ssitated the evaluation
ce
ne
t
tha
s
ion
bit
am
l
most recent imperia
2
tential colonial subjects.1
these coun
tants of the Pacific as po
ated representations of
cre
its
hib
ex
ese
an
Jap
The Chinese and
tant nations were ima
China and Japan as dis
w
ho
for
ce
an
ev
rel
d
in California
tries that ha
d Japanese residents
an
se
ine
Ch
ys
wa
the
gined as well as for
al architectural firm
ilding, designed by a loc
Bu
se
ine
Ch
e
Th
d.
ive
were perce
.
.
.
‘79
and financed by the city’s Chinese merchants, allowed visitors to view and
possibly purchase “the deft handiwork of Chinese artisans and the wonderful
products of Chinese ingenuity” and provided “a CUfjOU5 and instructive
object-lesson of the architectural ability of the inhabitants of the great Empire
of the East.” But the positive associations that could be derived from the Chi
nese Building about the achievements of Chinese culture were tempered by
negative associations with Chinatown. Since the Chinese Building contained
a restaurant tea house, joss house, theater, and bazaar it not only replicated
many of the standard sites of Chinatown’s tourist terrain but also the racializ_
ing work done by them.’3 The fair’s promotional literature even told visitors
that all of the “attractive features” of Chinatown could be seen at the
exposition’s Chinese llage “under much pleasanter conditions”_thus play
ing on Prevailing stereoes of the neighbor00 as filthy, malodorous, and
teeming and conjuring up unfavorable images of Chinese immigrants Willing
to live in such an environment 14
sitors to the fair’s elaborate Japanese Tea Garden were told by Taliesin
Evans’s guidebook that with “one step” they would pass from “the grand
plaza of this great achievement of Western civilization into a romantic scene
faithfully depicting life in the ancient, but still semi-barbaric, ‘Land of the
Mikado.” Conceptualized and designed by ardent Orientalist and local
purveyor of Japanese goods George Turner Marsh and built by Japanese
craftsmen, the Midwinter fair’s Tea Garden featured an impressive gateway,
a thatch and wood tea room, and a three_story theater that hosted the per
formances of a troupe of Japanese jugglers. Japanese landscapers filled the
grounds around the Tea Garden with various plants and bonsai trees, tran
quil ponds, bridges, winding paths, restful benches, and colorful lanterns.
Although Evans had initially described Japanese culture as “semi_barbaric,”
lie also noted that the Japanese exhibit illustrated “the great regard of the
Japanese people for cleanliness and fresh air in their homes, and public
places, and their instinctive love for art and fine WorlGnanship” The Mon
arch Souvenir of Sunset
and Sunset Scenes took a less charitable view and
d
emphasize the religious and racial differences of theJapanese that could be
inferred from the exhibit. It explained to readers that the “peculiar style of
Japanese architecture” was “suggestive of all sorts of mysteries, to say noth
ing of idols and heathen rites” that were “a part and parcel of the home life
of the ‘little brown men.” Here, even when the grandeur of a distant Asian
iSo
CHAPTER fIVE
with demeaning
uble-edged and coupled
do
s
wa
it
,
ed
ok
inv
ly civilized
civilization was
or and less than ful
eri
inf
the
t
gh
hli
hig
to
statements designed
vis the West.15
and their culture vis-àese
an
took place
status of the Jap
Hawaiians and Inuits
of
s
on
iti
hib
ex
r’s
The Midwinter fai
bility of these colo
xieties about the suita
an
ed
ten
igh
he
of
p
n Francisco
against a backdro
erican nation. The Sa
Am
the
o
int
ion
rat
eg
ge as displaying “a
nized peoples for int
er Fair’s Hawaiian Villa
int
idw
M
the
d
ibe
scr
de “mats,
?vioniing Call de
in which “natives” ma
s”
ge
tta
co
aw
str
n
iia
liesin Evans’s guide
street of ancient Hawa
e other vocations.” Ta
rsu
pu
d
an
i
po
d
an
s
the burn
manufacture lei
alistic representation of
“re
a
ed
vid
pro
t
tha
a
exhibition of “two
book noted its cycloram
were also treated to an
ors
sit
Vi
.”
ea
lau
Ki
li and Kala
ing crater of
owned by Kamehameha
re
we
rly
me
for
t
tha
empty ‘throne’ chairs
m the possession of Li
ago were wrested fro
ar
ye
a
er
ov
tle
lit
a
t
fact that the
kaua, and tha
t of Honolulu.” The
en
rnm
ve
Go
al
on
isi
liukalani by the Prov
representative” was
Hawaiian Village “truly
the
ed
em
de
ir
en
uv
nt events” had
Monarch So
rtant because “rece
po
im
ly
lar
cu
rti
pa
identified as being
knowledge of the Ha
nd for a more intimate
mi
c
bli
pu
the
in
e
sir
ates’ impe
“created a de
emism for the United St
ph
eu
a
s
wa
ts”
en
ev
t
waiian people.” “Recen
ll explained, “in per
the reporter for the Ca
As
.
ds
an
isl
the
on
nasty to a
rial maneuvers
ubles of a deposed dy
ba
e
idl
se
the
of
n
tio
mitting the transporta
o had taken control of
r plantation owners wh
ga
su
n
ca
eri
Am
the
ver again be
foreign land,”
these things would ne
t
tha
e
tic
no
e
giv
to
the island “intended
the “native islanders
account also noted that
s
thi
r,
ve
we
Ho
.”
me
ferent view.”
needed at ho
llage” maintained “a dif
Vi
n
iia
wa
Ha
the
in
who serve as attendants
een and agreeing that
overthrow of their qu
the
ng
pti
ce
ac
ily
pp
d “hope
Instead of ha
d her defeat, they looke
ze
oli
mb
sy
th
wi
d
ite
hib
e of the chairs. Ha
the chairs they were ex
e re-enthroned” on on
“b
uld
wo
e
sh
en
wh
e
d of willing,
fully” to the tim
not appear to be the kin
did
,
int
po
ge
nta
va
s
American national
waiians, seen from thi
y assimilable into the
sil
ea
be
uld
wo
t
tha
izens hov
passive subjects
waiians as American cit
Ha
of
ty
ili
ab
sir
de
the
fold. In fact, the issue of
debated at the inau
nexation, which was
An
n
iia
wa
Ha
of
ct
bje
1894, two
ered over the su
resses, on January 25,
ng
Co
ir
Fa
er
int
idw
M
posing annexation
gural meeting of the
. Although the side op
ing
en
op
al
ici
off
r’s
fai
judges—was “de
days before the
this—according to the
attempt to offer any
arguments and did not
the
of
gth
en
str
the
cided merely on
of annexation.”16
lution of the question
so
the
to
ard
reg
in
ion
suggest
IMAGINING THE CITY
Wile the Hawaiian Village represented many of the ambiguities that
surrounded the issue of Alnerican imperial adventures and conveyed an
image of Hawajians as possibly unwilling and probably undesirable Alneri
cans, the Inuit exhibits represented “Esquirnauxs” as more thoroug11y con
quered, docile, physicalr weakened, and childlike. The Esqui;naux Village
occupied three acres at the fairgrounds and displayed the “mode of homelife”
of Inuit people from both Labrador and Alaska. The exhibit featured igloos
made from plaster staf a lake, canoes, sealsli tents, and sled dogs. It of
fered, according to the Mona,-c/j Souvenir an excellent way to learn about Inflits, “whose ways of living are so peculiar and whose iace characteristics are
so little known to the civilized nations of the world.” The issue of integration
in the American body politic was not as acute as in the Hawaiian case, in part,
because Inuits at the fair conformed to prevalent understandings of Native
Alnerjcans as, what the hronic/c termed, a “rapidly diminishing face of peo
pie.” This image was reinforced by a tragically high infant mortality rate
among the Inuits at both the Chicago Fair and the San Francisco Fair. All
five of the children born to Inuits during the tenure of these two fairs died as
infants.17 Moreover, because Inuits were also perceived as childlike and thus
naturally dependent and in need of protectioi resistance to American domi
nance was not expected to be forthcoming. This image was reinforced by
hro 11 ic/c reports oflnuits at the fair, who when left to their own devices were
found “dropping dunes into the cocktail and rum slots of the automatic bar”
and not attending educational exhibits geared more toward “the elevation of
the race.” Accounts in the Chronicle of their shopping trips downtown em
phasized their attraction to shiny, childlike things: “gold watches and toys.”
Within three years, the ondike gold rush would send Americans Pouring
into Alaska and thus add a new dimension to the conquest of the ‘units al
ready well under way (see figure 35).18
Although the representations ofAjans Pacific Islanders and Native Amer
icans that emanated from these concessions were frequently negative, this did
not stop exhibited peopled from partang of aspects of some of these same
Oentalist displays and Participating in both the elaboration and disruption of
the fair ordered vision• On Stmdays when the Esquiinanx Village was closed,
Inuit men explored the fairgrounds tang in all the other shows, and both men
and womei traveled downto on shopping expeditions Special celebration
days, like Chinese Day on June 17 andJapanese Day onJune 9’ complete with
182
CHAPTER fIVE
I
IMAGINING THE CITY
interest in the exhibit and the place was thronged all day.” This account noted
that the merchants and tourist entrepreneurs “in charge” were “might
ily
proud of their building.” They “conducted visitors to the joss house,” while in
the “reception room” a “cultured Chinese. explained the hidden meanin
g
of the wondrous works of art which adorned the walls.” These men aided
and
abetted the Midwinter Fair’s Orientalist fantasy by presenting an image of the
Orient that, to non-Asian visitors, likely came across as reinforcing the differ
ence, strangeness, and barbarism of people of Asian descent. However they
also created a space that San Franciscos Chinese could participate in and suc
ceeded in representing Chinese culture in ways that this local community
could respond to with enthusiasm and pride.20
The story of the jinrikishas at Sunset City, however, attests to the fact
that there were limits beyond which people of Asian descent refused to go in
the creation of an Orientalist version of their heritage. In the context of
the
Midwinter Fair, a “jirinkisha [sic]” was, according to Taliesin Evans’s guide
book, “a conveyance used for the rapid transportation of visitors around the
Fair grounds.” It was “drawn by a human beast of burden at a fixed rate per
trip or by the hour, at the pleasure of the person hiring the conveyance.” The
jinrikishas at Sunset City were acquired from Japan by George Marsh, the
same Australian Orientalist who commissioned the Japanese Tea Garden
.
Mr. Marsh and others had hoped that jinrikishas would be pulled by Asian
men and thus provide a form of transportation for fair-goers that would
fit
nicely with the Sunset Cityis Orientalist theme. To their dismay, they discov
ered that the jinrikisha was, as Evans related, “very unpopular with the
na
tives of Japan” because it was “regarded as a dreadful degradation to be im
pelled to haul one.” In fact, the Examiner published a portion of a petitio
n
that publicly articulated the extent of the Japanese communityis opposition
to the use of jinrikishas at the Fair. It had been “sent to the Midwinter Fair
Executive Committee, the Supervisors and the Park Commissioners, signed
by the Japanese residents of San Francisco and by M. C. Harris and E. A.
Strong, in charge of the local Japanese missions.” It read:
.
The Esquimaux Village. The Midwinter Fair’s exhibits of Inuits and Hawai
figure
ians occurred in the context of debates about whether or not such newly colonized
peoples would make suitable citizens. (I. W Taber, photographer. Souvenir of the Cal
ifornia Midwinter International Exposition 1894, Bancroft Library, University of Cal
ifornia, Berkeley)
parades and pageants, drew large numbers of Asian patrons to the Midwinter
Fair even though—or perhaps because—people of Asian descent had to stnig
gle harder than other ethnic and fraternal groups to have these days set aside
for them.’9 Numerous accounts drew attention to the wide-ranging participa
tion of Chinese at the Midwinter Fair. The Official History remarked upon the
“liberal patronage accorded the general features of the Exposition by the large
Chinese population of San Francisco.” The Chronicle reported that the young
actors from the Chinese theater roamed the fairgrounds when not working
and were apparently very fond of “the nickel-in-the-slot contrivance in Ma
chinery Hall.” During the fair’s run, Chinese fair-goers regularly attended the
Chinese theater, thoroughly enjoying an experience that many white patrons
found educational but distasteful. On the day that the Chinese Building
opened, a Chronicle report related, “The Chinese themselves took a huge
183
.
Gentlemen: We, the undersigned, desire respectfully to call your atten
tion to a minor incident in connection with the Exposition, which is, how
ever, of very considerable interest to the Japanese residents of San Fran
cisco, and is also calculated to excite more or less discussion in Japan. .‘Ve
allude to the contemplated use of the jinrikisha.
184
CHAPTER fIVE
There can be no valid objection urged to the mere exhibition of the
jinrildsha at the Midwinter fair, but there are other circumstances in this
coimection of which in all probability you are not advised.
The custom of requiring the jinrildsha to be drawn by men instead of
animals is degrading and should not be encouraged in a civilized Christian
country like America.
Ve, consequently, respectfully and earnestly protest against its use in
this manner in the Park or upon public streets during the Fair.
“The petition,” the Examiner continued, “then gives as reasons the fact
that the practice is injurious to the health of the men who draw the vehicles;
that it is a disgraceful and inhuman custom; that it is incompatible with the
grand aims of the Midwinter Fair as an elevator of humanity.” for Japanese
immigrants, making such a statement was certainly a bold move. They had
only recently begun to come to the mainland United States, settling primarily
in California. As a group they possessed more education and were better-off
financially than most European immigrants. Perhaps with guidance from
their missionary friends, their use of the petition showed that they were not
only unafraid to register their grievances but that they were politically savvy
enough to do so in a form that smacked of Western traditions and played on
notions of who, the Japanese or the Americans, was truly civilized.11
The petition, combined with the opinion of the Japanese community that
it expressed, succeeded in keeping Japanese from manning the jinrikishas at
Sunset City. It did not, however, dissuade Midwinter fair officials from de
ploying jinrikishas at the Fair. Perhaps this was because jinrildshas were such a
part of their Orientalist fantasy that exposition officials could not part with
them. Maybe it had something to do with the contractual arrangements al
ready made with Mr. Marsh. In any event, Sunset City had its fleet of jinriki
shas and they were pulled by white men of various nationalities costumed in
face-paint and Japanese garb. As the Monarch Souvenir explained, “The feeling
of opposition to the introduction of man-power from Japan was so great that
none except white men could be induced to do the work.” An article in the
Overland Monthly intimated that this was less than effective in achieving its de
sired objective, “At a distance of a half a mile a jinrikisha runner might be
taken, possibly, for a Japanese, but at nearer view disenchantment must fol
low. The broad Hibernian face and the characteristic roll of the large figure
are rendered grotesque by the tiny cap and skin-tight suit.” The decision to
IMAGINING THE CITY
i85
employ white men as jinrikisha drivers also had some unintended
conse
quences. On Japanese Day many Japanese women rode in jinrikishas as
did
both men and women of Chinese descent on Chinese Day. It “increa
sed the
standing of a swell Mongol,” the Chronicle reported, “to be seen scuddi
ng
along through the rain in the vehicle, smoking an Early Grave five-ce
nt
cigar.” Despite the derogatory language, it probably did increase the standin
g
of Asian men and women—or at least temporarily disrupt the racial hierar
chy—to be pulled along in a hired jinrikisha by a white man dressed like ajap
anese (see figure 36).22
Existing literally and symbolically outside of the Orientalist theme of Sun
set City, the i19 Mining Camp was one of the most popular exhibits at the
i’viidwinter fair. ‘While Sunset City’s Orientalist architecture expres
sed
dreams of a future filled with imperial grandeur grounded in white racial
dominance, the i Mining Camp transformed thbi t.QLthdisorde
red
g94,,ushyears into a nostalgic ftas of
past.23 The concession sought to create a replica of a mining camp against a
“well constructed and artistically painted” panorama of Mount Shasta. It fea
tured a gambling saloon, hotel, restaurant, “charming senoritas” dancing the
fandango, old cabins literally hauled down from the Gold Country, stage
coach rides, periodic gunfights, and a frontier press—the Midwinter Appeal
and Journal of y—to name just a few of its attractions. The ip Mining Camp
sat at the far western end of the exposition grounds at the base of Strawberry
Hill. Occupying i 5o,ooo square feet, it was the largest single concession at
the fair. To reach it, visitors could either walk by way of North Drive, or “if
desiring to enter in the proper pioneer frame of mind,” they could travel by
a
stagecoach—purportedly the same one ridden in by Horace Greeley on his
visit to the West—which took hourly trips from the Administration Building
(see figure 37).24
A group of journalists and entertainment entrepreneurs created the iç
Mining Camp. A mining mogul provided most of its financing. Togeth
er,
these men, along with a few other investors, formed an incorporated compa
ny
“to establish the concession on business principles.” One of the journalists
was Sam Davis, the editor of the Carson, Nevada, Appeal. His participation
explained both the name and the existence of the camp’s frontier press. The
“well known theatrical manager and newspaper man” James H. Love, Esq.,
served as the i9 Mining Camp’s manager and another journalist, Eugen
e
Hahn, assumed the duties of assistant manager and press agent. The president
I86
IMAGINING THE CITY
CHAPTER fIVE
187
f,
figure
“Hold up” of the stage. The Mining Camp was one of the most popu
lar exhibits at the Midwinter fair. Its stagecoach was one of the features noted for
making Visitors feel that they had aveled tir years back in time. (I. W Taber,
photographer Souvenir of the California Midwinter International Exposition 1894,
Bancroft Librai- University of California, Berkeley)
winter fair. Despite fair
ling a jinrikisha at the Mid
Figure 36. White man pul
fair because of the
sed to pull jinrikishas at the
refu
men
se
ane
Jap
es,
hop
organizers’
loyed to take on
men in Japanese garb were emp
ite
Wh
k.
wor
the
of
re
natu
degrading
ifornia Midwinter
tographer. Souvenir of the Cal
pho
er
Tab
W
(I.
.
ead
inst
the task
ifornia, Berkeley)
ft Library, University of Cal
cro
Ban
4,
189
ion
osit
Exp
al
Internation
er who made
nk McLaughlin, a noted engine
Fra
was
p
Cam
g
nin
Mi
of the p
techniques. He
elopment of hydraulic mining
“a fortune” pioneering the dev
whole heart and soul, and
Mining Camp project “with his
entered into the
25
with the full power of his purse.”
mobilized
ters, performers, and visitors
mo
pro
p,
Cam
g
nin
Mi
At the ç
s of gold, /
g—”The days of old, I The day
the refrain from a popular son
s, taken from
rable, catchy slogan. These line
The days of 9”—as a memo
eated in associa
F. Zimmer fl 1876, were rep
The Days of 9, published by
guidebooks, souvenirs, and
Mining Camp in numerous
tion with the
en of fortune
of seasoned miners and gentlem
newspaper articles. “A jolly lot
de and out,”
crowded the swaying coach insi
in woolen shirts and slouch hats
. “There was
cription of the 9 Mining Camp
wrote one journalist in his des
an adventurer with a banjo on the coach top, and whenever the procession
halted he struck up a ditty on ‘the days of old and the days of gold, the days
of
Miners, gamblers, and the laughing throng joined in the chorus.”
The song looked back with longing to the gold rush years. It was narrated
by an old pioneer, Tom Moore, who mourned the loss of that earlier time:
“d I often grieve and pine, /“ he confessed “For the days of old, the days
of gold, / The days of i.” The song took the listener through his fond
memories. Part of what “old Tom Moore” missed from his Younger days
were his “comrades. a saucy set” who were rough but also “staunch and
brave, as true as steel.” nong the men he identified were the typical gold
rush figures: gamblers, miners, and hard drinkers. “There was Kentuck Bill,
one of the boys, / Who was always in for a game” and “New York Jake, the
butcher boy, / So fond of getting tight.” But another part of what Tom
Moore lamented were social changes that he believed threatened both the
nerican nation and his place in it as a white man. He made his sentiments
clear in the song’s final verse:
.‘
.
1
.
CHAPTER fIVE
I$8
nged
Since that time how things have cha
In this land of liberty.
rt
Darkies didn’t vote nor plead in cou
Nor nile this country;
of all,
But the Chinese question, the worst
In those days did not shine,
all white.
For the country was right and the boys
In the days of9.”26
ine
winter Appeal and Jowfrnl of forty-n
On February 17, 1894, The Mid
in
the views expressed by Tom Moore
published an illustration that echoed
t
h
wha
wit
e
g side-by-sid
It featured Chinese miners workin
“The Days of
gold
nese appeared to have quite a bit of
looked like an Anglo miner. The Chi
gold
for
m while the white miner panned
and a more sophisticated sifting syste
s
caption read: “Before Dennis Kearney’
without, it seemed, much luck. The
;
s
Party
an’
rney, a leader of the Workingm
time.” In the late 187os, Dennis Kea
ocated
inst San Francisco’s Chinese, and adv
fomented support for violence aga
tion
cap
its
igration. This illustration and
policies prohibiting Chinese imm
tes that before immigratntriction
symbolized the belief held by some whi
r fair
e miners were getting more than thei
and restrictive mining laws, Chines
ed the
which Chinese immigrants disrupt
share. It also is suggestive of ways in
nese
Chi
white Jacksonian’s paradise. The
nostalgic image of California as a
in
iod in the earliest days of the gold rush
enjoyed, like other 9ers, a brief per
y
man
profitably work for themselves. But
which it was possible for them to
us
wage workers in the increasingly ind
also quickly and quite visibly became
city,
capa
road building in the West. In this
trial enterprises of mining and rail
to
ustrial capitalism—a system antithetical
the Chinese came to symbolize ind
t
wha
and provided an easy scapegoat for
an economy of small producers—
had lost.27
many men like Kearney believed they
t target, the Midwinter Appeal, in one
In a similar vein but with a differen
Francisco’s preeminent capitalists,
of its typical pieces in which one of San
spoofed as a Wild V/est Sheriff re
sugar magnate Claus Spreckels, was
eve
els went into Buckskin’s saloon last
ported that “Deputy Sheriff Spreck
xi
Me
Smoker while he was killing a
ning and attempted to arrest Johnny
riff
h popular approval. Instead, the she
can.” This action was not greeted wit
ting
ral citizens are talking of a mass mee
“was promptly thrown out and seve
.“
IMAGINING THE CITy
189
to ask him to resign his office.” The problem, according to the Midwinte,
Appea4 was that Sheriff Spreckels had “a large idea of his duties, and when
he enters a saloon without being invited and interferes with an nerican
who is putting the quietus on a greaser it’s time to inquire where our boasted
land of freedom is tilting to.” Here the category of American excluded peo
ple of Mexican descent and freedom meant white men’s ability to guard
their position atop the racial hierarchy without interference and with vio
lent means if necessary. On one hand, in its rebuke of the sherif this histor
ical vignette spoke nostalgically about non-elite whites’ entitlement to
democratic, egalitarian processes_even those that veered toward the ex
treme of vigilante justice. On the other, given the fact that the local citi
zenry meted out punishment to the sheriff for attempting to protect “a
Mexican,” this story, like Torn Moore’s song, promoted the notion of a “her
renvolk democracy”_a society born out of fear from labor competition
from below and loss of control from above in which democracy prevails for
the dominant racial group while tyranny and inequality are the order of the
day for subordinate groups.28
these examples reveal, the basic story about the origins of the state of
California that the
Mining Camp told is a finiliar one. The primary pur
pose of the
Mining Camp was to provide profitable amusement. In con
junction with that, however, it was also in the business of proffering potent
lessons about history, memoi and identity. At its core, the version of history
presented in the i9 Mining Camp took the form of a creation myth that told a
story about the origins of the state of California and its inhabitants that was as
much about the present and the future as it was about the past. This creation
myth was constructed through two distinct yet interwoven and overlapping
stories. The first was a tale of nostalgia for a lost whitç public that contained
within it lessons about race relations in the West. The second was a story that
celebrated the ideals of the independent, self-made man and rugged mascu
linity in the wake of the increasing dominance of bureaucracy and corpora
tions in everyday life. Thus, although the fair as a whole was a celebration of
the coming of civilization to the American West that contrasted San
Francisco’s disordered past to its current civilized state as an urban, industria]
metropolis, the
Mining Camp looked back with longing to a romanticized
notion of a less civilized time in California’s history to construct meaningful
identities for the present.
190
CHAPTER FIVE
gener
were the hardy pioneer miners,
th
my
tion
crea
this
of
rt
hea
At the
. The majority,
te Anglo-Saxon Protestant men
ally represented as young, whi
sed of nei
de told its readers, were “posses
Gui
l
icia
Off
’s
fair
ter
win
as the Mid
ply honest, earnest
astonishing vices; they were sim
ther astonishing virtues or
ous propen
gh way gradually curbed the vici
rou
ng,
stro
own
r
thei
in
men who
of the turbulent
y, forced law and order out
sities of the criminal minorit
were part of a
of the future State.” These men
s
tion
nda
fou
the
laid
and
chaos,
embodied in
h-century American expansionism
larger contingent of nineteent
undeveloped
ading out over the accessible,
spre
ry
man
yeo
d
ifie
pur
sturdy,
ing a fresh
savagery with civilization and blaz
land of the frontier, supplanting
way. One of
individual freedom along the
and
acy
ocr
dem
rian
lita
ega
trail for
less than a year
s of this ideology had occurred
the most coherent expression
derick Jackson
osition. It was there that Fre
Exp
bian
um
Col
the
at
before
stern frontier on
of the formative role of the We
Turner articulated his theory
version of
t and effectively marked this
men
elop
dev
and
er
ract
cha
as
Americ
a’s national identity29
its history as integral to Americ
actual mining
lticultural terrain of many
mu
ated
plic
com
the
pite
Des
white, Ameri
s founding moment made the
camps, this exhibit of California’
actors in its tri
wn as pioneers—the central
kno
e
wis
ther
—o
rors
que
con
can
d, were rele
er racial groups, when include
umphal, progressive story. Oth
nated in both
of inclusion at the margins reso
ic
tact
is
Th
s.
gin
mar
the
to
gated
rate yet simulta
ause it provided a way to incorpo
the past and the present bec
, by exten
ups in the historical record and
gro
te
whi
non
e
inat
ord
sub
neously
offered solace
is story about California’s origins
sion, in California society. Th
ed anxieties of
order in the face of the racializ
for
g
kin
loo
ans
eric
Am
te
to whi
genocide, and
st of the Californios, Indian
the 189os. Although the conque
ture and in
ory, in the 189os issues of mix
hist
ady
alre
e
wer
on
lusi
exc
e
Chines
largest propor
San Francisco—a city with the
clusion remained fractious in
in the United States.3°
tion of foreign-born residents
n descent
did not accord people of Mexica
Although the Midwinter Appeal
of Mexican cul
politic, an appropriated version
a place in the American body
centrality
telling indicator of the symbolic
ture lived on in the dance hall—a
Mining Camp’s
inate groups to the
ord
sub
ally
raci
,
eral
iph
per
y
of sociall
h the miner of
dance hail was a place, for bot
representational goals.31 The
race came
the 189os, where gender and
of
or
ctat
spe
ing
-go
fair
the
yore and
to the IVlonarch
visit to the dance hail, according
together in powerful ways. A
the argonautic
unity for “the unhappy lot of
Soirvenh; provided an opport
IMAGINING THE CITY
‘9’
goidseekers” to have some much-needed fun, providing “a ray of bright sun
shine athwart the gloom of an existence devoted to hard work, fiapjacks, beans
and bacon.” Its promotional literature was laden with the language of con
quest and dominance. The Official Guide feminized and infantilized Mexicans
as “dark-eyed, soft-voiced children of the South” and contrasted them to “a
tribe of men only, bearded, rough of speech and manner, mighty in strength
and endurance.” A large part of the appeal and popularity of the dance hail re
volved around the prospect of the contact with “charming senoritas.” The fe
male dancers at the i9 Mining Camp allowed white American men to partake
of an exoticized sensuality and to indulge in fantasies of more “primitive”
styles of masculinity Such fantasies permitted white men to both transgress
the constraints of allowable expression of middle_class masculinity and to re
amrm their own sense of gender and racial superiority Some of the dancers,
howeve were men. Desczptions such as— “The pretty Spaniards, girls and
men, were at the prettiest part of one of their graceful dances”_in which men
were described as pretty and thus feminized bolstered the sense of superior
masculinity of the white male spectators. In keeping with the nostalgic thread
present in Tom Moor&s song, here again the
Mining Camp represented a
thoroughly conquered California in which white mens dominant racial posi
tion was unquestionably secure (see figure 38).32
Although Native Americans were marginal to the performance of the
white man 4st enacted at the
Mining Camp—included only as local
color or as a component of the landscape_they were featured at vo conces
sions located on the same side of the fairgrounds approximately the equiva
lent of a city block away. “One of these,” the Official Histoy explained, “was
an encampment of Sioux Indians, where characteristic dances were given
every day and evening.” The other “was at the Arizona Indian Village, where
a company of Yaqui Indians lived in huts similar to those they occupy at
home, and made baskets and potte” At the Sioux Village, which had also
been exhibited at the Chicago Fair, a report in the Chronicle disclosed that the
Native Americans “live just as they do in their native wilds where Govern
ment rations are given out.” If one got to the fair early enough, the account
continued, one could “gather in the rear of the Southern California Build
ing and watch the whole tribe garnering in oranges which went wrong in
the citrus display the night before.” Descriptions of the Arizona Indian Vil
lage tended to stress its inhabitants’ barbarism, particularly evident in the
descriptions of their dancing and the assumptions made about their gender
192
IMAGINING THE CITY
CHAPTER fIVE
Mining Camp. Here, in the dancing of the fan
Figure 38. The dance hail at the
tas, and an appropriated, racialized
dango, argonauts mingled with charming sefiori
rapher. Souvenir of the Cali
version of Mexican culture thrived. (I. W Taber, photog
Library, University of Cali
ft
Bancro
fornia Midwinter International Exposition 1894,
fornia, Berkeley)
en as drudges and men
relations that, according to observers, positioned wom
dance ring,” an article in
as loafers. “Three Indians sit cross-legged inside the
ing time to the rubbing
the Overland Monthly related, “their rude voices keep
aric play ends with...
together of sticks and drumming on gourds.. the barb
l, when Native Americans
a general hubbub of cries and drumming.” In genera
negative stereotypes:
were presented as active, their activities were scripted by
of the landscape or
part
dependent, barbaric, and drunk. When they served as
passive and pacified, no
local color, Native Americans were represented as both
tions were in keeping
longer part of the “wild” West. Tellingly, such representa
the West, symbolized by
with the recent end of Native American resistance in
ren by the U.S. Army
the horrific massacre of Sioux men, women, and child
of ethnographic
four years earlier at Wounded Knee. Although these kinds
.
193
representations of Native Americans obscured this recent history they nev
ertheless succeeded in reinforcing the image of domesticated
dependent
Native ericans that spoke to the kind of subordinate staws that
govern
ment policies frequently now relegated them.33
While the first part of the story of California origins represented by the
if9 Mining Camp offered lessons about race relations in
the West told
through the lens of nostalgia for a iost white republic, the second
component
told a story that celebrated the ideals of the self-made man and
independent,
rugged masculini At first glance, these o gender identities might
appear
to be a swdy in contrasts: the hard-scrabble life of pioneer miner as
the epit
olne of independent, rugged masculinj versus the economic and
political
success and elite social standing that marked the self-made man. At
the
Mining Camp, however, the o were interrelated. Independence and
rugged
masculinity were represented as preconditions for self-made manhood
and
self-made manhood often had its roots in independent, rugged masculini
These gender identities, moreove undergirded the racial ideoloj
at the
heart of the other strand of the
Mining Camps creation m—the nostal
gia for a lost white republic. Reinvigorated for the T$90s, they
Continued to
link white male power to white racial superiority. In addition, in the
figure of
the pioneer miner, Americans found a masculine image that was
especially ap
pealing in the wake of the increasing dominance of wage work,
bureaucracies,
and corporatiOns_all of which could easily lead to a sense of
compromised
independence in everyday life.34
In the T89os, middle_class Americans_especiallr those who
were white
and male—began to react against the constraints of both
ctorian and indus
trial America: time discipline, carefully controlled emotions,
parlor culwre,
urban lhng, and sewal restraint. One outcome of this reaction was
the devel
opment of a new gender ideoloa rugged masculinity oriented
around the
ideal of the “strenuous life.” This was set in contrast to what
some viewed as
the artificiality and effeteness of a different gender
ideolomanljness_
that had held sway since mid-cenmry Manliness was
associated with posses
sion of a solid character and exercising masterful control over
one interior
and exterior self. The emergence of rugged masculinity
was accompanied by
an increased interest in sports and wilderness
experiences; the elevation ofsci
ence, business, and realism; and a desire for “authentic”
experiences that
sometimes drew upon premodern symbols such as the medieval
craftsman,
CHAPTER fIVE
194
rialist, capitalist, cowboy,
warrior and saint. Theodore Roosevelt—the impe
became the embodiment of
athlete, and politician who feared “race suicide”—
ulinity via the strenuous life.35
this new construction of powerful white masc
pendent, rugged mas
Displays at the r9 Mining Camp venerated the inde
ht to capture “the roughculinity of the heroic pioneer miner. Its exhibits soug
g.” Visitors to the office
and-ready scenes when men were reckless and darin
were “invited to come into the
of the Midwinter Appeal and the Journal of
the floor, and utilize the
sanctum, make free use of our corncob pipe, spit on
you any palaver,” they were
copy hook as they see fit.” “If the gatekeeper gives
ershop customers could “in
told, “knock him down and walk in.” At the barb
r shot off or shaved off,”
dulge their inclination or have their whiskers eithe
when men were as likely to
and the saloons were “fitted up as saloons were
was tough. “After look
shoot the bartender as to take a drink.” Even the food
unt, “one need be told no
ing at the food of the ancients,” wrote one acco
ks show j.”36
more that the Argonauts were hardy people; the flapjac
were also indepen
,
These miners were not only ruggedly masculine they
corporation. By choosing to
dent—free from wage work, bureaucracy, and the
gold rush, the 9 Mining
represent a mining camp in the earliest days of the
the very short span of time
Camp focused its exhibit of life in the diggings on
ominated. The exhibit
in which placer rather than hydraulic mining pred
od of washing gold from
proudly showcased “a placer mine showing the meth
itive paraphernalia of the
gravel with sluice boxes, rockers, and all the prim
placer mining period, men
early prospector. in hill operation.” During the
the lone miner with pan,
could and did work independently, as the image of
who flocked to Califor
pick, and shovel would suggest. For many of the men
ed a chance to return to
nia after gold was found at Sutter’s Mill, mining offer
rtunity to escape wage
an economy of small producers. It presented an oppo
prairie. The halcyon
work in the industrial Northeast or farm work on the
rseded by hydraulic mining,
days of placer mining, however, were quickly supe
of production. Using the
which came with a very different set of relations
pick, and shovel method
force of water to get at the gold deposits that the pan,
unt of start-up capital
could not reach, hydraulic mining required a large amo
entrated the profits in the
and large numbers of wage workers. It also conc
ral environment. Ironically,
hands of the few and wreaked havoc on the natu
ng at the 9 Mining Camp
the capital behind the representation of placer mini
loping the techniques of
came from Frank McLaughlin, renowned for deve
hydraulic mining on the feather River.37
.
.
IMAGINING THE CITY
T 95
The i Mining Camp also mobilized the rugged
masculine histories of
numerous self-made men to challenge the commonplace
associations of
wealth and elite status with effeminacy and overcivjljzatjon
these men had
become increasingly successful_often amassing fortunes,
political powe
and social Position_they also became increasingly removed
from their roots
in rugged masculinity. By emphasizing rugged pasts of these
elites, the right
ness and desirability of their economic, political, and social
Position_increas
ingly challenged not only by their effeteness but also by
their capitalistic ex
cesses_could be reaffirmed. One way rugged masculinity and
self-made
manhood were idealized and linked was through the displays of
a number of
cabins which “had actually been occupied in those ‘days of
gold” by men
“who, years ago, were unknown and poo but who to-day are
rich and powerhi from their success in the mines.” One was the cabin John
W Mackay had
used “for six years as a home at Mlegheny, Sierra Coun in his
huthbje min
ing days” long “before he became a bonanza ng.” iotlier
cabin was that in
which the U.S. senator from California, George C. Perns, had
been able “to
make himself comfortable nearly forty years before he
d the State
sente
repre
at 4shington.” The cabin of Major Downie, the
founder of Downieville
whose name, one account declared, was “familiar in eve ning
camp on the
Pacific Coast from the lower California line to Bering Strait”
stood “in a re
cess in the hillside.” The
Mining Camp also exhibited the cabins of some
other men who had become “more than locally
prominent”_ Senator James
G. faifl SenatorJ P Jones of Nevada, Mvinza Haard,
and the early homes
of writers Mark Twain and Bret Harte and John W
Marshall, the discoverer
of gold at Sutrer Mill. Through these displays, the i
Mining Camp pro
vided a way for these elites to frame their biographies within
California crea
tion myth.38
The
Mining Camp also functioned as a playground for
numerous
prominent men to indulge in fantasies of participation in the
mythic Wild
West. The Midwinte- Appeal and the Journal of
filled its pages with jovial
yet fantastic spoofs on their supposed frontier antics. For
example, not only
did the paper report on Claus Spreckels as a racially
misguided sugar mag
nate, it also reported thatJames G. fair was the new
Presbyterian minister at
Jackass Hill, minerJohn Mackay wandered into Grizzly
Gulch “half staed”
and “dead broke,” and “Adolph Sutro, a boy from
gel Camp was in town
Yesterday on a big jag with Billy Sharon, one of the boys from
Bobtail Can
yon.” In reality, James G. Fair was a railroad tycoon and
a Comstock Lode
196
CHAPTER fIVE
millionaire. William
millionaire. John Mackay was also a Comstock Lode
and the U.S. senator
Sharon was a banker, the owner of the Palace Hotel,
the Comstock Lode
from Nevada. Adolph Sutro was a mining engineer on
of San Francisco
who built Sutro baths in 1893 and would be elected mayor
later in I894.3
ate, elite man
Self-made men—many of them the epitome of corpor
. At one o’clock on
hood—also readily partook of the 9 Mining Camp exhibit
members of the Ex
the exhibit’s opening day, Director General de Young, the
old stagecoach at the
ecutive Committee, and a few invited guests boarded the
it,” the Chronicle
Administration Building. “There was little ceremony about
The driver cracked
reported, “as they have none in connection with the camp.
d down the street and
his whip and the coach was off to the camp. It rumble
cle reported another
stopped at the dance hail.” In early February, the Chroni
in, forty-two days
visit: “Notice having been given that the pack train had got
the Directorfrom ‘frisco, and that there was plenty of grub in the camp,
responded yes
General, the executive committee and members of the press
at the Forty-nine
terday to an invitation to take lunch with Old Man Peakes
Hotel, where “Papa
Mining Camp.” They dined at the Rest for the Weary
” “Everything con
Peakes and his assistants dispensed beans and other things.
“was conducted in
nected with the banquet,” the reporter assured his readers,
much of what
the spirit which prevailed in the days of 9.” Interestingly,
nineteenth-century
passed for authenticity involved flagrant disregard for
rs—to some, suremiddle-class notions of proper etiquette and good manne
kept their hats
fire markers of feminization and overcivilization. “The guests
criticisms on the
on at table and the waiters wore pistols with which to resent
and china was of
menu. Brown paper served as table-cloths and all the plate
tin” (see figure 39).40
of these dis
A reporter for the Chronicle made clear the didactic intent
take much inter
plays. “The child of an investigating mind,” he wrote, “will
them, have become
est in the old cabins of the men who, since they lived in
strictly to business
famous.” He explained that “these gentlemen attended
whether the pil
when they went to sleep forty years ago” and “did not care
, “they went
low had been aired or the mattress had been turned.” Instead
told readers,
he
result,
right to off to sleep, as soon as they laid down.” The
r further advised
was that “to-day they are rich and famous.” The reporte
prosperity in the
good conduct and a little endurance at home as a recipe for
sleep just as soon as
future: “Let little boys learn a moral from this and go to
IMAGINING THE CITY
‘97
Figure 39. The Mining Camp with the Rest for the ar Hotel
and Restaurant on
the left. \sitors, including elite businessmen and journalists,
partook of flapjac1,
beans, and bad manners herein order to capmre the experience of
the wild west. (I.
Tabe photographer. Souvenir of the California Midwinter
Internadonal
1894, Bancroft Library University of California, Berkeley)
fxposion
they get into bed. If they do, they will live long and
prosper. There can be no
hope, though, for the boy or girl who rolls around and
always wants a drink
of water. The Argonauts never asked for water. See the
result—most of them
are rich to-day and able to vote at the annual election
of the Society of Cali
fornia Pioneers “4
While the didacticism presented above may appear a little silly,
chuldren_
“the rising generations of the ‘\st”—were some of the
primary consumers of
the vision of social order served up at the
Mining Camp. The Midwinter
Fair hosted a number of Chuldren Days on which
youngsters were admitted
without charge. On Febma 2, 1894, the Examiner
reported, “Good news
from the
Mining Camp. They cannot do enough for the children
there!
They were the first to throw open their concession
to the children and they
198
iMAGINING THE CITY
CHAPTER FIVE
g to think up new kinds of fun.”
seem to have spent every minute since tryin
p, children were given “a bag
On one such special day at the 9 Mining Cam
h, “the sixty girls of the Maria
of candy and an orange apiece.” In late Marc
Forty-nine Mining Camp.” They
Kip Orphanage were special guests of the
in the old-fashioned coaches”
“were conveyed to the fair Grounds and back
e there, a “nice repast was spread
that were a “feature of the camp” and whil
manager.” Moreover, it was the
for them in the big private dining room of the
more about the. magnificent
belief of one journalist that: “A child can learn
his father, provided he is a pio
life of the Argonauts by visiting this camp than
the 9 Mining Camp spoke for
neer, would ever tell him.” In many respects,
the adults that accompanied
itself but on these special days, children and
tell the ‘tales of old, the days of
them were “shown around by guides who will
.
.
gold, the days of 9.’ “42
d to visit the çi Mining
Another audience viewed as particularly suite
s. “For the old pioneer who
Camp were the old pioneer miners themselve
scene as this depicts, the camp
spent a good portion of his life in just such a
Official Guide. “It is the Mecca
will arouse stirring memories,” declared the
in his life been engaged in the
toward which every man who has at any time
footsteps,” announced Taliesin
seductive occupation of gold-mining turns his
ty of the kind of memories the
Evans’s guide to the fair. With even greater clari
evoke, it continued, “Here, the visitor finds him
9 Mining Camp sought to
stic that, if he has at any time
self in reality transported to a scene so reali
the free and independent life of
mined, he lives over again the experiences of
s and pleasures being arrayed
the past, all its trials and triumphs, all its hope
before his mental vision.”
target audiences of the 9
Visitors from the East or from abroad were also
laimed goals was “to show visitors
Mining Camp. One of the camps self-proc
fornia miner worked and lived.”
from the East and elsewhere how the hardy Cali
out-of-town journalists, many of
The managers of the Mining Camp hosted
vities for their benefit. “The life
them from Chicago, and arranged special festi
the day arrived in the old stage
of the camp was at its height when the guests of
e was in progress and the dance
coach,” one account reported. “The keno gam
ty with its pretty girls, miners,
ball presented its customary scene of rough gaye
The
yment of the fandango.
gamblers, and Spaniards all in the hearty enjo
A
.”14
all new and strange to them
newspapermen enjoyed it all immensely. It was
of coverage the Mining
writer for the Chronicle delineated at length the kind
nd the world:
Camp was getting across the country and arou
.
.
.
‘99
The leading dailies, weeklies and monthly
magazines in every country
have for months past published extensive and
profusely illustrated ac
counts of the quaint, unique, and realistic
representations of early life in
the mines to be found in the Midwinter Fair
Forty-nine Mining Camp.
Harpers Weekly, Frank Leslie, the New York
Sun, the New York
Herald, the Chicago Record, the Chicago Herald, and
papers of Cincin
nati, New Orleans, St. Louis, Omaha,
hia
delp
Phila
and of nearly every
other Eastern city of note have printed columns
after columns about the
forty-nine Mining Camp, and the English, French
and German ex
changes, in mentioning the Midwinter fa1i never fail to
speak of this spe
cial feature To a Californian, this universal
oval
appr
of a novel enterprise
is more than a passing significance It shows
the great and mighty interest
the people abroad take in the land of gold,
immortalized by Mark Twain,
Bret Harte, and Joaquin Miller and many others.45
In the literature generated to promote and
commemorate the Midwinter
Fai the
Mining Camp was repeatedly praised for faithfully and
literally
capturing historical reality. Visitors, informed the
IVlonarch Souveni,; “see pre
sented the real life as it was in the first days of gold
feve and an exact repro
duction of the surroundings of a pioneer mining camp.”
“The picture will be
realistic to the last degree,” the Chronicle assured its
readers, “The life of al
most
years ago will be lived again.”46 This notion of
reconstituted reality
persisted even as promotional material explicitly
acknowledged that the exhibit
was shaping its representation of history to mesh with
literary fiction. Like the
writer for the Chronicle quoted above, the Official
e
Guid blatantly told its read
ers that the exhibition would be of particular
interest to those “who have in
imagination lost themselves in the Sierras with Bret
Harte, crossed the Plains
with Joaquin Miller or roughed it on the Comstock
with Mark Twain.”47
Joaquin MiJlei Bret Harte, and Mark Twain were some
of the most popu
lar nineteenth_century ‘nh-makers of the
American West. Their stories
brought to life by the p Mining Camp_told the
familiar tale of Ca1ifornja
origins that revolved around nostalgia for a lost
white republic and indepen
dent, rugged masdulini48
the Popularity of the p Mining Camp exhibit
attested its version of history_ that echoed the mythological
fiction of Mille
Harte, and Twain_possessed the cultural power it
did because it represented
the “reality” of a past that had incredible
resonance in the present. In fact, in
the 1890s, the relevance of this history had begun
to take on a new intensi It
200
CHAPTER fIVE
a pioneers—often organized
was during this decade that children of Californi
the Golden West, often hav
in chapters of the Native Sons and Daughters of
Miller, and often fearing that
ing grown up on the work of Twain, Harte, and
ining material artifacts disap
their forebears’ history would be lost as the rema
revisit and preserve places as
peared with time—began serious efforts to both
sociated with the California Gold Rush.49
literally and symboli
While rugged, independent, white manhood was
en workers constituted a signifi
cally displayed at the g Mining Camp, wom
the Midwinter Fair. As writer
cant part of the overall spectacle presented at
land Monthly, “Two distinct
Elisabeth Bates put it in an article for the Over
ely, those who go to spend
streams of people flow side by side at the fair, nam
s of women in San Francisco
money and those who go to earn it.”50 Thousand
” during the five-year eco
faced unemployment and “destitute circumstances
1893. Nationally, this financial
nomic depression precipitated by the Panic of
an unprecedented 15,252
crisis devastated broad sectors of the economy and
the winter of 1893, approxi
American businesses went into receivership. By
without work while those
mately i8 percent of the national workforce was
by an average of nearly io per
who remained employed found their wages cut
ed States especially hard. As
cent. The economic crisis hit the western Unit
ved banks of the debtor West
eastern money receded, the already cash-star
three institutions in the
collapsed. Of the national bank failures in 1893, only
s went into receivership in
Northeast suspended operations while i 15 bank
s and western territories.
the West. Of these, sixty-six were in the Pacific state
red the plight of working
Since private charities and relief efforts largely igno
ing” during these years.51
women, many “suffered severely for food and cloth
loyment at the Midwinter
Within this context, many women hoped that emp
troubles. The Examiner
Fair would at least temporarily cure their economic
there was “the same story to
reported that “in every department” of the fair
s for work” with “girls not
tell.” There was “a constant stream of applicant
applicants.” They seemed
over twenty-two” making up “four out of every ten
as well as “from the East.”
“to be pouring into the city from all over the coast”
le mistake” as the city was
This, according to the journalist, was “a terrib
.”52
“overrun with women and girls looking for work
er fair formed a workforce
wint
The luclw few who found jobs at the Mid
girls, dressed in blue uni
of women that spread all over the fairgrounds. Gum
nds—smiling, singing,
forms with scandalously short skirts, traversed the grou
cted the admission fees
and selling chewing gum. Exposition cash-girls colle
I
IMAGINING THE CITY
201
for various concessions and young women
staffed booths in the fair five main
buildings. Other women found emplonent in the
fair management system
of “paternal espionage” in which “real nice girls,
with a kiowledge of business
methods” were “sent among the different concessions to
keep tabs on the cash
taken in.” Mmost all the exhibits of foreign
ns
natio and people of color em
ployed women. Native American Hawaiian Samoan,
and Dahomean women
staffed living dioramas. At the Japanese Tea
en,
Gard
“Japanese maidens in
their kimonos” served visitors “tea and
sweetmeats” At the Vienna Prater,
waiter girls served liquor and Austrian dishes. In the
German Village, visitors
found “a concert hail, a dancing hall, a restaurant,
and, of course, Culmbacher
and kVurzburger and other ‘braus’ and
Proper German girls to curtsy and
serve it.” At the Hungarian Csarda, one
encountered “other girls and other
beer and other things to eat,” giving the
impressions that all Austro_Hungary
was “a vast eating place with feminine and
drinkable incidents and an occa
sional park to give you exercise when you want to
change your beer.” Women
of Mexican as well as Euro_American descent
worked as dancers at the
Mining Camp while the Oriental Village
maintained a troupe of young
women as muscle-dancing Turkish Dancers. At the
Tamale Cottage, the Offi
cial Catalogue informed its readers that
e, dark-eyed senoritas”
dsom
“han
could “be seen busily engaged in the manufacture
of the delicious tamale”
while “other equally charming beauties” worked “as
serving maids.”53
Since the Midwinter Fair brought men and
women together in novel,
sometimes promiscuous ways, it—like the
promenades of the Mechanics’
Institutes fairs_provided an arena in which emerging
gender identities could
be expressed and critiqued. Working women
at the fair became vehicles
through which various observers registered anxieties
about womnen more
public roles and the fairs working women
ed
experienc for themselves both
the perils and the pleasures of increased leisure
time and new work-based peer
groups. Nationally, during the final quarter of
the nineteenth century, in
creasing numbers of middle-class women pushed
into the public sphere and
against the constraints of Victorian cul Wre
dominant gender ideolo7 that
prescribed pie puri submissiveness and
domesticity At the same time,
many young workingclass women shifted from
working at various es of
piecework in their own homes, in domestic service in
other people homes,
or in small, paternalistic factories to working
in the more anonymous settings
of large factories, offices, and retail stores.
With a littie money in their pock
ets in good economic times and new
places to go for n, some of these young
IMAGINING THE CITY
CHAPTER FIVE
202
ty
gender ideologies of parents and socie
women began to rebel against the
s of sexual expression in part made pos
and to explore new identities and form
rs.
ial spaces for heterosocial encounte
sible by new, unchaperoned commerc
effete
tion of middle-class men away from
The turn of a significant propor
in
seen
as
of a new rugged masculinity—
Victorian culture and their embrace
response to anxiety aroused by women’s
the Mining Camp—was, in part, a
more public identities.54
essentially on display and avail
All women who worked at the fair were
tion in the exposition’s climate of pro
able for appraisal, fantasy, and flirta
s
stories that circulated around the fair’
miscuous mingling. As some of the
een
betw
line
d persona treaded a thin
gum girls reveal, this public, sexualize
social constraints and confirming a
representing a welcome freedom from
the women involved. That the fair
subordinate position vis-ã-vis men for
an international array of women was
was a place where men could gaze upon
related the pleasant sights that other
made clear from numerous articles that
ided details of heterosocial encoun
men had seen. Some of these even prov
for as well. An article published in
ters that perhaps their readers could hope
Fair: How Love Is Made and Unmade
the Examiner titled “Flirtations at the
s that “for really enjoyable and pro
at Sunset City” advised male fair-goer
equipped than
the gum girls, so called, are better
miscuous flirtations
r
rds their duties, their skirts and thei
any other class of individuals as rega
could they roam the fairgrounds at
generally genial disposition.” Not only
tty things with anybody under the pre
will but “they may stop and talk pre
text of vending gum.”55
heterosocial fun for the gum girls
Sometimes flirtations were a source of
sex
fun also came a certain amount of
and their patrons. But with this kind of
,
pairs
in
anation for why they traveled
ual danger. Giving one possible expl
on
two of us, and if you get badly gone
one gum girl said, “You see, there are
nd
arou
tionate, Sally here stays close
me and I don’t want you to get too affec
to tell a girl how much you love her or
all the time, and you don’t have a show
, of course, if I give her a wink she
any of that sort of nonsense. But then
gum.” Sometimes, however, flirtations
understands and goes off to sell some
Miss Violet Filids, warded off the ad
were anything but fun. One gum girl,
deploying “her fists in a scientific man
vances of a souvenir-machine man by
with Miss Eilids’s necktie” while she
ner.” After he “sought to toy familiarly
hed him squarely in the nose, leav
was trying to sell him some gum, she punc
paper that covered the story reported
lug him with “a barked proboscis.” The
.
.
.
203
that, “She as well as the rest of the girls have to stand a great deal
of guying
from a class of men who think that because a girl peddles chewing
gum she
can endure all sorts of nonsense.” Violet had learned bong from
her brother
and after seeing how well it seed liefl the rest of the gum
girls were “think
ing of taking an immediate course in the manly art as a
means of self
pfOtection.”56
Although ostensibly from Algeria, Morocco, Persia, and Et, the socalled Tursh Dancing Girls at the Midwinter Fair’s Oriental
Village pre
sented even more of a sexually charged sensation than the gum girls.
‘Vhile
undoubtedly alluring in their own right, the press definitely had a hand in the
construction of the dancers’ highly sexualized image that was based, in part,
on notions of the heightened sensual appetites and sexual
availability of colo
nized women of color that were part and parcel of Orientalist
thinking. The
Examiner described “the Oriental dames and damsels” as a “desperate class
of
flirts
who cast reciprocally amorous glances through ebony lashes” and
make “callow youths feel the fire of those langorous looks and brag to
one an
other about their conquests.” These dancers had performed at the
Chicago
Fair to rave reviews. There they faced fewer questions about the
morality of
their dancing than in San Francisco where they were besieged
by the Society
for the Suppression of Vice as early as mid-December 1893.
On January
1894, the Examiner reported that “Catherina Dhaved and
Marietta, the two
dark-eyed daughters of Turkey who were compelled to desist from giving
public dancing performances on Market street a few weeks ago by the
Society
for the Suppression of Vice, visited the officers of the society
yesterday “57
Secretary Kane, who had witnessed the women’s dancing, had no
doubt
of its “rank immorality.” Nevertheless, the dancers had to
re
endu a wait of
several days before the society’s directors could manage to
convene for a
viewing of their dances to determine if they were in fact
immoral. The “sam
ple dances” were performed in one of the rooms occupied by
the women in
the Ahlborn House on Grant Avenue The “all-male audience,”
according to
the Exarniimer “was small, compact but interested from the
start.” It consisted
of the five directors and Secretary Kane of the Society for
the Suppression of
Vice, two members of the Society for the Prevention of the
Cruelty to Chil
dren and Animals, and Captain Holland of the Police
Department “We can
judge better the morality or immorality of the dance by seeing it all,
I think,”
said Director Morris, with no recognition that such private
viewings might
raise questions about the prurient interests of the audience.
“The Directors,”
.
.
.
,
204
IAIAGINING THE CITY
CHAPTER FIVE
excited dancer with
reported the Examinei; “leaned forward and watched the
Catherina pirouetted
scrupulous interest. Unconscious of them the beautiful
ards half a dozen
in a dizzy circle, and falling to her knees bent far backw
moment.” Direc
times. Her whole form quivered with the excitement of the
sque but. hardly
tor Goodkind concluded that the dance was “very picture
arked upon the effect
the thing for ladies and children to see,” leaving unrem
or the fact that such a
of such a performance on male audience members
to male viewers to
spectacle may have been designed to be more appealing
begin with.58
d safeguard
An earnest desire to rid the city of indecency—which include
and crack
zers
organi
ing the ordered environment created by Midwinter Fair
for the Suppression
ing down on the Barbary Coast—motivated the Society
decree that deemed
of Vice. For the Turkish dancers, however, the Society’s
prohibited their
their dances to be beyond the bounds of respectability and
“In Chicago
living.
performance meant a disruption in their capacity to earn a
“We made a big hit
everybody liked us,” Catherina Dhaved told the Examinei;
to eat, plenty
plenty
in the Midway Plaisance; thirty-five an’ forty dollar week;
to San Francisco,
sleep, plenty everything—plenty money.” Since coming
January they had
however, the girls had experienced “perilous times.” By early
entrepreneurs in
earned about $i,ooo ill the employ of two different leisure
of it.” “First an
cent
the weeks before the fair opened but had not “received a
dollars a week,
Armenian man hired us,” Catherina continued, “Twenty-five
an Ameri
Then
.
on Market street. We work one, two three weeks, no money
weeks more, no
can man, Crosby, hired us. We work one, two, or three
dance and can
money. We owe plenty money at the hotel, and now we cannot
directors to con
not pay what we owe.” During the time they waited for the
the dancers
vene in early January, the women lived on “short rations.” When
the proprietor
finally performed for the Society for the Suppression of Vice,
ing to the Ex
of their hotel was also present as “an interested witness.” Accord
$ioo for back
aminel; “He told the Directors that the girls owed him about
was assured
he
board and he did not propose to keep them any longer unless
.”59
that they wollld be allowed to dance and make some money
on Janu
Several days later after the “sample dances” at the Alhorn Hotel,
to the Turkish
ary 7, 1894, the Society for the Suppression of Vice paid a visit
did not of
fair
Dancing Girls performing at the Midwinter Fair. Although the
concessions
ficially open until later in the month, by early January so many
its gates. Once
were open that thousands of people were paying to pass within
.
.
205
again Secretary Kane expressed displeasure at what he
sa especially since
“the dancers had received strict instructions to tone down
their performance to
suit Western audiences.” A “sample” of the entire
dance was again presented
that same day for “the edification of the secretair.” To
guard against errors in
either leniency or severi two other agents of the society
accompanied Secre
tary Kane as well as “a newspaperman or two, a
company of Turks, and a few
chosen friends.” The Examiner reported Kane findings
onJanuaiy 10, “In the
muscular contortions of the majority of the ladies he found
nothing to object
to seriously; but in the Closing measures of the danse dii
ventiv, as rendered by
the dus Egyptian Hamede, he found grievous cause for
complaint.” Kane re
mained steadfast in his judgment even though the press cited
the chief of the
Midwinter Fair police as one among many admirers of the dance
who did not
object to it. The Evamine, reporter captured the way that
ede
Ham
ations
left Kane unnened to the point of scrambling for words
to describe what he
had seen. “The muscular dances and the spinning
exercises of the majori7 of
the ladies can go on,” he was reported as saying, “but the
-er-er-er- the eccen
tflc Convolutions of the little brown lady must be curtailed.”60
Three months latei on April , 1894, the Tur1sh
Dancing Girls had
their day in court. As the Call reported, “Under the
glare of the gaslights
and in the suffocating heat ofJudge Conlan courtroom
the muscle-dancers
of the Cairo village last night illustrated their peculiar
dance for the benefit
of the jury impaneled Friday last.” Secretary Kane
testimony about the
dance demonstrated that he “had studied it pretty thoroughly”
and the de
scription provided by Frank D. Gibson, a hardware clerk,
likewise “showed
keen powers of obsen’ation and perception, and that he
had the dance down
finer than even Secretary Kane.” Nevertheless,
despite the fact that the
dance had been made familiar to officials through two
sample performances
as well as shows on Market Street and at the fair,
the dancers’ attorney re
quested that one of the dancers, Belle Baya, “give a
representation of the
dance.” She agreed to perform to the packed courtroom
despite the fact that
she was not outfitted in her dancing costume but
in a “lilac silk dress, lace
fichu and white straw hat with green and white ostrich
feathers.” As the Call
described, “Belle Baya followed in her dance, talng a
silk handkerchief in
each hand and the castanets on her fingers. The
Solitary fiddler mangled ‘La
Palorna’ with frightful barbarity as an accompaniment
As the handsome
Baya went through her dance the auditors went
wild with excitement and a
clapping of hands was sternly rebuked by the court.”
Order was restored in
206
IMAGINING THE CITY
CHAPTER fIVE
’s dancing and proceedings in the
the court in the wake of Belle Baya
y
after. Her performance had apparentl
dancers’ case came to a close soon
nothing immoral in her dance. “The
satisfied the jury that there was truly
reported the Call, “and the jury re
case was submitted without argument,”
of
rning five minutes later with a verdict
tired at seven minutes past i i, retu
i
Soc
the
much different opinion than
‘not guilty.” The jury, it seems, had a
s
of indecency that would mar the city’
ety of what constituted the kind
fair.6’
image or detract from the glory of the
’s policing—combined with the
The Society for the Suppression of Vice
preneurs—was more successful in im
dishonesty of a couple of leisure entre
a living than in protecting them or
peding the Turkish dancers’ ability to earn
ty. Clearly, however, both the Turk
their audiences from danger or immorali
erable to various forms of harassment
ish dancers and the gum girls were vuln
mercialized leisure. In July’, the society
as women working in the world of com
er fair scandal that involved a woman
turned its attention to another Midwint
by her male employers that she was
worker who was so egregiously exploited
the &aminer reported that “the in
actually in need of their efforts. On July 9,
the grossness of the hula-hula were
decency of the danse du ventre and
the close of the Midwinter fair which
eclipsed last evening by an exhibition at
further
mns of a daily newspaper to describe
it is not permitted in the colu
nude woman.”62
than by saying that the dancer was a
two such performances at Al
More than five hundred men had witnessed
way. The first evening the admission
exander Badlam’s Aquarium on the Mid
there wasn’t room in the Badlam build
price was set at twenty-five cents “but
that price.” As a result, the price on
ing for the crowd that was willing to pay
four-bit rate made little difference in
the second night was doubled “but the
had openly announced the upcoming
the patronage.” Spielers on the Midway
knew about the performances, but
events and apparently fair officials not only
T. P. Robinson, the director of amuse
a number of them, including Colonel
performances, “every class was rep
ments, were in attendance. In fact, at the
benches were well-dressed attorneys,
resented. The majority of those on the
“concessionaires, sports, hoodlums,
merchants and clerks.” Also present were
reported that the “room was dirty and
and men about town.” While the press
also strategically equipped with an
the atmosphere stifling,” the arena was
oles that allowed for all but a few of
emergency door and a number of porth
show was raided.63
the men present to escape arrest when the
207
Moreover the Exam iner account ofJennjeJolinson dance
and her subse
quent arrest suggests that she was not operating under
her own free will but
was coerced by the manager of the event, Al Morris.
“The somd of a violin
drew attention. to the curtain which at the same
moment was pulled aside
revealing a woman seated in a chair enveloped in a dark
cloak,” the newspaper
explained. “At the Sound of the music she sprang to her feet
revealing herself
perfectiy nude. Her head and face were veiled in a black
scarf. She thus dis
played herself for a few moments. Suddenly the sound of
the violin ceased and
the ‘dancer’ sank into her chair.” As this account
suggested and the press later
confirmed,JeflflieJohnson was not a professional dancer. Her performance did
not even involve anything that could really be
considered dancing. That she
veiled her head and face with a dark scarf suggests she was
ashamed enough of
what she was doing that she did not want to be
ed
recogniz It is likely that she
was also fearful of the arrest that might follow if she
revealed her identi64
Soon after Jennie Johnson returned to her chai she was
arrested by an of
ficer of the Society for the Suppression of Vice who
“sprang upon the stage.”
Although initially quite calm, Soon, amid a flood of tears,
she exclaimed, “i
was forced into it. The man said I would be
arrested if I did not give this
dance.” Apparently, the manager of the show’, Al
Morris, had convinced Jen
nie Johnson that if she did not perform she would
be arrested for breach of
contract. He had also “made her drink a liquor” before
her performance
Morris also had refused to be specific about how much
he would pay her,
promising only “to make it all right with her” after she
“danced.”Jeflniejohn
son was about twenty years old and a resident of the
Tenderloin district, one
of San Francisco rougher and poorer neighborli005
It is possible that she
was one of the many workingclass and poor
women facing exceptionally dire
straits as a result of the economic depression. In such
circumstances, the
threat of a lawsuit might have been especially
terriring to her and maybe
whatever Morris was willing to pay her was better than
nothing. It is also pos
sible than Jennie Johnson worked as a prostitute
and perhaps she felt that dis
playing herself nude was a better job than having sex for
money. Whatever the
answers to these questions might have been, Jennie
Johnson confessed that
she had been “duped by an enterprising
spieler that his Promise was as de
ceptive as any fake on the Midway.”65
The same confluence of economic conditions that
paved the way for
JennieJohnso plight and sent women flocking to the fair
to find work also
.
.
208
CHAPTER FIVE
al that
of 1893 and the economic upheav
affected men. The financial panic
small
ne
culi
economy of ruggedly mas
followed had made it clear that the
past.
ing Camp was truly a thing of the
producers idealized in the ij Min
aged
rav
that
t
mployment, and class conflic
The rampant economic ruin, une
bra
ironic, mocking contrast to the cele
the city and the nation presented an
the
h
bot
of
ter
erial grandiosity at the cen
tions of capitalist progress and imp
m
winter fair. Cognizant of this the Exa
Columbian Exposition and the Mid
fair
ter
win
Mid
ld not be an agreeable
iner had noted that “starvation wou
trality
economic crisis emphasized the cen
exhibit.” Yet at the same time, the
the
to
on
dati
italism, and business consoli
of manufacturing, finance cap
an
ments—part of the transition from
American economy. These develop
for
y—had far-reaching consequences
agricultural to an industrial econom
living
—male and female—who made a
the growing number of Americans
States
the nineteenth centuiw, the United
working for wages. By the end of
est, but
industrial power as well as its rich
may have been the world’s leading
y. As corpo
few benefited from the labor of man
it was also a place where a
ues,
dation and novel managerial techniq
rate strength grew through consoli
d
duction decrease but workers, buffete
not only did worker control over pro
es
selv
industrial business cycle, found them
along by the ebb and flow of the
Fran
San
in
straits. The panic’s impact
in increasingly insecure economic
resi
national economy. Its effects forced
cisco signaled the city’s ties to the
ha
e. While the Midwinter Fair put fort
dents to confront conditions at hom
p
Francisco suitable for outside consum
carefully constructed image of San
e
enu
rev
and
s
d, in part, to generate job
tion, the fair itself had been launche
for a city in economic trouble.66
Midwinter Fair as an event that
Organizers heralded San Francisco’s
divi
creating jobs and heal growing class
would revive the local economy by
ese
ject for all of the city’s residents. “Th
sions by providing a unifying civic pro
olitan
told the crowd that packed Metrop
were hard times,” WH.L. Barnes
1893.
27,
held to promote the fair on July
Hall at a “monster mass-meeting”
from
declared, “no beggars shall be driven
‘We shall build no souphouses,” he
lt at
bui
be
r sands fringing the Pacific will
house to house. But out on the silve
o
lars, buildings that will be the deposit
a cost, I believe, of over a million dol
h
oug
alth
fair did provide work for some,
ries of the hope of the world.” The
over
number of male applicants quickly
as was the case for many women, the
on
rati
mig
were faced with the fact that...
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