Arctic Shows in the Twentieth
Century
The nineteenth century is not the
only era to have witnessed a strange mixture of didacticism and showmanship.
Numerous traveling lecturers, lanternists, and filmmakers trod the boards
of many a local social tea and Chautauqua club. The images on this page
show just a few of these latter-day Arctic edutainments, and are drawn
from the wonderful "Traveling
Culture" collection at the University of Iowa, co-sponsored with the
Library of Congress's American
Memory Project.
Courtesy of the Special Collections
Department, University of Iowa Libraries
Dr. Goodsell may have been a a bit of an opportunist -- but then
again, so was Peary himself. He was but one of many Peary associates
who used their Arctic exploits to make money on the lecture curcuit; Bob
Bartlett travelled with a later and somewhat more sophisticated show, "The
Arctic in Color":
Courtesy of the Special Collections
Department, University of Iowa Libraries
"ANAUTA"
Courtesy of the Special Collections
Department, University of Iowa Libraries
Courtesy of the Special Collections
Department, University of Iowa Libraries
"Anauta," as she called herself, was not an Eskimo at all, but a
complete fraud. Though she had lived for some years in the Arctic,
she was the qaluunat wife of a trader
and later ran a boarding house; she apparently took to the lecture circuit
as a means of support for her family.