University of Nebraska Press 2010 , 321 pages
World War I gave colonial migrants and French women unprecedented access to the workplaces and nightlife of Paris. After the war they were expected to retu without protest to their homes–either overseas or metropolitan. Neither group, however, was willing to be discarded. Between the world wars, the mesmerizing capital of France’s colonial empire attracted denizens from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Paris became not merely their home but also a site for political engagement. Colonial Metropolis tells the story of the interactions and connections of these black colonial migrants and white feminists in the social, cultural, and political world of interwar Paris and of how both were denied certain rights lauded by the Third Republic such as the vote, how they suffered from sensationalist depictions in popular culture, and how they pursued parity in ways that were often interpreted as politically subversive. This compelling book maps the intellectual and physical locales that the disenfranchised residents of Paris frequented, revealing where their stories intersected and how the personal and local became political and transnational. With a focus on art, culture, and politics, this study reveals how both groups considered themselves inhabitants of a colonial metropolis and uncovers the strategies they used to colonize the city. Together, through the politics of anti-imperialism, communism, feminism, and masculinity, these urbanites connected performances of colonial and feminine tropes, such as Josephine Baker’s, to contestations of the colonial system.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Every twist and encounter in my jouey through archives and libraries has shaped my work in significant ways. When I first arrived, Paris was in the grip of prolonged strikes. Not only was it far more difficult to navigate public transportation with two large bags, but the Archives Nationales, where I would have started my research, were closed.
Introduction
On May 6, 1931, a black man walked up the steps of a brand new metro station in Paris.1 The M?tro Dor?e station was built as part of the French govement’s bid to lure what would eventually be 8 million visitors to the event known as the Colonial Exposition. Analogous to a world’s fair, the Colonial Exposition was a project to showcase France’s colonial empire both to its own citizens and to other nations.
Abbreviations
1. Josephine Baker: Colonial Woman
When Josephine Baker finished her first performance in Paris in the 1925 show La Revue N?gre, critics and audiences did not know what to make of her. The confusion they felt was perhaps best summarized by the series of questions the theater critic and author Pierre de R?gnier asked in the epigraph above. The show was conceived of in the United States for a European audience and featured an all-black.
2. Dancing Dissidents & Dissident Dancers: The Urban Topography of Race
In the late 1920s Malagasy corporal Beardin Rakoto, serving in the French army at Bastion 89 near Paris, was perceived by authorities as exerting a negative influence on his subordinates by politically proselytizing them. Just as vexing was the fact that he had a white French mistress who was the mother of his child. While recording the latter information, Agent Jo? commented with disapproval: Of course.
3. A Black Colony?: Race and the Origins of Anti-Imperialism
Black workers sought unity in race. The problem was that they did not all agree upon what it meant to be black. One of the most persistent underlying tensions within black, anti-imperial organizations was the question of who, truly, was a fully committed member. On the surface, differences of opinion often had to do with perceptions of race.
4. Reverse Exoticism & Masculinity: The Cultural Politics of Race Relations
In November 1932 the communist cell of the newly formed Union des Travailleurs N?gres (UTN) met and discussed how to sell the organization to black men in Paris. The politics of race and antiimperialism had created a core, political black colony, but there was an entire sociocultural dimension to colonial Paris that still needed to be affected. Hence, one member argued that above all they should not immediately impose communist politics upon members. They.
5. In Black & White: Women, La Depeche Africaine, and the Print Culture of the Diaspora
In the fall of 1935 the black Martinican woman Paulette Nardal arrived at the Union des Travailleurs N?gres (UTN) headquarters. She picked up a pen, not, as was her habit by then, to craft an elegant, pithy, and feminine depiction of the black woman’s experience in Paris. Instead she committed her ink to dozens of envelopes, helping the UTN mail its newspaper, Le Cri des N?gres. That particular edition caught her eye because it decried Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. Yet how did Paulette Nardal, .
6. "These Men's Minor Transgressions": White Frenchwomen on Colonialism and Feminism
In 1930, in one of several articles she wrote for La D?p?che Africaine, Marguerite Winter-Frappi? de Montbeno?t responded to the m?tis question, an ongoing debate involving anthropologists, govement officials, and others regarding the legal, social, and scientific ramifications of being m?tis. As the president of la Fran?aise Cr?ole—The French Creole, a Paris-based organization that since at least 1909 had been providing opportunities for social gatherings for French men and women from the old colonies, including La R?union, Martinique.
Conclusion
The 1927 letterhead of the Ligue de D?fense de la Race N?gre (LDRN) included an image of a black woman who stands strong, tall, and bare-breasted upon a globe. One foot placed firmly on North and West Africa, and the other trampling portions of the United States, she raises her right arm aloft, bearing a torch. Europe appears miniscule on the map, almost hidden behind her leg and the striped cloth, or pagne, girding her waist.
Notes
Bibliography
Index
World War I gave colonial migrants and French women unprecedented access to the workplaces and nightlife of Paris. After the war they were expected to retu without protest to their homes–either overseas or metropolitan. Neither group, however, was willing to be discarded. Between the world wars, the mesmerizing capital of France’s colonial empire attracted denizens from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Paris became not merely their home but also a site for political engagement. Colonial Metropolis tells the story of the interactions and connections of these black colonial migrants and white feminists in the social, cultural, and political world of interwar Paris and of how both were denied certain rights lauded by the Third Republic such as the vote, how they suffered from sensationalist depictions in popular culture, and how they pursued parity in ways that were often interpreted as politically subversive. This compelling book maps the intellectual and physical locales that the disenfranchised residents of Paris frequented, revealing where their stories intersected and how the personal and local became political and transnational. With a focus on art, culture, and politics, this study reveals how both groups considered themselves inhabitants of a colonial metropolis and uncovers the strategies they used to colonize the city. Together, through the politics of anti-imperialism, communism, feminism, and masculinity, these urbanites connected performances of colonial and feminine tropes, such as Josephine Baker’s, to contestations of the colonial system.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Every twist and encounter in my jouey through archives and libraries has shaped my work in significant ways. When I first arrived, Paris was in the grip of prolonged strikes. Not only was it far more difficult to navigate public transportation with two large bags, but the Archives Nationales, where I would have started my research, were closed.
Introduction
On May 6, 1931, a black man walked up the steps of a brand new metro station in Paris.1 The M?tro Dor?e station was built as part of the French govement’s bid to lure what would eventually be 8 million visitors to the event known as the Colonial Exposition. Analogous to a world’s fair, the Colonial Exposition was a project to showcase France’s colonial empire both to its own citizens and to other nations.
Abbreviations
1. Josephine Baker: Colonial Woman
When Josephine Baker finished her first performance in Paris in the 1925 show La Revue N?gre, critics and audiences did not know what to make of her. The confusion they felt was perhaps best summarized by the series of questions the theater critic and author Pierre de R?gnier asked in the epigraph above. The show was conceived of in the United States for a European audience and featured an all-black.
2. Dancing Dissidents & Dissident Dancers: The Urban Topography of Race
In the late 1920s Malagasy corporal Beardin Rakoto, serving in the French army at Bastion 89 near Paris, was perceived by authorities as exerting a negative influence on his subordinates by politically proselytizing them. Just as vexing was the fact that he had a white French mistress who was the mother of his child. While recording the latter information, Agent Jo? commented with disapproval: Of course.
3. A Black Colony?: Race and the Origins of Anti-Imperialism
Black workers sought unity in race. The problem was that they did not all agree upon what it meant to be black. One of the most persistent underlying tensions within black, anti-imperial organizations was the question of who, truly, was a fully committed member. On the surface, differences of opinion often had to do with perceptions of race.
4. Reverse Exoticism & Masculinity: The Cultural Politics of Race Relations
In November 1932 the communist cell of the newly formed Union des Travailleurs N?gres (UTN) met and discussed how to sell the organization to black men in Paris. The politics of race and antiimperialism had created a core, political black colony, but there was an entire sociocultural dimension to colonial Paris that still needed to be affected. Hence, one member argued that above all they should not immediately impose communist politics upon members. They.
5. In Black & White: Women, La Depeche Africaine, and the Print Culture of the Diaspora
In the fall of 1935 the black Martinican woman Paulette Nardal arrived at the Union des Travailleurs N?gres (UTN) headquarters. She picked up a pen, not, as was her habit by then, to craft an elegant, pithy, and feminine depiction of the black woman’s experience in Paris. Instead she committed her ink to dozens of envelopes, helping the UTN mail its newspaper, Le Cri des N?gres. That particular edition caught her eye because it decried Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. Yet how did Paulette Nardal, .
6. "These Men's Minor Transgressions": White Frenchwomen on Colonialism and Feminism
In 1930, in one of several articles she wrote for La D?p?che Africaine, Marguerite Winter-Frappi? de Montbeno?t responded to the m?tis question, an ongoing debate involving anthropologists, govement officials, and others regarding the legal, social, and scientific ramifications of being m?tis. As the president of la Fran?aise Cr?ole—The French Creole, a Paris-based organization that since at least 1909 had been providing opportunities for social gatherings for French men and women from the old colonies, including La R?union, Martinique.
Conclusion
The 1927 letterhead of the Ligue de D?fense de la Race N?gre (LDRN) included an image of a black woman who stands strong, tall, and bare-breasted upon a globe. One foot placed firmly on North and West Africa, and the other trampling portions of the United States, she raises her right arm aloft, bearing a torch. Europe appears miniscule on the map, almost hidden behind her leg and the striped cloth, or pagne, girding her waist.
Notes
Bibliography
Index