Photograph of five performing showgirls: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A silver gelatin print depicting a black-and-white image of five (5) performing showgirls. Each is depicted in a slightly different dance pose, caught mid-routine. The women are wearing identical costumes with short, medium-toned skirts and white bodices with beaded embellishments that decorate the front of the bodice. They each wear halo-style headdresses with sweetheart shaped front brims, decorated with feather plumes and beaded embellishments on the brim. Each dancer also wears arm-length fingerless gloves, also detailed with beading. The five (5) women dance in the foreground and mid-ground with musicians behind bandstands and audience members behind the dancers in the background. Laura Cathrell is the dancer in the right foreground and Birdie Warfield Edison is at the center. A painted wall mural in the far background depicts five (5) dancing women and one (1) kneeling man. Painted on a ceiling beam in the upper left corner of the image is block text that reads, [ST-MICHEL], followed by an octave clef, an eighth note, a sixteenth note, and a thirty-second note to the right of the text. There are no inscriptions on the front or back of the photograph.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: early 20th-mid 20th century
• Photograph by: Unidentified
• Subject of: Laura Cathrell, 1914 - 1999
• Subject of: Birdie Warfield Edison, American
• Subject of: Unidentified Woman or Women
• Subject of: Unidentified Man or Men
• Subject of: Café St-Michel, Canadian
• Type: gelatin silver prints
• Type: portraits
• Medium: silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper
• Dimensions: H x W (Image): 7 11/16 × 9 5/8 in. (19.5 × 24.5 cm)
• Dimensions: H x W (Sheet): 8 1/16 × 10 in. (20.5 × 25.4 cm)
• Place captured: Montreal, Quebec, Canada, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Dance
• Topic: Jazz (Music)
• Topic: Nightlife
• Topic: Photography
• Topic: Theatre
• Object number: 2013.46.25.61
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: Unknown - Restrictions Possible Rights assessment and proper usage is the responsibility of the user.