‘Beautiful to the eye, pleasing to the ear’: Educational performance in A Pictorial Story of Hiawatha (1904–1908)

Abstract

From 1904 to 1908 the married couple Katharine Ertz-Bowden and Charles Bowden traveled the Midwest with the illustrated lecture A Pictorial Story of Hiawatha. Using hand-colored stereopticon slides and moving pictures, the Bowdens documented a live pageant of the Hiawatha story performed by Ojibwa actors from the Garden River Reservation. The Bowdens presented their lecture at venues devoted to education outside of the schoolroom including summer Chautuaquas and Lyceum courses. Based on primary historical research and an ongoing archival reconstruction of the existing media artifacts from the Bowdens’ Hiawatha performance, this article will present a close reading of the lecture that will add to the literature on early cinema and illustrated lectures. To examine how this performance worked as a form of pedagogical media, this article contends that a focus on its intermedial nature highlights the central role of performance in educating. Moreover, Charles Bowden’s work as a projectionist, normally considered a technical job supporting a film screening, was as important as Ertz-Bowden’s role as lecturer in making their images communicate to audiences.