Savagery on show
The popular visual representation of Native American peoples and their lifeways at the World’s Fairs (1851–1904) and in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (1884–1904)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12895865 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christina Welch (0000-0003-1208-5948, University of Winchester, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 337-352 |
| Publication date | 2011-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Early Popular Visual Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1746-0654 • E-ISSN: 1746-0662 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17460654.2011.621314 |
| OpenAlex | W2088558679 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 14 |
This interdisciplinary article examines and contextualizes the popular visual representations of Native American peoples and their lifeways at the World’s Fairs and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from 1851 and 1884, respectively, to 1904. It will argue that these fairs and shows were arenas where colonially constructed identities and Western ideologies were enforced and reinforced to the general public, and where Native Americans were knowingly represented, regardless of reality, as primitive savages in direct opposition to Western civilized Christian norms, or as exemplars of assimilation saved from savagery by the benefits of Western civilized Christian norms. It suggests that the maxim of the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893–4), ‘To see is to know’, should not be underestimated in communicating identities; for during the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, colonially constructed visual knowledge was used to blur the boundaries between entertainment and education, allowing the cultural ideologies of the West to pass as reality
Art · Entertainment · Ethnology · Geography · Ideology · Media studies · Opposition (politics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Visual arts · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2022 (7) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |