Distortions or fake news? (Check out the World's Fair of 1904)

By Noralyn O. Dudt

During these past few weeks, I'm seeing a large number of photos of what the Las Islas de Filipinas (Philippines) looked in the late 1800s and early 1900s  on FB sites of  Pilipinas Retrostalgia, Herencia Filipinas, and several others.  Photos  of old churches/cathedrals that are now in the World Heritage list,  schools, town plazas,  bridges, Filipinos daily life that are archived in libraries and museums in the West. The U.S. Library of Congress, University of Michigan, University of  Wisconsin, private collections in Washington, New York, Germany and the Netherlands are resurfacing, thanks to diligent research. The pictures were taken by American photographers—civilian and military—when the United States took over the Philippines in 1898 following the Spanish-American War.

Noteworthy is the interesting fact that even though the United States had these photos, they were not the ones exhibited to the American public during the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904, which drew at least 19 million visitors to the city and thousands of objects from around the globe. The 1904 World's Fair was designed to showcase American glory, American democracy, American economy. It was a pivotal and contentious  moment, in the midst of a new industrial era. On display were the greatest technological innovations of the time: outdoor electric lighting, an X-ray machine, a wireless telephone, the private automobile. The United States of America was ready to announce that it had "arrived." It was now a world power and celebrating itself as a  growing  imperial force.  It had reached the pinnacle of achievement.  "And all this was on display," wrote History Prof. Kantor of the Washington University in St. Louis.

The United States had just acquired the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico when it prevailed in the Spanish-American War  six years earlier and was eager to show the world her military conquests at the Fair with "living anthropology" exhibits, putting indigenous people from around the world on display. To the 20 million attendees,  it was a thrilling spectacle.

Instead of showcasing the three centuries of Philippine Christian heritage that produced distinguished citizens such as Dr. Jose Rizal, the celebrated ophthalmologist who authored several novels in Spanish that triggered the Spanish-Philippine Revolution, and Juan Luna, the illustrious painter from the Ilocos region who was once the toast of the European art scene  and whose "Spoliarium" garnered the first gold medal in the  Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1884, the United States chose to portray its newly-acquired colony with replicas of  remote tribal villages  and "stocked" them with over a thousand men, women, and children as living exhibits. The 700 Philippine Scouts, Constabulary soldiers and military band members  who marched each day carrying the Stars and Stripes  were overshadowed by the Igorot Village spread over six acres (2.5 hectares) with a hundred  natives on the Fair grounds. Every day,  throngs of curious fairgoers flocked to the village to witness the G-stringed tribe roast a dog for dinner. This became the premier feature of the Fair—the Igorot eating of dogs where dogs would be butchered and consumed on a daily basis. (By the way, the Igorot mountain tribe did eat dogs but only for ceremonial purposes). The Igorot Village concept was extended to other Fairs around the country as well, because it drew large crowds. Records show that 99 out of a hundred visitors stopped by the Philippine "Reservation." No amount of emphasis on commercial exhibits, constabulary drills, and scout parades had distracted attention from the "dog eaters" and "headhunters," lamented  Richard Kennedy,  the co-curator of the Philippine program at the 1998 Smithsonian Folklore Festival in Washington, DC. Obviously,  this ended up being a terrible characterization and misrepresentation of the Philippines.

That  the Philippines had  more than  three centuries of Christian culture that produced educated and notable leaders, was not the narrative  that the  U.S. government and its backers wanted to portray.  The prevailing concept at the time was: non-whites  like the  Filipinos  were not capable of self-government.

In  the 1800s, a significant endeavor among scientists/naturalists was tracing the path of evolution. Different fossils were compared over eons of time in order to assess development of current life forms. This led to the idea that human passed through their fossil ancestry during development. (The term "recapitulation") To be more specific, the scientists examined human embryos as they developed. The gill suits of the human embryo in its earliest stages was attributed to a "fish stage" in our evolution. A temporary tail suggested a reptile or mammal ancestor. A famed German zoologist labeled this scientific breakthrough by the name "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" which is a real tongue twister.

However,  scientists even went further to suggest that Northern Europeans were at the highest state of evolutionary development and inferior races did not get beyond a "child-like" stage of development.  Their evolutionary development never proceeded to the highest level but were more stunted to a lower form.

Obviously, this idea fed into the world view of some individuals in the American take-over of the Philippines. The Filipinos were judged to be an "undeveloped race," which was incapable of self-government.  Of course, they were in need of the over-reaching  hand of their big brothers (guess who,  the Americans) to subject and guide  them into a better evolutionary stage.

Of course, the popular theory of "ontogeny recapitulation phylogeny," (we'll call it ARP for fun, as we can't pronounce it anyway) is no longer accepted and has been debunked. It is enlightening however,  how science can sometimes be used to justify evil ends. It's something we should always be aware of.

The World's Fair of 1904 was supposed to be the Centennial celebration for the State of Louisiana.  Somehow, America's newly-acquired colony "stole" the show. A stunning visual extravaganza it certainly was. But it distorted images of the Philippines and its people. The St. Louis "Potemkin village" is gone, for it was dismantled after the Fair. However, the work of dismantling the intellectual foundations that the Fair left behind, endures.

 

Half-truths, distorted facts, misinformation,  disinformation,  propaganda can create a culture of distrust and paranoia. In today's world, fairs  and other forms of exhibitions are no longer in vogue. But a far-reaching and a more  insidious form like social media is taking their place.

 

Noralyn Onto Dudt is grateful to her husband Philip J. Dudt for his contribution to this article