An Orientalist Approach to the Human Zoo at St. Louis World’s Fair 1904
Over 100 years ago, in 1904, peoples from across the globe were taken by various means and brought to the St. Louis World’s Fair in the United States of America to be ‘displayed’.1 During and shortly after the World’s Fair (April 30th – December 1st, 1904), several newspapers articles were published by the St. Louis Post-dispatch to advertise the exposition of peoples, inform readers of how they had gotten the peoples to come to the United States, and what ‘use’ the peoples would be off in the United States after the end of the World’s Fair.2 The newspaper articles, while limited as they may reflect uninformed public opinion, are useful in providing an interpretation of the World’s Fair during that time. An Orientalist analytical approach to the set of newspaper articles shall help us investigate what Edward Said would have interpreted as a tool that helped constitute ‘difference’ as the negative to the West and provide insight into how anthropologists and citizens alike could have participated in and allowed what we know today was a racist act violating human rights.
In the work Orientalism, Edward Said argues that the orient was almost a European invention that had helped to “define the West as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience”.3 This contrasting image portrayed the orient as inferior, uncivilised, and weird, while simultaneously portraying the Europeans as superior, civilised, and cultured. This example of a contrasting image was evident in the ‘display’ of peoples at the St. Louis World’s Fair 1904, which 20th-century scholars have termed a Human Zoo. By putting peoples from all over the world on ‘exhibition’ in the United States, the focal point of the visitors, who were predominately white, was the awareness that they were different from those in the Human Zoo. However, this awareness of ‘difference’ in the audience would not have immediately equated to them feeling superior to those participating in the exhibition. The condition of the exhibition spaces, the treatment of those being ‘exhibited’, and the dialogue regarding the people being ‘exhibited’ would have been the key factors that influenced visitors of the exhibitions to think that they were superior to those they had come to watch. As such, Said would view the newspaper articles by St. Louis Post-dispatch about the Human Zoo, which presented itself as what the general public was thinking and facilitated discussion about the exhibition, as a tool that helped constitute ‘difference’ as the negative to the West.
One reason the set of newspaper articles was a tool that helped constitute ‘difference’ as the negative to the West is that it used the audience’s culture to put down the culture of those being ‘exhibited’. The Human Zoo was highlighted in the newspaper articles by St. Louis Post-dispatch as the “Grand March of the Barbarians” and advertised as an exposition of “strange peoples” and “types of mankind from many continents”.4 The use of such degrading terms in the newspaper articles portrayed the “varying degrees of a complex hegemony” that Said had discussed was part of the relationship between Occident and Orient5, and more specifically, a “cultural hegemony”.6 Just like how Orientalism distorts our understanding of people and cultures different from us, and turns them to a stereotype, the use of the degrading terms in the newspaper distorted the readers understanding of the peoples and the cultures of those who participated in the exhibition. For example, the newspaper article entitled “Barbarians meet in Athletic Games” described a mud fight amongst the Pygmies as an athletic competition but portrayed it as a violent the manner by writing that it did not stop until “one side was put to rout”.7 Consequentially, the culture of the Pygmies, just like the cultures of the other peoples in the Human Zoo, was attacked simply because it was different from the American culture or way of being that the readers were familiar of. This act of cultural hegemony is significant because it justified and further played on the stereotype that those from Africa and Asia were backwards.
Secondly, the set of newspaper articles was a tool that constituted ‘difference’ as the negative to the West because it justified the Human Zoo. The article entitled “Pygmy Cannibals Coming Up River” engaged with the willingness of the Pygmies to be in the United States and stated that the “saw-tooth savages were glad to be here” and “tickled to death to be in America”.8 This depiction of excitement was used to frame the anthropologist’s decision to bring the Pygmies as a favour and a good deed. However, the anthropologist bringing the Pygmies to the United States portrayed how “knowledge” authorises the assertion of power. Said explained in Orientalism that the discourse of the Orient allows Orientalism to be a “western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient”.9 This notion was evident from the fact that because there was a discourse about Africans, and because the Pygmies were different from Americans and had never been seen before, the decision to bring them to the United States was justified in the public eye. Consequentially, this assertion of power created a power relation between the Pygmies and the anthropologist that affected their time in the United States – at just a primary level of analysis; the power relation resulted in the Pygmies being in a Human Zoo.
Thirdly, the reduction of the peoples ‘exhibited’ into stereotypes in the set of newspaper articles is another reason why it was a tool that helped constitute ‘difference’ as the negative to the West. The peoples participating in the exhibition were advertised based on their stereotypes, such as the “Pygmies from Darkest Africa”, “Head Hunting Dog Eaters from Luzon”, and “Dwarf Negritos from the Philippines”, to attract the readers to visit.10 In addition, the illustrations of the Pygmies in the newspaper articles were depicted stereotypically with them having big feet and hands, huge lips that took up one-third of their faces, and sharp teeth that looked like a shark’s, thus depicting them more like an animal than human beings.11 This depiction is significant because the newspaper published an anthropologist’s sketch of the Pygmies that depicted them looking like human beings a month before the illustrations.12 The drastic difference between the illustrations and the anthropologist’s sketch highlights the politics of stereotypes, as the newspapers had used stereotypical differences between Africans and white Americans to attract readers to the fair. In Orientalism, Said discussed the politics of stereotypes, informing readers of how the “reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed”13 in Orientalism created a justification for colonisation.14 This notion was evident from the newspaper’s illustration of how the foreigners who participated in the exhibition could be ‘used’ in St. Louis after the fair ended.15
The front page illustration entitled “Those Foreigners at the Fair – A Few Ways to Make Use of Them Here in St. Louis After the Exposition Closes” justified the type of human exploitation under colonisation by discussing how human beings could be ‘used’ for economic benefits.15 Furthermore, the identified ‘uses’ for the foreigners were based on their stereotypes with “Esquimos” portrayed as the ideal icemen, “Hairy Ainus” portrayed as beneficial in providing hair tonics, and the “Geisha Girls” portrayed as solving the servant girl problem.15
Using a model of analysis based on Edward Said’s Orientalism that ‘difference’ is constituted as the negative to the West, the racial and cultural tensions in the United States are much easier to understand. Said argued that cultural hegemony gives Orientalism durability and strength.16 Applying this notion if cultural hegemony is exercised upon any other culture simply because it is different from ‘American culture’ or American norm, that culture and the racial group that practices the culture will immediately be seen as negative. In addition, Said discussed that “Orientalism assumed an unchanging Orient, absolutely different” from the West.17 This notion means that once a culture has been seen as inferior, it will be continued to be seen and defined as such. Thus, the reason why African Americans are still depicted as violent and commonly degraded by associating them with animals (in particular monkeys), why Muslim men are still commonly seen as terrorists and Muslim women as oppressed, and why the stereotype that all Asians eat dogs is still so prominent is much clearer. Those perceptions began and continue till today in the United States because part of American culture has been the constitution of anything different from the norm as negative and thus inferior. Furthermore, Said argued that Orientalism “is involved in worldly, historical circumstances which it has tried to conceal behind an often pompous scientism and appeals to rationalism.” This notion provides insight into how anthropologists and citizens alike could have participated in and allowed the Human Zoos – they believed it was a rational scientific project. However, the anthropologists’ actions and the audience’s complicity were rooted in the fact that because the peoples they saw were so different from them and had cultures, they could not understand, it was easier to deem them strange and inferior.
Despite Orientalism providing a valuable model for understanding to set of newspaper articles and understanding the racial and cultural tensions in the United States, it has its own strengths and weaknesses. One strength of Orientalism as a mode of analysis is that it represents the consciousness of knowledge producers. Understanding the mindset of those who produce knowledge and the knowledge they produce is crucial because knowledge gives power.18 More so, this power could be detrimental as having certain types of knowledge enables the domination of and authority over what is known.19 Similarly, another strength of Orientalism as a mode of analysis is that it provides insight into the European-Atlantic power over the Orient. A significant part of history has been Europe and the United States exercising authority and enforcing power over those in Africa and Asia. However, authority is not mysterious nor natural; it is formed and thus must be analysed. Orientalism is the best tool for such an analysis because it is a western-style “for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient”. 20
On the other hand, one weakness of Orientalism as a mode of analysis is that it does not provide insight into the consciousness of the consumers. Although knowledge is relational in the sense that one party takes on the role of being informed and another party takes on the role of the informant, Orientalism does not provide the means of understanding how exactly those being informed responded and why they responded the way they might have. Another weakness of Orientalism as a mode of analysis is that it does not enable a means for those who have been labelled Orient or impacted by Orientalism to represent themselves. Although it is acknowledged that the Orient could not represent itself because “the Orient was almost a European invention”21, Orientalism still affects how the Orient sees itself. More importantly, Africans and Asians impacted by Orientalism might see themselves differently due to its impact. However, this is not accounted for. For example, regarding Human Zoos, very little is known about those who ended up participating in the exhibitions.22 Furthermore, there is a very limited amount of testimonies, which means that journalistic descriptions are often used to deduce the type of experiences those who were ‘exhibited’ had and how they truly felt about being ‘exhibited’.22 This limited personal account in addition to how Orientalism fails to account for those affected by it, almost leaves the peoples ‘exhibited’ silenced when talking about their experience in Human Zoos from an Orientalist perspective.
A critical relation between idea and methodology in Orientalism is understanding the distinction between “the Occident” and “the Orient”. Orientalism as an idea helped to “define the West as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience”.23 For this definition to have occurred, there had to be a fixed universal notion of what an Orient was and what an Occident was. As such, the methodology is rooted in understanding how the notion of “the Orient” turned from an opinion to a belief and how this believed Orient turned into a real identity in itself. This relation is most evident from how Orientalism is “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between” the Orient and the Occident.23 A key relation between idea and conclusion in Orientalism is whether Orientalism and its effects can come to an end. Said viewed Orientalism as “a way of coming to terms with the Orient based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience”24. Unfortunately, this “special place” is constantly evolving. Its evolvement is evident in how even in the “electronic, postmodern world”, there has been a “reinforcement of the stereotypes” of the Orient, which is an effect of Orientalism.25 Hence, even though eliminating the Orient and Occident altogether would allow us to unlearn the “inherent dominative mode”, getting to that point seems almost impossible.
1 Jacobson, Nate. “America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism.” Human Zoos. https://humanzoos.org/.
2 “Pygmy Exhibit at St. Louis World’s Fair.” STLtoday.com, April 22, 2020. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1.
3 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 1.
4 “Pygmy Exhibit at St. Louis World’s Fair.” STLtoday.com, April 22, 2020. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1.
5 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 5.
6 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 7.
7 “Barbarians meet in Athletic Games”, 11 August 1904, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. STLtoday.com. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1.
8 “Pygmy Cannibals Coming Up River”, 28 June 1904, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. STLtoday.com. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1.
9 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 3.
10 “St. Louis Day”, 11 September 1904, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. STLtoday.com. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1
11 “Money! Money! Is the Cry of Even Babies at the Fair”, 17 July 1904, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. STLtoday.com. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1
12 “African Pygmies for the World Fair”, 26 June 1904, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. STLtoday.com. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1
13 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 26.
14 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 39.
15 “African Pygmies for the World Fair”, 26 June 1904, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. STLtoday.com. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1
16 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 7.
17 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 96.
18 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 36.
19 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 32.
20 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 3.
21 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 1.
22 Andreassen, Rikke. “Human on Display: The Era of Human Exhibitions.” In Human Exhibitions: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Ethnic Displays, 29.
23 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 2.
24 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 1.
25 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 26.
26 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979, 28.
Bibliography
Andreassen, Rikke. “Human on Display: The Era of Human Exhibitions.” In Human Exhibitions: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Ethnic Displays, 1–32. London: Routledge, 2020.
Jacobson, Nate. “America’s Forgotten History of Scientific Racism.” Human Zoos. Accessed December 8, 2020. https://humanzoos.org/.
“Pygmy Exhibit at St. Louis World’s Fair.” STLtoday.com, April 22, 2020. https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/pygmy-exhibit-at-st-louis-worlds-fair/collection_16f4a93f-5ac4-56c1-ba20-5069e09b1d67.html#1.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Random House, 1979.
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