Oriental and Occidental Northern and Southern Portrait Types of the Midway Plaisance

Interesting memento capturing an ‘ethnological zoo’ at the Columbian Exposition.

“A collection of Photographs of Individual Types of various nations from all parts of the World who represented, in the Department of Ethnology, The Manners, Customs, Dress, Religions, Music, and other distinctive traits and peculiarities of their Race.” – Title Page.

This shocking catalog of late 19th-century stereotypes was published in St. Louis by the N.D. Thompson Publishing Company in 1894. It contains dozens of portraits of foreign participants in Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition, with an introduction provided by Professor Frederic Ward Putnam of Harvard University. Putnam served as the Columbian Expo’s ‘Chief of the Department of Ethnology’ and the items accumulated at the fair under his care would eventually form the nucleus of the Field Museum of Natural History.

Each photograph, copywritten 1893 by Place & Carver, presents a profile or full-body view of the numerous international performers found at the Midway Plaisance. National exhibits ranging from a Dahomey (West African) Village to a Moorish Palace were deliberately organized along the Midway to become more ‘civilized’ as one traveled towards the White City at Jackson Park.

The accompanying captions reflect this contemporary attitude of racial superiority, offering broad generalizations about different ethnic groups and the individuals that represent them with a frankness that is appalling to modern sensibilities. Examples include; “It is said that if a Mexican cowboy has $200 to spend he will put $100 into a hat, $75 in a saddle, and $25 in a horse.”