Charles Gregory and Jack Brown dancing the Cake-Walk in Paris.

Previous title, replaced August 2024: Two black actors, Gregory and Brown, one in drag, dancing the Cake-Walk in Paris. Photographic postcard, 1903.

This image shows the same drag performer as in Wellcome Library no. 2044883i, wearing the same costume, but with a different dance-partner.

Please be aware, the lettering present on this item contains a racist term.

[Paris?] : [publisher not identified], [1903]

1 photographic postcard ; 13.9 x 9 cm

Le cake-walk. Dansé au Nouveau Cirque. "Les nègres" Lettering printed in white on bottom recto

The following description was provided by James Gardiner: "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. Images of black men in drag from this period are scarce."

The identities of the men in the photograph were identified by Gerard Koskovich, a public historian and Queer Antiquarian bookseller. They are both wearing the same clothing as in a filmed performance of "Le Cake-Walk au Nouveau Cirque" filmed by Louis Lumière, c.1902-1903.

This work is untitled: the title has been supplied by the cataloguer.

Channing Gerard Joseph, 'The first drag queen was a former slave', The nation, 31 January 2020 (about William Dorsey Swann, b. 1860; this photograph reproduced)

Valerie Edwards, 'From slave to Queen: The extraordinary life of William Dorsey Swann who was born into slavery in the 1800s and became the 'first drag queen to fight for queer freedom"', Mail online, 3 February 2020 (this photograph reproduced)

Wellcome Collection 2044881i