Circus Video: Dr. Janet Davis [Part II]
"Bearded Ladies, Dainty Amazons,
Hindoo Fakirs, and Lady Savages: Circus Representations of Gender and Race in
Victorian America", a talk by Dr. Janet Davis discusses gender
and race issues in the American circus. Below is the video from her lecture
at the University of Virginia, October 7, 2005. Sponsored by the UVa American
Studies Department, UVa Drama Department, and the University Specical Lectures
Committee.
The videos were captured in MPEG-4 format. They can be viewed
in Quicktime, VLC
Media Player, or other media players compatible to the MPEG-4 format. Dr.
Davis' lecture text is available to download here. [24
page pdf] Please note: No part of this talk can be reproduced
without the expressed permission of Dr. Davis.
New Women Acts
Click the images to view the clips.
| New Women Acts: Indeed starting in the late 1890s, "New Woman numbers" were a frequent part of the largest circuses: women, clad in "becoming" bloomers, "of the most trim fitting, advanced new woman dress reform pattern," played all roles in the arena: ringmaster, grooms, and object holders. Press releases declared that "No man is allowed to occupy that sacred ground of territory..."3 Time: 2:49 |
Entering the 20th Century
The Turn of the 20th Century: Women challenged nineteenth-century notions of fragile, sickly, neurasthenic femininity. Progressive-era reformers used physical spectacle to push for social equality. Before the Nineteenth Amendment for women's suffrage was finally ratified in 1920, female activists held street parades, open air meetings, and pickets outside the White House--tactics that did not become part of the movement until the early twentieth century. Time: 10:12 |
Outside the Circus World
Outside the Circus Ring: Outside the circus, the new woman was often dismissed or branded as a danger to the social order. The scientific community often represented her as "mannish," a liminal "third sex" neither female or male. Critics like Theodore Roosevelt and Clark University president, G. Stanley Hall, argued that the progress of white American civilization depended, in part, upon the preservation of gender differences, and declared that women should spend their reproductive lives as wives and mothers while men should dominate public life. Time: 13:12 |
Racialized images
Race in the Circus Showmen's representations of female gender were founded upon social constructions of white Euroamerican womanhood that emphasized domesticity, modesty and timidity--even as these performers bravely lifted men and horses, or somersaulted aloft. But, showmen departed from this contradictory mode of Victorian representation when marketing female performers of color or Euroamerican women in racial disguise. Time: 16:11 |
Normalizing Women
Women Showmen's representations of female gender were founded upon social constructions of white Euroamerican womanhood that emphasized domesticity, modesty and timidity--even as these performers bravely lifted men and horses, or somersaulted aloft. But, showmen departed from this contradictory mode of Victorian representation when marketing female performers of color or Euroamerican women in racial disguise. Time: 6:14 |
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