The Traditional, International, American Circus

Walker Big Apple Circus, 1994. Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, 1992-1999 (NMAH AC 1427). Copyright © Dawn V. Rogala. Reproduced with permission.

As an intern in the Archives Center of NMAH, I spend much of my time familiarizing myself with specific collections. My main project this semester has been looking at the Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, which does make it easy for me to introduce the collection, since the title makes its contents fairly clear. Originally, I was planning on writing this post about a single item, and when I came across the photograph above, I couldn’t help but find it a bit amusing. There are many beautiful, touching, and unique photos in this collection, and in comparison to many of these, this photo appears at first to be rather unremarkable. It took me a bit of time to understand why I found it so funny, but then I realized that it was the perfect image to represent the American circus. I say this because the entire time that I was perusing the collection, there was one paradox which popped out at me from nearly every page, and I can only describe it as this: the traditional, international, American circus.

Walker Bros. Circus, 1995. Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers,
1992–1999 (NMAH AC 1427).
Copyright © Dawn V. Rogala. Reproduced with permission.

Throughout the ephemera of the collection, the words “American” and “tradition” appear more times than I can count. One Carson & Barnes Circus newsletter states that the goal of its show is to “keep alive the spirit and the traditions that are a part of American History and the American Scene.” An article written about Circus Vargas is titled “Traditions and the American Circus; Elements of Circus Vargas.” One souvenir program from the Clyde Beatty – Cole Bros. Circus proclaims that “the tradition of the tented circus… is indeed an American treasure.” It is clear from the constant repetition of the word “tradition” in these excerpts that these circuses profited from a certain cultural nostalgia. Programs from circuses such as the Big Apple Circus and Circus Vargas even provide brief history lessons to highlight the role of the circus in American history, telling it as though it were the story of an individual, such as an immigrant striving towards that famous “American dream.” Yet despite many of these labels, the animals, the performers, and in some cases even the tent – “…brand new…Big Top freshly imported from Italy!”–were advertised for their exoticism.

Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus, 1995. Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, 1992–1999 (NMAH AC 1427). Copyright © Dawn V. Rogala. Reproduced with permission.

According to one Big Apple Circus program, the circus itself started as an arena for equestrian sports. Be that as it may, it is the exotic animals which became the major tools for drawing a crowd. The Rogala collection contains many photographs of these lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!), and it’s clear from the collected papers that each circus wanted to emphasize their “Exotic Animal Menagerie.” Among the ephemera in the collection are the programs from six out of the eleven circuses she traveled with – as well as one from a circus that she didn’t travel with – and a crucial part of many of these programs is a listing of the animals, meant undoubtedly to amaze and overwhelm readers: “…approximately 20 [elephants], both Indian and African… approximately 100 exotic and domestic animals, including giraffe, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, camels, liger, tigers, lions, llamas, and many types of equine.” For this industry, it seems to have been vital to make grand claims about their “rather large variety of animals from various parts of the globe” in order to compete with other shows. Finally, most circuses include exciting images of animals in their programs and on their trailers – not necessarily corresponding to the animals in their actual cast. All this is to advertise the circus as a place to view all types of animals that would never ordinarily be seen in the U.S. – quite  the opposite from our “slice of pure Americana.”

Selection of programs from six circuses (listed clockwise from top-left corner: Culpepper & Merriweather Great Combined Circus Official Program and Souvenir Magazine, Folder 7; Circus Vargas Program of Acts, The 29th Anniversary Edition, Folder 4; Kelly Miller Circus, Folder 9; Clyde Beatty – Cole Bros. Circus Program and Magazine, Folder 6; Carson & Barnes Circus 1993 Official Routebook, Folder 2; Big Apple Circus Carnevale in Venice, 1993-94 Lincoln Center & Tour, Folder 1. All Box 8, Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, 1992–1999 (NMAH AC 1427).

Carson & Barnes Circus 1993 Official Routebook,
Folder 2, Box 8, Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, 1992–1999 (NMAH AC 1427).

Just as circus programs include lists of their exotic animals, many also catalogue their foreign performers. Circus Vargas even went so far as to have an entire sheet devoted to their “International Cast,” which includes human performers from Spain, Argentina, Bulgaria, Germany, Kenya, England, and the Philippines, as well as a troupe of dogs from Denmark. Even domestic animals, it seems, needed some international flair. These international casts were also displayed in a way which made them appear even more exotic, through fanciful names, acts, and costumes. Big Apple Circus’s “Carneval in Venice” – from which the top photo is taken – is set in a fanciful version of an entirely different place on the globe. Similarly, photos in programs from Carson & Barnes Circus show performers paying tribute to a different time with their colorful “Aztec” costumes. In order to quench this thirst for variety, some of these circus acts portrayed cultures that were not present in the cast of performers. This certainly appears to be the case in the photo below, where several women are dressed in imaginative Asian-inspired costumes, even donning identical black wigs.

Carson & Barnes Circus, 1995. Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, 1992–1999 (NMAH AC 1427).
Copyright © Dawn V. Rogala. Reproduced with permission.

The exoticism of the circus seems like a contradiction to its place in American tradition, but I think that nothing explains it better than this excerpt from one Clyde Beatty–Cole Bros. program: “Perhaps no tradition reflects the cultural quiltwork of our nation as does the American circus.” The circuses in this collection take a variety of different nationalities, cultures, and traditions, put them all under one big top – typically in colors of red, white, and blue – and call it American. It makes me think of that old debate as to whether the U.S. is more of a melting pot or more of a salad bowl, with the former arguing that all cultures mix until we can no longer see the differences, and the latter arguing that the cultures may be next to each other but they remain distinct and separate. Since this post is scheduled to go online on National Mulligan Day – yes, I chose the day for a reason–we might also think of the circus as being a reflection of the U.S.– a stew made from various unique odds and ends. This stew retains its individual bites of flavor, but it is the broth which brings together these numerous and varied elements to define it as a stew.

Sterling & Reid Bros. Circus, 1998. Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, 1992–1999 (NMAH AC 1427). Copyright © Dawn V. Rogala. Reproduced with permission.

For more information on the Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and papers, or – even better – to view the collection yourself, please visit our website. There you will find the contact information to set up an appointment to view items from this or other collections!

All quotes taken from box 8 of the collection (ephemera), various folders, the Dawn V. Rogala Circus Photographs and Papers, 1992-1999, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

Kira Leinwand
Intern, Fall 2019
Archives Center
National Museum of American History

Pioneering Women Photographers in Africa: Marilyn Houlberg

This blog post about Marilyn Houlberg continues the series about our Pioneering Women Photographers in Africa project.  The following post was written by Dr. Peter Haffner, a post-doc fellow at the National Museum of African Art who spent nine months researching Haitian art and the work of Marilyn Houlberg in the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives.  He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA in Culture and Performance from the interdisciplinary Dept. of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA, focusing on contemporary Haitian arts and culture. In the fall, Dr. Haffner will join the Art History faculty at Centre College as an Assistant Professor.

Peter Haffner researching in the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, April 25, 2019, Photograph by Brad Simpson

Marilyn Houlberg (1939-2012) wore many hats during her lifetime: artist, photographer, art historian dedicated to the arts of Yorubaland and Haiti, professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, curator of major exhibitions of Haitian art in the United States, and a trained anthropologist. Common to all of her her roles was her advocacy and support for the arts and religious practices of peoples of African descent. Many who knew her well describe her as a “bon vivant,” fiercely independent and warmly eccentric. With her mirrored sunglasses, ornate head-wraps, flashy statement jewelry, and flowing black clothing, she purposely played with an ambiguously “witchy” self-presentation that, even though she herself was not a manbo, or Vodou priestess, the chance that she just might be granted a certain access all its own. 

Houlberg seated with André Pierre in the artist's home, Haiti,
March 2005, EEPA 2012-004-2770.  Photographed here during his last days, 
Houlberg had a long, collaborative relationship with the famed 
painter and oungan, André Pierre.

One can see the extent of this access documented in over 5,000 photographs and almost four decades of field notes and related ephemera available in the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at the National Museum of African Art. From her earliest experiences in the field, Houlberg never shied from difficult situations. She cut her teeth doing field research and museum work in Nigeria during the tumultuous period of the Biafra civil war. While working at the National Museum of Lagos in the late 1960s, she helped catalog and secure the museum’s holdings of traditional art objects. In scores of handwritten pages, she recorded the accession numbers and descriptions of thousands of objects as unrest in the streets threatened to spill into the museum. Such altruism was not limited to the works in the museums, as she helped many of her Igbo colleagues hide within the museum (Cosentino 2012).

Ife-Olu Solaru dressing hair, Ikenne, Nigeria, September 29, 1973, EEPA 2005-002-0091.  One of the many examples of sculptural virtuosity of Yoruba women's hairstyles.

Yoruba woman with elaborate hairstyle, Ikenne, Nigeria,
September 29, 1973, EEPA-2005-002-0092

Her Nigerian field research in rural areas encompassed subjects of special interest. In the male-dominated field of anthropology, she focused on areas both overlooked by her male colleagues and ones potentially inaccessible to them because of gender. She wrote of the social and political significance of women’s hairstyles, and how certain styles could be read as responses to everything from political conditions of military rule in Nigeria to the religious diversity within its borders (Houlberg 1979). Perhaps most important was her acknowledgement of the transformations that occurred in cultural forms over time, and how the dynamic shifts in more “traditional” motifs in response to their exposure to contemporary practices and materials were signs of cultural dynamism, not a pollution of more “pure” older forms. Her work with ibeji, or twin figures, among Yoruba peoples is one major illustration of this. Houlberg found examples of modern technologies like photography incorporated into the practice of honoring deceased twins among Yoruba women, and how mass-produced plastic dolls were often used in place of more traditional carved wooden ere ibeji in order to represent and honor a twin who has passed on to the next world (Houlberg 1973).

Flag Day Parade, Haitian Army/Guard Civil, Cap Haitien, Haiti, May 18, 1976, EEPA 2012-004-0760.
Houlberg captured this official celebration of soldiers in the northern city of Cap Haitien during the height of Baby Doc Duvalier's autocratic regime. Note the red and black flags adopted by the Duvaliers, later changed back to the original blue and red.

Houlberg refocused her scholarly attention in the late 1970s as she directed her research towards ibeji as they manifested in Haiti. Known among local Vodou practitioners as marasa, twins in Haiti had their own sets of practices and beliefs. Her research showed how systems of devotion to the marasa were indebted to corresponding West African ibeji traditions, but also how they underwent transformations in new cultural and geographic settings that testified to the dynamic adaptability of cultures, even in the face of horrors like the Middle Passage and the plantation slavery system of colonial St. Domingue (as Haiti was known before the Revolution).

Drummers (bata), Yoruba Egungun Festival, Ilara, Nigeria, July 22, 1982,
EEPA 2012-004-0622

Houlberg’s research gradually became more entrenched in Haitian subjects. Ironically, with the scapegoating of Haitians (among the other “H” groups of homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and heroin users) for the spread of HIV in the early 1980s, Houlberg was traveling more and more to the country. As the tourism boom from the 1970s came to a halt and, later, political turmoil engulfed the country as uprisings overthrew the autocratic government Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Houlberg’s work in Haiti was ramping up. In fact, her field notes serve as valuable contemporaneous accounts of the shifts in Vodou practice and how devotees responded to these difficulties, as well as how the material changes manifested in the work of Haitian artists in Port-au-Prince.

Two ounsi (Vodou initiates) hold up sequined banners to conceal the activities of the oungan behind them,
Haiti, December 1985, EEPA 2012-004-0819

As Houlberg’s field notes and photographs progress chronologically, they demonstrate how she positioned herself as an adept facilitator for the exhibition, reception, and acquisition of Haitian art internationally, especially during times of hardship and unrest. During the U.S.-led embargo of Haiti (1991-94), Houlberg would often bring supplies and materials for artists, since goods were increasingly scarce in Haiti itself. Among her letters in the archives are those written by artists like Yves Telemak requesting materials from Houlberg or thanking her for the delivery of supplies of colorful beads and sequins, which would be sewn onto drapo (Vodou flags). Often, these deliveries would be exchanged for commissioned works that would then enter Houlberg’s ever-growing collection of flags. 

Bel-Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, St. Martin's street (next street from Tirremas), Haiti, January 1986,
EEPA 2012-004-0810. Houlberg made close associations with flag makers in Bel-Air, an epicenter of art
and Vodou practice in Haiti's capital.  

In 1994, President Bill Clinton ordered the U.S. Marine invasion to reinstate the democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which also restored international trade to the country. This marked a time of great optimism in Haiti. For her part, Houlberg was busy with her work as the co-curator of the landmark exhibition, Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, which began at UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History (now named the Fowler Museum at UCLA) in 1995 and spent three years traveling to major institutions throughout North America. As the editor of the massive exhibition book, fellow curator Donald J. Cosentino has often received the lion’s share of the credit for Sacred Arts, but Houlberg’s field notes reveal just how integral she was to its success. Her art-world connections in Haiti, cultivated over years of research, proved crucial to the exhibition and the publication. Her relationships to artists like Telemak and the painter Andre Pierre – a grand elder of Haitian Vodou practice – as well as her longtime collaborator and friend, Georges René, whose tireless legwork opened myriad doors to Houlberg that were otherwise unavailable to her, were significant resources to the exhibition.

Houlberg's longtime collaborator and friend, Georges René, standing in front of a billboard that reads, "ANSAM NAP REBATI AYITI-MEN ANPIL CHAY PA LOU (together we will rebuild Haiti - many hands lighten the load), Haiti, circa 1990, EEPA 2012-004-0607.  This is one of many signs and posters to advertise Haitian resilience that Houlberg caught with her camera during the turbulent years that followed the fall of "Baby Doc" Duvalier in the mid-1980s. 

Houlberg died in 2012, leaving behind troves of material to the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives. Most of the photographs and field notes have been processed, but there still remains much of the video and audio components of Houlberg’s fieldwork to be digitized. Considering the breadth and scope of the available materials, we highly anticipate what the next phases of archiving will yield.

Bibliography:

Cosentino, Donald, Henry John Drewal, Katherine Smith, and Doran H. Ross. “Marilyn Jensen Houlberg.” African Arts 46, no. 2 (2013): 4–5. 

Houlberg, Marilyn Hammersley. “Social Hair: Tradition and Change in Yoruba Hairstyles in Southwestern Nigeria,” in The Fabrics of Culture: The Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment. Justine M. Corwell and Ronald A. Schwarz, eds.  World Anthropology. The Hague ; New York: Mouton, 1979. 349-398.

———. “Ibeji Images of the Yoruba.” African Arts 7, no. 1 (1973): 20–92. 

We hope that you enjoy Houlberg’s photographs as more are posted online.  You can view the collections’ finding aids and explore her photographs here:

Marilyn Houlberg Nigeria collections: EEPA 2005-002 and EEPA 2015-015 

Marilyn Houlberg Haiti collections: EEPA 2012-004 and EEPA 2015-016 

We encourage you to read more about the Pioneering Women Photographers in Africa project and explore other blogs in the series.




To obtain high-resolution images, permission for publication or exhibition, or make a research appointment, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art.