Hidden History, Part 2: Joy McLean Bosfield Sings at Kennedy Center Dedication

 By Jennifer Sieck

Joy McLean Bosfield framed this page from the score for “Gloria in Excelsis” signed for her by MASS composer Leonard Bernstein. She sang in the choir for MASS’s world premiere, conducted by Bernstein for the Kennedy Center’s dedication in 1971. Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.

"Gloria in Excelsis" proclaims the title of this autographed musical score in prelude to the story of Joy McLean Bosfield (1924-1999), a musician, educator, and entrepreneur who lived in Washington, DC from 1962 to 1985. Like another accomplished African American musician in the District featured in a prior post on this blog, McLean Bosfield was instrumental in bringing the Kennedy Center into being. Her contribution took the form of singing in Leonard Bernstein’s MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers at the Kennedy Center’s dedication on September 8, 1971. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in memory of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, Bernstein riffed on the traditional Latin mass to honor the nation’s first Roman Catholic president in an operatic piece featuring more than 200 performers and choreography by Alvin Ailey. The Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary Season concludes with a new interpretation of MASS in September 2022.

Original Production of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS, 1971. Photo by Fletcher Drake. Courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Center Archives, 1971. Joy McLean Bosfield might be among the robed choir members above the dais, possibly the second singer in the first row to the right of the center aisle. The photo ran on the front page of The Washington Post on September 9, 1971.

The framed sheet music might have been especially meaningful for McLean Bosfield, as she had co-founded a business that prepared printed music for publication in 1959. This excerpt from “Gloria in Excelsis” shows the choral and orchestral parts for an exuberant response to the absolution of sin. Across the opening bars, Bernstein inscribed in red ink, “Gloria to Joy McClean!” [sic] along with his signature and the date. Significantly, it is the only framed item among the newspaper clippings (including Washington Post articles about MASS at the Kennedy Center), photographs, and programs in the Joy McLean Bosfield papers at the Anacostia Community Museum.

A photo from Joy McLean Bosfield’s scrapbook shows the cast of Porgy and Bess in Hollywood in 1954: left to right, unidentified man, Irene Williams, Leslie Scott, Joy McLean, LeVern Hutcherson. Courtesy of The Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.

“Joy McLean” appears among the names in the MASS program along with other renowned artists, such as Alvin Ailey dancers Judith Jamison and Sylvia Waters. The name served as both her real and stage name for much of her career, including when she sang the role of Clara in an international touring production of Porgy and Bess that played a significant role in Cold War cultural diplomacy in the 1950s. 

Norman Scribner wrote a letter to the original MASS cast members on Kennedy Center letterhead, Feb. 16, 1972. Courtesy of The Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.

McLean Bosfield’s papers also include a letter from Washington Choral Arts and MASS choir director Norman Scribner. Its salutation reads, “Dear ‘Original Cast’ Member,” and invites her to participate in a 1972 touring revival of MASS. Professional obligations likely prevented her from participating, such as her service as music minister for John Wesley AME Zion Church in the District’s Logan Circle. A church colleague, Rev. John R. Kinard, became the founding director of the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in 1967. Recognizing the value of her papers, he worked with Senior Curator Portia James to acquire them for the museum’s collection as McLean Bosfield prepared to retire to Mexico in 1985.

Annotated scrapbook photos show Joy McLean Bosfield teaching her choreography to youth in rehearsals for the Community League of West 159th Street’s Cotillion in New York City, 1958. Courtesy of The Joy McLean Bosfield papers, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joy McLean Bosfield.

Born and raised in New Jersey, McLean Bosfield came of age artistically in New York City. Like Bernstein, she performed and conducted at Lincoln Center. Her scrapbooks attest to a wide-ranging repertoire rooted in African American musical traditions, including those of her mother’s birthplace of Demarara, British Guiana (Guyana, in 2022), alongside fluency in mélodie (French art song), classical compositions, and Broadway showtunes.

A verse on a handmade card congratulating McLean Bosfield on her college acceptance concludes with the double entendre, “Let Joy Be Unconfined.” Her archive and students bear witness to a legacy of unconfined Joy.

In harmony with this post and in honor of Black History Month, McLean Bosfield’s scrapbooks are being relaunched on the Smithsonian Transcription Center. Digital volunteers can refine prior transcriptions, which proved challenging due to the scrapbooks’ varied and fragile materials. Check out the scrapbooks: here and here.

Jennifer Sieck, Ph.D., Collections Researcher

Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum

Hidden History: Lillian Evanti's Lobbying Contributes to the Creation of the Kennedy Center

 By Jennifer Sieck

This post is being published on November 12, the eightieth anniversary of the founding of the National Negro Opera Company in 1941.

At the same time, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2021. It opened twelve years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed bipartisan legislation creating a national cultural center in 1958. However, the Evans-Tibbs Collection at the Anacostia Community Museum includes even earlier bills. House Resolutions (H.R.) 5397 and 8047 testify to the advocacy of Madam Lillian Evanti (1890-1967) in the early 1950s (see below). The international opera star lobbied for a national performing arts center in her native city of Washington, DC.

A graduate of Armstrong High School, Miner Teacher’s College, and Howard University, Evanti sang the role of Violetta in the National Negro Opera Company’s staging of La Traviata on the Water Gate barge, anchored just downstream from the Kennedy Center’s future location on the Potomac River. An August 28, 1943 performance drew an audience estimated at 12,000, and rave reviews inspired an encore show the following night. The Water Gate provided a rare, racially-integrated venue as segregation barred African Americans from many performance spaces, especially for large-scale productions like operas. This discrimination contributed to Evanti’s desire for a national arts center open to all.

Evanti’s handwriting on H.R. 5397 references H.R. 9111, the “most recent” bill as of May 1954. Stamps on the bills read “From Congressman Charles R. Howell,” who represented New Jersey’s 4th District and introduced H.R. 5397 on the House floor in May 1953. Representative John “Jack” Shelley of California introduced H.R. 8047 in February 1954. Both bills were referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. Groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center took place in 1964, three years before Evanti’s passing. 

Visit the Museum’s Collections page to see Madame Evanti’s custom-built piano, handheld fan, and opera glasses. 

Above: Reproduction of an article by Grace W. Tompkins and photos of La Traviata staged at the Water Gate in 1943 in A Pictorial History and Listing of Achievements of the National Negro Opera Company and National Negro Opera Company Foundation, 1959, p. 32-33. Co-stars William Coleman as Germont and Lillian Evanti as Violetta are pictured in the top right. All images from Evans-Tibbs collection, Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, gift of the Estate of Thurlow E. Tibbs, Jr.

Jennifer Sieck

Collections Researcher

Anacostia Community Museum

Gardens: The Universal Language

By Taylor Elyea

In January 1937, one hundred forty-seven members of The Garden Club of America ventured on a nineteen-day trip to numerous sites in Mexico. Extensive documentation of that journey, now part of The Garden Club of America Collection at the Archives of American Gardens, makes it clear that the members covered a vast array of Mexican landscapes, gardens, and sites. The group trekked to landscapes in Guaymas, Mazatlán, the Barrancas, Guadalajara, Uruapan, Pátzcuaro, Morelia, Mexico City, Taxco, Cuernavaca, and many other cities. One of the sites visited by the group was the former home of Zelia Nuttall (1857-1933), an aficionado of Mexican gardens and botany and notable American archaeologist.

Zelia Nuttall (1857-1933)

Born in San Francisco to a Mexican-American mother and Irish father, Zelia Nuttall’s love for the Mexican landscape ultimately culminated in her purchase of Casa Alvarado, a 16th-century mansion in Mexico City. Here she explored her newfound interest in Mexican gardens and botany by studying garden and landscape art as well as medicinal herbs. She authored the monograph, The Gardens of Ancient Mexico, which was reprinted in the Smithsonian’s Annual Report for 1923, and shared her love for Mexican landscapes by hosting many visitors in the gardens at her home.

GCA members at lunch in the gardens at Casa Alvarado, former home of scholar Zelia Nuttall. 

It was in these gardens that members of The Garden Club of America enjoyed a luncheon as guests of William Richardson, manager of the National City Bank’s Mexican branch. A copy of Nuttall’s article was provided to each GCA member, courtesy of the Garden Club of Mexico. 

Walled garden, the Churubusco Monastery. Both sites in Mexico City were just two of many visited by the GCA in January, 1937.

During their 1937 trip, GCA members met with their counterparts from a number of different garden clubs throughout Mexico.  A few lines from a detailed travelogue of the trip published in the March, 1937 Bulletin of The Garden Club of America sums up the universal tie that a shared love of gardens brings: “…we have left them with our hearts and our gratitude, eternally…we said goodbye to them with real affection and regret.”

Taylor Elyea
2021 Virtual Summer Intern 
Archives of American Gardens 

Geneva Townes Turner

 By Jennifer Morris

Geneva Calcier Townes Turner married Lorenzo Dow Turner, a pioneering African American linguist and celebrated father of Gullah studies, who conducted groundbreaking research in the Sea Islands off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. Geneva worked as an unofficial research associate and scribe for her husband’s projects in the early years of his research. She participated in creating recordings of the Gullah people’s songs and dialect, and studied the international phonetic system at Brown University in order to better identify and transcribe Gullah speech. While her contributions to the formative years of Dr. Turner’s Gullah research were never fully acknowledged, she took pride in “sharing in his accomplishments.”

The couple separated after nineteen years of marriage, and Geneva went on to enjoy a successful career as an elementary school educator in Washington, DC.  She also collaboratively published and distributed two children’s books.                                  

KatieGrovener [Grovernor] Brown, Gullah Informant, Sapelo Island, Georgia, 1933

Parris and Rosa Capers, Gullah Informants, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1932 

SamPolite, Gullah Informant, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1932 

Jennifer Morris, Archivist

Anacostia Community Museum

Spotlight on Women Amateur Photographers No. 3

 By Pamela Wintle

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” Virginia Woolf

Mayme Lou Bruce, known as Stevey, was married to James Bruce, a prolific amateur filmmaker and explorer who had a particular interest in Melanesia but also filmed in other areas of the world.  As with other husband-and-wife teams, in the Human Studies Film Archives collections, we know that Stevey accompanied her husband and photographed their adventures. As is so often true, the full extent to which she contributed remains “anonymous.” 

Indonesia, ca. 1975, photograph by Stevey Bruce (James S. and Stevey Bruce Collection, sihsfa_2002_17_op_Indonesia75_026

Ecuador, 1976, photograph by Stevey Bruce (James S. and Stevey Bruce Collection, sihsfa_2002_17_op_Ecuador76_005)

Nepal, ca. 1968, photograph by Stevey Bruce (James S. and Stevey Bruce Collection, sihsfa_2002_17_op_Nepal68)

Pamela Wintle

Human Studies Film Archives

Spotlight on Women Amateur Photographers, No. 2

 By Pamela Wintle

“The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.”

― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night (1935)

Anne Hansen married John V. Hansen, a Danish adventurer and accomplished amateur filmmaker, and fully participated in his journeys to various European countries, the American West, Alaska and Central America. We know that Anne Hansen served as the travel photographer, necessitating her own intrepid spirit and sense of adventure. We don’t know for certain if this is Anne Hansen with the rope tied around her waist, but one can imagine that it is she risking a perilous slide in order to witness a geologic feature. Below this image are two of her photographs from their many other travels.

Grinnel Glacier at fissure, Glacier National Park, Montana, ca. 1942, photograph by Anne Hansen
(John and Anne Hansen Collection, sihsfa_1999_10_op_americanwest_007)

Tikal Guatemala, 1968, photograph by Anne Hansen (John and Anne Hansen Collection, sihsfa_1999_10_mexico037)

Mendenhall Glacier, ca. 1945, Anne Hansen (John and Anne Hansen Collection sihsfa_1999_10_americanwest028)

Pamela Wintle

Human Studies Film Archives

Spotlight on Women Amateur Photographers, No. 1

By Pamela Wintle 

“Not content with making sandwiches and massaging feet, these women were active both in the field and in post-production. They recorded sound, shot film, edited, wrote, narrated, co-hosted, and co-directed.”  Smithsonian Collections Blog: Women in the frame, March 23, 2010

The Human Studies Film Archives has a number of husband-and-wife collaborations in the collections, but rarely do we know the extent to which “these women” contributed.  However, in a few of these collections we do know that the woman in the team was the main still photographer in addition to many other duties!

These women were usually behind the camera, so photos of them in the field are rare. Thus, although we cannot see her face, we believe from images in the Hassoldt Davis collection that the photographer of the image below is Ruth Diawara (nee Staudinger, also formerly Ruth Rozaffi, Ruth Cadoret, Ruth Davis, and Ruth Schaffner, 1914-1996).  After her death, her personal slides and films documenting travels to Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and various African countries were discovered in a Los Angeles storage unit and donated to the Human Studies Film Archives.

    Mount Fuji, 1966, photographer unknown (Ruth Diawara Collection, sihsfa_2013_002_op_003)

    Japan, 1966, photograph by Ruth Diawara (Ruth Diawara Collection, sihsfa_2013_002_op_002)

Pamela Wintle

Human Studies Film Archives

A New Virtual Finding Aid for Ethel Cutler Freeman Collection

Portrait of Ethel Cutler Freeman. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Ethel Cutler Freeman (1886-1972) was a remarkable woman who defied expectations to become a celebrated anthropologist. She was born in 1886 in Morristown, New Jersey. After studying abroad in England at Mademoiselle Marie Souvestre’s Academy for Girls, Freeman returned to the United States and married New York stockbroker Leon S. Freeman in 1909. Over the course of the next 25 years, she gave birth to three children (two daughters and a son) and lived the life of a socialite and well-to-do wife and mother. However, she was determined to move beyond the expected activities for a woman of her social class, and in 1934, decided to look to education to clear a “brain full of cobwebs.”¹ Freeman’s papers reveal that dedication for growth; for example, there are several notes that she wrote to herself on themes like “How to Give a Good Lecture” evidenced by a folder labeled “Analysis of my writing by myself.”

“What is wrong with my writing,” a list of critiques by Freeman about her writing. The Ethel

Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Freeman decided to venture out and grow her interests beyond ordinary daily social activities and, on the advice of her friend Marcellus Hartley Dodge, attended Columbia University, taking courses in psychology and sociology. She became interested in Native American cultures, specifically that of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, due to the proximity of her family’s home in Naples, Florida, to the Big Cypress Reservation. She met Dr. Clark Wissler, then curator of the Indian Division of the American Museum of Natural History, who was supportive of Freeman’s pursuit of anthropology but discouraged her from attempting a study of Seminole communities, as they were not typically open to outsiders. 

Ethel Cutler Freeman with councilman and medicine man Josie Billie and Frank Cypress outside of Freeman’s chiki on her arrival at the Big Cypress Reservation in 1941. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. 

Despite Dr. Wissler’s comments (and his own experience of not being able to work with Seminole communities), Freeman was able to make around thirty stays with the Seminole Tribe of Florida at the Big Cypress Reservation starting in February of 1940. She brought one of her daughters, Condict, and son, Leon Jr., with her on many of her trips. Although Freeman acted with the permission of the Seminole of Florida and developed close relationships with many members of the tribe, it is important to note that she was not acting in collaboration with or at the invitation of the community, as she would today.

Ethel Cutler Freeman demonstrating the use of her 16mm Ciné Kodak camera for children on the Big Cypress Reservation. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Over the course of the 1940s, Freeman added to her fieldwork in Florida with trips to Mexico and New Mexico, working with the Mascogo, Tohono Oʼodham, Kickapoo, Navajo, and Hopi peoples. The Mascogo community was of particular interest to Freeman as they are a Seminole group descended from escaped African slaves who joined with the Seminole peoples.² During this period, she also established herself as an expert in Seminole culture and, in 1947, was appointed as the American Civil Liberties Union’s representative on the National Coordinating Committee for Indian Affairs. She additionally took on a role as a consultant for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and, in 1948, was appointed to the Hoover Commission for Reorganization of Government as their representative. These accomplishments were remarkable for the time, as there were very few female anthropologists.

Scene from  Seminole Indians, ca. 1950  (HSFA# 1986.11.9) Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Freeman published articles and gave talks and lectures on the Seminole at events ranging from international conferences to garden club meetings. In doing so, she used her privilege and education to advocate for awareness, recognition, and acknowledgement of the Seminole people. The finding aid for Freeman’s papers has recently been published on SOVA through the funding of the FY2019 Collections Information (CIS) pool.

Katherine Christensen (Contract Archivist) and Kaitlin Srader (Intern)

_________________________________

¹Freeman to Marcellus Hartley Dodge. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

²For more information on the Mascogo, see Katarina Wittich, “The Mascogo,” Lest We Forget, Hampton University, accessed June 23, 2020, http://lestweforget.hamptonu.edu/page.cfm?uuid=9FEC2EE5-0FC3-78EB-8DB3B143545DDC94.

Prove It on Me: Ma Rainey and the Queer Blues

"When you see two women walking hand in hand 

Just look 'em over and try to understand" 

             – George Hannah, "The Boy in the Boat"

In 1925, the Chicago police arrested blues singer Gertrude "Ma" Rainey in her home for hosting a so-called “lesbian party.” While Rainey had been married to a man for 21 years, she was known to take female lovers. It was even rumored that she was romantically involved with another famous blueswoman, Bessie Smith, who bailed Rainey out of jail the following day.

Ma Rainey and the Wildcats Jazz Band, 1923. Bernice Johnson Reagon
Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Getting her start on the vaudeville circuit in the early 1900s, Ma Rainey made her mark as a blues performer just as the genre’s popularity hit its stride in the 1920s. By 1925, she was two years into a lucrative recording contract with Paramount Records, had worked with Louis Armstrong, and was in the middle of what would become a four-year musical partnership with Thomas Dorsey’s Wild Cats Jazz Band. Ma Rainey had earned the title “Mother of the Blues,” and she had no intention of giving it up.

Three years later, she would respond to the gossip about her sexuality sparked by her arrest with her “Prove It on Me Blues:”

“Went out last night 

With a crowd of my friends 

They must have been women 

Cause I don’t like no men”

Some have called the lesbianism and bisexuality among black female blues musicians the “open secret” of the Harlem Renaissance. While some blues singers, like Alberta Hunter and Ethel Waters, were careful to bury rumors that they, too, might be “in the life,” many more, like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Gladys Bentley, Clara Smith, and Lucille Bogan did little to conceal their relationships with women. Lucille Bogan even released a song in 1935, entitled “The B.D. Woman’s Blues” in which “B.D.” stood for “bulldagger,” a slang term for a butch lesbian. Referring affectionately to these lesbian women, Bogan sings: “They got a head like a sweet angel and they walk just like a natural man.”

Perhaps the greater secret was the blues club scene itself. The early 1900s saw a massive migration of black Americans from the South to cities in the North like Chicago and New York City. The Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York proved a particularly popular destination for many migrants, who helped contribute to a flourishing art, academic, and entertainment scene that would come to be known as the “Harlem Renaissance.” Amid this atmosphere of artistic and intellectual expression, gay and lesbian African-Americans found a spirit of social freedom and acceptance that allowed them to pursue same-sex relationships with greater openness than in many other parts of the country.

And it was in the underground blues clubs of the 1920s and 30s where this sexual expression could thrive most freely. In seedy Harlem blues clubs, blueswomen like Gladys Bentley, who became famous for her masculine performances complete with cropped hair, tuxedo, and top hat, found their audiences and stage personas. For black women, who made up the majority of the popular blues singers at this time, these clubs offered an outlet to explore their sexualities and sexual desires onstage in a way that would have been denied them in their day to day lives. Blues clubs spread far beyond just New York City, and while blueswomen like Rainey and Smith tend to be associated with the Harlem Renaissance, many of these women had stronger ties to the South, Midwest, and California. Artists like Bentley toured blues clubs around the country, including San Francisco’s famous Mona’s 440 Club, a bar which marketed itself toward lesbians as the place “where girls will be boys.”

Some have suggested that it is important to not overstate the prevalence of these declarations of same sex desire in the music and performances of female blues musicians. Lesbian-themed songs make up but a small fraction of these singers’ bodies of work, the majority of which focuses instead on romances with men. Yet it is still important to acknowledge the significance of the blues club as a space where black women in the early 20th century were able to express their sexual and romantic desires without fearing for their safety. Using masculine clothing, provocative performances, and homoerotic lyrics, these blueswomen found unique ways to represent their sexuality onstage. More than that, black women blues performers were able to control how their sexuality was represented in their lyrics and performances and decide, for themselves, who they wanted to be onstage and off.

Bessie Smith, undated. Sam DeVincent Collection, African-American Music series, 
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

At the end of “Prove It on Me Blues,” Ma Rainey sings:

“Talk to the gals just like any old man 

Cause they say I do it, ain't nobody caught me 

Sure got to prove it on me.”

In these lines, Rainey coyly seems to say, “My sexuality is mine alone, and I am free to live how I please.” And perhaps this is the most important thing to remember when we talk about the lives and romances of these blueswomen. For women like Ma Rainey, the blues was a world where you could take control of your own story, where you could explore your sexuality and talk about it on your terms, where you could decide who you wanted to be and then become that person onstage each night.

For more on Ma Rainey and the other blueswomen mentioned here, watch T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s on Kanopy.

Erin Walsh, Intern
National Museum of American History, Archives Center

Charlotte Cushman's Love With No Name

Language is slippery.

Take Charlotte Cushman, for example. Born in Boston in 1816, Cushman started a career in the opera to support her family after her father’s death. When her talent for singing and dramatic acting was recognized, she started touring with theater companies, performing Shakespeare around the United States and Europe. Her deep contralto voice allowed her to play both male and female parts onstage and she became best known for some of her male roles, including her performance as Romeo opposite her sister as Juliet. By mid-century, Cushman had become a household name, and she was easily one of the 19th century’s most famous actresses.

Miss Charlotte Cushman, undated. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana,
Theater series, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Today, we might also look back on Charlotte Cushman’s life and call her the 19th century’s most famous lesbian actress. She sustained numerous monogamous relationships with women, including artist Rosalie Sully and actress Matilda Hays. She also garnered a large female following. Shortly before her death in 1876, she gave a farewell performance in New York City, which was followed by a massive parade and fireworks celebration attended by thousands of people, many of them female. These female fans, some of them also in same-sex relationships, wrote Cushman passionate fan mail, seemingly transfixed by her stage performances and public persona.

But in Cushman's day there was no such thing as a "lesbian," at least not in the way we think of the term or community today. Same-sex relationships were a behavior that one might engage in, with varying degrees of judgment projected onto that behavior, but they were not part of someone's identity.  

This was not because relationships between women were especially rare; they were actually surprisingly visible. Women in “Boston marriages” might live together, share a bed, caress one another, and speak of each other with affection in private and public like any other couple. Yet these relationships were seen as lacking the sexual and romantic desire of a heterosexual relationship, so they posed no threat to heterosexual society. “Romantic friendships” between women were therefore perfectly acceptable, even favorable in some cases. Presumably, these women would one day graduate from their Boston marriages to more serious unions with men.

But this idea that women did not have sexual desire did not apply to all women equally. Women in theater, which was still considered a lower tier art form, were branded as sexually promiscuous. With this in mind, the fact that Cushman exclusively pursued “romantic friendships” with women actually bolstered her career. Her disinterest in men and, to a certain extent, her masculine presentation on and offstage, established her reputation as a virtuous woman and lent a new kind of respectability to the role of women in theater.

Charlotte and Susan Cushman as Romeo and Juliet, undated. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, 
Theater series, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Even if the term "lesbian" had existed during Cushman's day, the concept would likely have been foreign to her. Then again, maybe not. Charlotte Cushman was notoriously careful about who saw her personal correspondence, asking many of her lovers to hide or burn her letters, sometimes even writing over her own diary entries to make them less legible to a stranger. Perhaps this was because Cushman and her partners had devised their own lexicon to describe their desire, even in the absence of the language we have today. We'll never know for certain how she might – or might not – have named her desire, such is the nature of the historical record. But that doesn't mean we should pretend it never existed.

Cushman as Katharine in The Taming of the Shrew, undated. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, 
Theater series, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Charlotte Cushman lived and died decades before the term “lesbian” would come into popular use, and still decades more before gay women would claim that word for themselves and wear it proudly as a sign of personal identity and community. The language we use, the communities we keep, the ways we understand our identities all may have changed dramatically from Cushman’s world. But in her day, Charlotte Cushman’s public defiance of gender and sexual norms represented something electric and inspiring to other women, especially women in same-sex relationships. Today, to a more defined community of lesbian women, she represents a woman who refused to give in to the pressures of a heterosexual society that did not even acknowledge the love she felt. We have no way of knowing how these concepts of gender presentation and sexual identity will change in the future – the only thing that seems certain is that they will continue to change.

And so, even almost 150 years after her death, I cannot say what Cushman's legacy will be. It's always changing. But for now, I can look to these archival images to illuminate Charlotte Cushman's legacy as I see it: a woman who loved women living as boldly as she could in a time before her love had a name. 

For more on Charlotte Cushman’s life, career, and relationships with women, check out Lisa Merrill’s When Romeo Was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female Spectators (University of Michigan: 1999).

For more on the Smithsonian’s collection of items related to Charlotte Cushman and LGBT history, watch Beyond Stonewall from The Smithsonian Time Capsule!

Erin Walsh, Intern
National Museum of American History, Archives Center

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