The Western Gaze: A Glimpse of American Colonialism through the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair Poster
During the American colonial era in the Philippines, the United States of America pursued elaborate and ambitious projects that would display its immense global power. One of its most infamous ventures is the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair that succinctly encapsulated the horrors of US imperialism. The World’s Fair was a state-sanctioned international showplace that displayed a vast range of nations along with their cultural, industrial, and technological innovations (Grindstaff, 1999). Contrary to its benign facade of being a cultural exhibit, it was a grandiose display of the oppression and exploitation of the Western gaze on native Filipino bodies. Hence, this paper attempts to gain insight into the socio-historical context of the event through a primary source material of a poster from the Philippine Exposition at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
The historical source material is a poster from a brochure of the Philippine Exposition at the World’s Fair. It displays a conspicuous text heading entitled “Philippine Exposition World’s Fair St. Louis 1904” and a photo of an Igorot man adorned with a feathered headpiece in the center. Aside from this, there is textual information printed that states the number of tribes, villages, buildings, and exhibits that are to be anticipated in the show. These indicators deem the poster a primary source material, particularly a visual document since it was created during the American period. It was also intentionally published to promote the World’s Fair, especially for the American audience to consume.
It is imperative to establish the material’s usefulness and reliability to determine its historical value. Firstly, the utility of the sign is somewhat valuable for constructing an image of the American colonial regime and its expedient imperialist undertakings. The poster principally affirms the existence of an event that transpired in the 1900s when the US was a sole global superpower. Aside from this evident purpose, it also allows the viewer to construct a mental image of the enormity of the project through the additional texts that indicate “47 acres of land, 1200 natives, 40 different tribes, 6 Philippine villages, 70,000 exhibits, 130 buildings, and 7200 native soldiers”. This information vividly describes the grandeur of the exhibit that has the potential to be further analyzed critically. Finally, the choice of using an image of an Igorot man juxtaposed to the “Philippine Exhibit” heading allows us to have an idea of how Americans perceived the Philippines. This choice, may it be deliberate or unintentional, informs us of the prevailing conception of the Filipino identity through the eyes of Western people.
Next to assessing the usefulness is the reliability of the poster as source material. Since the poster was created by the organizers of the World’s Fair, it is of minor reliability as source material to support the topic of American imperialism’s atrocities. The authors of the poster attempt to portray the World’s Fair as a congenial cultural congregation that allowed the American viewers to have a glimpse of Philippine society. Nonetheless, the context and the motives of the St. Louis World’s Fair shold be analyzed beyond the poster. In that case, there are subtle implications on the inherent racism and exoticization of the Filipinos in the event. A vast plethora of literature on the Philippine Exhibition in St. Louis has described it as a distorted spectacle that showcased the supposed barbarism and savagery of primitive Filipino society (Sit, 2008). The US government aimed to portray the Philippines as an exotic land by exaggerating the Philippines’ racial stereotypes and cultural misconstructs. This exhibit implicitly justified the colonization of the US that aimed to bring modernity and democracy to the Philippines (Heinrich, 2017). Lastly, the poster is insufficient to shed light on the numerous deaths and disappearances of Filipino natives due to this extravagant project. It does not foresee the abuses and exploitation of the natives to satisfy the prodding gaze of Americans as if they were animals in a zoo (Grindstaff, 1999).
Upon careful deliberation, the poster is of moderate utility and negligible reliability. The source material significantly attests to the occurrence of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. This textual and graphic evidence establishes that the government and the world supported such imperial enterprises despite their racist undertones. On the other hand, the poster can attribute its scanty value for reliability to its lack of critical analysis of the event. The poster promotes the event as a benevolent, cultural spectacle showcased Filipino identity despite its apparent perversions. Hence, all historical sources can be utilized in recovering the past. Nonetheless, they may vary in their degree of usefulness and reliability.
References:
Grindstaff B. (1999) Creating Identity: Exhibiting the Philippines at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, National Identities, 1:3, 245–263, DOI: 10.1080/14608944.1999.9728114
Heinrich S. (2017). The “savage” Filipino natives and their dog-eating habits. Western Illinois Historical Review, VIII (Spring 2017), 25–41.
Silva J. (1994). The little brown brothers’ St. Louis blues: the Philippines exposition, 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Positively Filipino. http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/2013/6/little-brown-brothers-st-louis-blues-the-philippine-exposition-1904-st-louis-worlds-fair
Sit M. (2008). The Filipino “exhibit” at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Misouri. MAI Review (2). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26538778_The_Filipino_'exhibit'_at_the_1904_St_Louis_World's_Fair_Missouri
This paper was written in partial fulfillment of History 109 ( Introduction to the Study of History) course at the University of the Philippines — Visayas.
