Two black actors, one in drag, dancing the Cake-Walk in Paris. Photographic postcard, 1903.

Le cake-walk. Dansé au Nouveau Cirque. Les nègres

Part of James Gardiner Collection: photograph album labelled ‘Drag’.

The man in drag wears a long dress with frilly trim and a large bonnet; standing next to a man in stripey jacket and trousers with a top hat and cane. The Cake-Walk was a dance which originated in the United States, apocryphally as a form of entertainment developed by black slaves on cotton plantations in the Deep South. It increased in popularity, and by the turn of the nineteenth century had developed into commercial entertainment that was exported to Europe. It rapidly became a 'dance craze' in Paris, and the catalogued photograph shows two black (American?) performers, both men, one wearing a frilly bonnet and ruffled dress, performing at the Nouveau Cirque (James Gardiner)

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Item Information:

Identifier: 8w32r591x
Collection: James Gardiner 20th Century Drag Postcards
Institution: Wellcome Library
Date Issued: Jan. 1, 1903
Genre: Photographs
Prints
Subject(s): Charles Gregory
Jack Brown
Places: Île-de-France > Paris
Topic(s): BIPOC
Black LGBTQ+ people
Cakewalk (Dance)
Female impersonators
LGBTQ+ people of color
Resource Type: Still Image
Analog Format: 1 photograph : photoprint ;
Language: English
Rights: Copyright undetermined
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