Cross-dressing

Cross-dressing

Anonymous snapshot, Gift of Peter J. Cohen, 2019.243

In early twentieth-century America, cross-dressing was a popular pastime performed to playful — and at times transgressive — ends. Makeshift backdrops, ill-fitting costumes, and exaggerated poses recall the theatrical origins of cross-dressing while also revealing the performative basis of gender itself.

Anonymous snapshot, Gift of Peter J. Cohen, 2019.477

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Anonymous snapshot, Gift of Peter J. Cohen, 2019.967

While for many the comic ploy lies in the flawed impersonations (a hulking male body under a frilly “feminine” dress), others may have used photography to experiment with passing successfully as the opposite sex. Women, in particular, appear enthralled by the freedom and practicality of menswear in these photographs. Chins up and heads thrown back, they brandish phallic cigars and beer bottles in self-conscious displays of masculinity that harken back to nineteenth-century tintypes.

The inexpensive tintype allowed patrons to relax the rules of propriety that had governed facial and bodily expressions in the Victorian-era portrait studio. In this image, two men “revolt” against social norms by posing with their hats askew, daring to smoke in public. S. L Wilson, Portrait of Two Men, 19th century, tintype, Gift of Rosamond Brown Vaule (Class of 1959), 2008.258

Anonymous snapshot, Gift of Peter J. Cohen, 2019.242

Anonymous snapshot, Gift of Peter J. Cohen, 2019.223

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