Postcards of female and male impersonators and cross dressing
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COLLECTION DESCRIPTION
Postcards portraying cross-dressing and female and male impersonators in France, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Italy, and Romania. Postcards include photographic and photomechanical prints, some hand-colored. All are printed between circa 1900 and 1930 and depict performers on amateur, café-concert, music-hall, and legitimate stages at the high-point of cross-dressing as a form of entertainment. Many depict gallant visual narratives of women being wooed by other women dressed as men. Additional postcards include humorous images, popular genre narratives, promotional portraits of theatrical and music-hall male and female impersonators, as well as World War I POW camp theatrical productions. Two postcards are credited to female photographers, Ilse Magenmiller (German) and Jessie Westbrook (American). Sets of postcards depict narrative sequences, including Joan of Arc, Les Cerises, Chasé-croisé, Idylle à Trianon, and Une Amourette Louis XV. One such sequence, Pierrot et Columbine (circa 1900), portrays a sexual ending with Columbine represented nude (in a pink body suit). Male and female impersonators featured include Robert Bertin, Jeanne Bloch, Leopoldo Fregoli, Monte Verdi, Louis Vernassier, Sarah Bernhardt, Gaby Deslys, John Graffton, Betti Kuhn, Hetty King, Zena Dare, Vesta Tilley, Winifred Ward, and Huntley Wright, among others.
Dates
- 1900-1931, 1955
Language of Materials
Collection material in English, French
Extent
380 items. (380 items.)
Abstract
Postcards portraying cross-dressing and female and male impersonators in France, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Italy, and Romania. Postcards include photographic and photomechanical prints, some hand-colored. All are printed between circa 1900 and 1930 and depict performers on amateur, café-concert, music-hall, and legitimate stages at the high-point of cross-dressing as a form of entertainment. Many depict gallant visual narratives of women being wooed by other women dressed as men. Additional postcards include humorous images, popular genre narratives, promotional portraits of theatrical and music-hall male and female impersonators, as well as World War I POW camp theatrical productions. Two postcards are credited to female photographers, Ilse Magenmiller (German) and Jessie Westbrook (American). Sets of postcards depict narrative sequences, including Joan of Arc, Les Cerises, Chasé-croisé, Idylle à Trianon, and Une Amourette Louis XV. One such sequence, Pierrot et Columbine (circa 1900), portrays a sexual ending with Columbine represented nude (in a pink body suit). Male and female impersonators featured include Robert Bertin, Jeanne Bloch, Leopoldo Fregoli, Monte Verdi, Louis Vernassier, Sarah Bernhardt, Gaby Deslys, John Graffton, Betti Kuhn, Hetty King, Zena Dare, Vesta Tilley, Winifred Ward, and Huntley Wright, among others.
Physical Description
Postcards, Photographs
General
- Contact Information:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections 2B Carl A. Kroch Library Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3530 Fax: (607) 255-9524rareref@cornell.eduhttp://rmc.library.cornell.edu
- Compiled by:
- RMC Staff
- Date completed:
- October 2018
- EAD encoding:
- Amanda Kiesl, October 2018
NOTES
Collecting Program: Human Sexuality Collection.
"Female impersonator" means the individual doing the impersonating is male and "male impersonator" means the individual doing the impersonating is female.
- Austria.
- Belgium.
- Bernhardt, Sarah, 1844-1923
- Bertin, Robert.
- Bloch, Jeanne.
- Breeches parts -- Europe.
- Collotypes (prints)
- Courtship -- Europe -- Pictorial works.
- Cross-dressers
- Europe.
- Female impersonators
- France.
- Gelatin silver prints.
- Gender identity -- Europe -- Pictorial works.
- Germany.
- Great Britain.
- Italy.
- Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431
- Lesbian couples -- Europe -- Pictorial works.
- Male impersonators
- Music-halls (Variety-theaters, cabarets, etc.) -- Europe.
- Postcards.
- Relief halftones (prints)
- Romania.
- Sex in popular culture -- Europe -- Pictorial works.
- Spain.
- Theater -- Europe -- Pictorial works.
- Transvestism -- Europe -- Pictorial works.
- Transvestites -- Europe.
- United States.
- Women peasants -- Europe.
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Compiled by RMC Staff
- Date
- October 2018
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Repository Details
Part of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Repository
2B Carl A. Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-3530
607-255-9524 (Fax)
rareref@cornell.edu