Lydia Thompson
1 2015-09-16T13:51:59-07:00 Margaret Morrison 70f833738ab191151c82af514f5ee008e3ec05e1 5977 4 Late 19th century Lydia Thompson. Full-length image of woman in striped shorts and jacket with matching hat, holding an axe. 1 photographic print. plain 2015-09-16T14:04:28-07:00 1890 Image Burlesque (Theater) en This item is believed to be in the public domain. However, the user is responsible for making a final determination of copyright status before reproducing. Charles H. McCaghy Collection of Exotic Dance from Burlesque to Clubs Margaret Morrison 70f833738ab191151c82af514f5ee008e3ec05e1This page is referenced by:
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Shaping Persona: The British Blondes and The Media
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Burlesque emerged during a time period where society conceptualized women as passive, domestic people with a lack of sexuality and voice. Because of this societal mindset, front-runners of early burlesque, in particular Lydia Thompson with her British Blondes, challenged ideologies surrounding how women could live in the social world. Thompson herself became a large influence on the formation of her public image, and subsequently her discursive representation. Instead of silently accepting or recoiling from the spotlight in response to critical attacks on her stage persona and her supposed threat to the ideology of “True Womanhood,” Thompson attempted to establish herself as a public figure. She spoke in public, responded to the press with public letters, and eventually largely contributed to her own biography. In her dissertation, Performing Prostitution: Agency and Discourse, Actresses and Whores, Doctor Kristen Wynne Pullen explains how the public understood Thompson to be “her own voice” (102), and how because she “flaunted her unconventional behavior” by portraying and participating in promiscuity and spreading her own gossip, the “public eagerly seized on her as a signifier of both low theatre and transgressive sexuality in the late Victorian America” (107).
Lydia Thompson and the British Blondes hailed from London, and had remarkable success in Europe, receiving great reviews and huge turnouts. In 1868, Thompson and her troupe sailed to America and started performing in New York where they soon became the most popular troupe and form of entertainment. At first the media waxed poetic about the blondes. Wilbur F. Storey, writing in the Chicago Times, said that Thompson “possessed all the qualifications for a pleasing actress in light comedy characters” (qtd. Allen 19), which was quite a pleasing review. Many similar articles were published along the same lines. However, shortly after the troupe began a run of productions at Niblo’s Garden in February of 1869, previously favorable opinions changed. Burlesque scholar Robert Allen notes a “hysterical anti-burlesque discourse” that emerged in which “burlesque came to be characterized as a cultural epidemic of indecency, impudence, and suggestive sexual display” (Allen 16). Burlesque showcased the “unruly woman” and her sexuality, a persona that had not yet existed in the public eye.
In early 1870, the previously complimentary Chicago Times became critical, stating that what the Britsih Blondes were doing onstage was immoral. Thompson responded by saying burlesque was “harmless entertainment” and not morally wrong (Allen 19). Storey responded to Lydia’s remark by saying her troupe “have made an unnecessary and lewd exhibition of their persons, such as would not be tolerated by the police in any bawdy house; that they have made use of broad, low and degrading language, such as men of any self respect would repudiate, even in the absence of ladies; that their entertainments have been mere vehicles for the exhibition of coarse women and the use of disreputable language unrelieved by any wit or humor” (Allen 19). Storey and The Chicago Times published many anti-burlesque and specifically anti-Thompson editorials, even going so far to link burlesque with prostitution (Pullen 155). Thompson responded by going to Storey's house on February 24th with with Alexander Henderson, (her current spouse), Archie Gordon, (publicist), and troupe member Pauline Markham, to assault Mr. Storey. Gordon held Storey while Thompson and Markham horsewhipped Storey outside of his home at gunpoint.
The assailants were charged with assault and were fined, but allowed to walk free. This caused a media storm and the audience to continue to grow for Thompson's shows. Shows sold out constantly, causing the troupe to be arrested when riots broke out outside the theatre. When Thompson was asked to comment on her and her troupes actions in regard to Storey, Thompson responded with, “The persistent and personally vindictive assault in the Times upon my reputation left me only one mode of redress… They were women whom he attacked. It was by women he was castigated… We did what the law would not do for us” (Allen 20). Although Pullen argues that there were apparent public efforts to remove Thompson from the narrative (the press record completely ignored Thompson’s role and places the blame on Henderson), Thompson clearly asserted herself by publically taking blame for her actions. For example, she incorporated references to the attack in one of her lyrics (Pullen 161), and in a statement published in The Times of India, Thompson declares, “I certainly did not act as I should like to act, but there are some provocations under which a woman who has not sunk into the slough of indifference can be neither proud nor cautious” ("Recollections"). Thompson’s actions and publicizing of her actions signify her role in shaping how the public viewed her: as a transgressive female figure.
Because of their transgressive actions on stage and off, Storey was not the only public figure who criticized Thompson and her British Blondes. Actress Olive Logan protested as well, "I cannot advise any woman to go upon the stage with the demoralizing influence which seems here to prevail more every day, when its greatest rewards are won by brazen-faced, stained, yellow-haired, padded-limbed creatures, while actresses of the old school – well trained, decent – cannot earn a living" (Hoffos 7). Logan believed Thompson and Co. made a mockery of the stage. As a women’s activist, Logan thought Lydia and her troupe were not helping women progress in a positive way, insisting that they brought women down and showed them as immoral creatures. Despite the backlash, Thompson and the blondes faired remarkably well in America before returning to Europe and picking up where they left off.
Works Cited:Allen, Robert C. Horrible Prettiness Burlesque and American Culture. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina, 1991. Print.
Hoffos, Signe and Bob Moulder. "Desperately Seeking Lydia" and "Appreciating Lydia." The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery Magazine. 43 (Autumn 2006): 1-7. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Pullen, Kristen W. Performing Prostitution: Agency and Discourse, Actresses and Whores. Diss. University of Wisconsin, Madison. 2001. ProQuest. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
“Recollections of Lydia Thompson: Cowhiding an Editor Miss Thompson’s Defence.” The Times of India. 25 May 1899. ProQuest. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
