Talk:William Dorsey Swann/Archive 2

Erroneous Photo Identification

The photo posted on this page does not represent William Dorsey Swann. No portraits of him are known to exist.

The photo posted here is a postcard published by the Société Industrielle de Photographie in Paris in 1902. It portrays Jack Brown of the American vaudeville duo Gregory and Brown, who caused a sensation when they introduced the cakewalk to the Paris music-hall stage. The film pioneer Louis Lumière even made a short of their act at the Nouveau Cirque.

In addition, the caption attributing the photo to James Gardiner is incorrect. Gardiner is a living collector and writer on the history of photographs of cross-dressing and homosexuality. The photo posted on this page comes from Gardiner's collection, which was purchased by the Wellcome Library in London.

I would strongly urge removal of the photo from the Wikipedia page about William Dorsey Swann, as it has nothing to do with him. GKoskovich (talk) 05:53, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:OR, please give a source for this information. I believe you on good faith, but there are many existing articles attributing the image (and many similar) to Swann.[1][2] I would also like a source for the information provided on Gardiner, as I was unable to find any. Doughbo (talk) 18:16, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Vintage postcards of Charles Gregory and Jack Brown circulate widely on the internet erroneously identified as portrayals of William Dorsey Swann.

This misapprehension likely arises from the fact that The Nation (Jan. 31, 2020) used a postcard of the pair as an uncredited, uncaptioned and unexplained illustration for Channing Gerard Joseph's article about Swann, "The First Drag Queen Was a Former Slave."

Joseph himself identifies the subject of the postcard as Jack Brown — but you have to dig a little to notice this fact to find the mention in his blurb on the Louis Lumière film that shows the pair in the same costumes as in the real-photo postcard series. Click on "About this Short Film" at lower left on the following page of Joseph's website:

http://www.channingjoseph.com/elements/discoveries.html

Even Wikimedia Commons elsewhere correctly identifies another postcard of Gregory and Brown:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Postcard_of_black_female_and_male_impersonators_and_cross-dressing.png

As for James Gardiner, here's the listing for his collection at the Wellcome Library in London:

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ctu3s9j3

And here's one of his postcards of Gregory and Brown held by the Wellcome Library. As you'll see, the performers are correctly identified:

https://wellcomecollection.org/search?query=%22nouveau+cirque%22#yg2hjt8q

The caption printed in the real-photo postcards states that it portrays the "Joyeux Negres" show at the Nouveau Cirque in Paris — which William Dorsey Swann most certainly did not appear in.

The real-photo postcards of Gregory and Brown have recently been exhibited in "The First Homosexuals: Global Depictions of a New Identity, 1860–1930," an exhibition curated by historian Jonanthan David Katz in Chicago. Scroll down to the link to "Gregory and Brown" for more details:

https://wrightwood659.org/exhibitions/the-first-homosexuals-global-depictions-of-a-new-identity-1869-1930/

Historians to date have identified no images of William Dorsey Swann. GKoskovich (talk) 00:57, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the thorough research and information. I'll remove the image and modify the others on Commons. Doughbo (talk) 21:53, 3 July 2023 (UTC)