The Cake Walk Photo Girl and Other Footnotes in African American Musical Theatre

Abstract

On 22 August 1897, theAmerican Woman's Home Journalpublished seven photographs of “The Cake Walk as It Is Done by Genuine Negroes” in which “Williams and Walker Show How the Real Thing Is Done before the Journal Camera.” In this series, the African American stars Bert Williams, George Walker, Belle Davis, and Stella Wiley perform their popular cake walk act with situational humor in medias res before an unknown photographer in a nondescript space. Among the seven selected poses, one intriguing photograph in the lower right-hand corner depicts the encircled dancers gazing down upon an empty space in the center. The subject of their gaze becomes apparent when comparing the magazine images with the seven “Post Cards” Franz Huld published as part of his “Cake Walk/Negro Dance” series around 1901. Although the performers’ poses are the same, the postcard includes extra space between Wiley and Walker to feature a young girl of mixed racial heritage bending forward while hiking the back of her dress with her smiling face proudly held high (Fig. 1). If standing upright, she appears to be less than four feet tall and perhaps five to nine years of age. Given the obscure date and location of her photo shoot, her birth year could range anywhere from the mid-1880s to the early 1890s. Like Thomas F. DeFrantz, an African American dance theorist who gazes upon two 1920s photographs of other dancing girls, my gaze leads me to wonder about her identity, how she met and socialized with these four dancers, and whether she pursued a theatrical career.