IDD ARCHIVES
EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK
LOOKING FOR LITTLE EGYPT
BY
DONNA CARLTON
(BLOOMINGTON, IN, IDD BOOKS, 1995)
INTRODUCTION
A century ago, a brilliant "White City," a World's Fair of startling
splendor, blossomed along Lake Michigan on the south side of grimy, 
industrial Chicago. The World's Columbian Exposition, commemorating
the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the New World, 
was the first international exposition to feature a separate area for 
amusements. Along this strip, known as the Midway Plaisance,
"dancing girls" in colorful native costumes of the Middle East performed 
regularly for the curious crowds who poured in. "Little Egypt," according
to many different reference and history books, is supposed to have 
been a popular performer on the Midway Plaisance. In fact, according
to some accounts, she was a dance star who caused a sensation and 
saved the financially-troubled exposition from ruin by drawing people 
from all over the country to her exotic performances. She is said to have 
shocked and scandalized audiences in Chicago, and popularized the 
newly-invented zipper by using it to help her wriggle out of costumes. 
she supposedly caused Mark Twain to suffer a coronary and starred in 
one of the first motion pictures, filmed at the fairgrounds by Mark Twain himself.

Can all this be true, or have legends run wild and overshadowed the 
true record of the Midway Plaisance entertainment known as danse du 
ventre? Usually translated as "belly dance," danse du ventre was the 
French colonial name for sensuous women's dances of North Africa and 
the Middle East, an area of the world then designated by Europe and 
the New World as "the Orient." During my more than ten years as an 
aficionado of this dance form, I have been asked countless times about 
its history and originals and I often wondered about the performer who 
may have been America's first notable "belly dancer." Were there 
records of the 1893 fair dancers that would help me uncover a dance lineage?

Who were these women who introduced America to danse du 
ventre? Where did they come from? What was their dance like? Were 
they muscle dancers, contortionists, houris, Nautch girls, or Ouled 
Nail from Algeria? While reporters gave all of these identifications, most 
called them simply "dancing girls." Were they pseudo-Oriental dancers 
in fanciful costumes reflecting the fashionable Orientalism of the day? 
Were they, as I suspected, gypsy ghawazi from Egypt? Though there 
are photographic records of fair performers, after searching through 
dozens of primary sources, I did not find a single verifiable photo of Little 
Egypt from the fair. Later photos of her turned up that were obvious 
photos of many different women. Why were so many identified as Little 
Egypt? I wondered why some Little Egypts seemed very Western in 
appearance, while the photos from the 1893 fair showed women who 
were distinctly Oriental. I also came across additional anecdotal 
information about Little Egypt--that she has been called the first screen 
"sex goddess," that she provided the prototype for theatrical strip tease, 
and that the term "Little Egypt" had taken on the slang meaning of "a 
loose woman." As I set out to untangle the stories about Little Egypt, I 
realized the her character had become larger than life. Song and legend 
immortalized her and somtimes, much like Oscar Wilde's Salome, 
portrayed a femme fatale, exotic and beautiful but deadly.

I looked through months of various newspapers on microfiml and 
through numerous sourvenir volumes for a mention of Little Egypt at the 
1893 fair. Although I found many other personalities of the Midway 
Plaisance described, I could not locate a contemporary reference to the 
infamous dancer there. This led me to the conclusion that even if Little 
Egypt was actually there, she was not famous at this point in her career 
and certainly not the star performer on the Midway Plaisance. In fact, 
the name "Little Egypt" probably did not become notorious until a few 
years after the fair. If this is true, how did the Little Egypt legends 
originate? And what made them so popular?

Little research has been done to uncover and preserve a complete and 
accurate record of the several types of dance that were introduced to 
Americans at Chicago's 1893 fair. Much information that historians and 
history buffs year to know has been lost forever. Meanwhile, the stories 
persist. U.S. history, exposition history, popular entertainment history, 
reference and dance books have all included Little Egypt:

(quotes)

The Midway, the amusement area of the exposition, introduced Chicago 
to such memorable novelties as Little Egypt, the "exotic dancer," and 
the Ferris Wheel.

Another popular feature of the Midway was The Streets of Cairo, where 
"Little Egypt" danced the hoochee-coochee.

The source of dispute (at the 1893 fair) was the danse du ventre 
performed by an Arabian beauty known as "Little Egypt."


One of the biggest crazes in dancing was the hootchy-kootchy. It was 
first introduced by Little Egypt at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 as a 
specialty in the Nautch Village.

Probably the biggest attraction of the exposition was Little Egypt, whose 
sensual "hootchy-kootchy" dance scandalized and delighted the visitors.

The belly dance was almost unknown in the United States until 1893, 
when Little Egypt and her dancers appeared at the Chicago World's Fair 
and gave Victorian audiences a shock from which they never recovered.

(end of quotes)

Students of contemporary Oriental dance and the general public alike 
have heard these claims and assume them to be truth. How this 
remarkable durable American legend took root and spread is the subject 
of this book. Film and stage productions erroneously associated Little 
Egypt with the 1893 fair. In the process, they created and perpetuated 
several much-beloved myths that my book endeavors to debunk. I 
propose a forgotten candidate for the title of "the original notorious Little 
Egypt." Details of the scandal surrounding Ashea Wabe, a 
turn-of-the-century entertainer, provide important clues to how the 
legends about Little Egypt originated. I also tell how Oriental dance 
became a prominent feature on the Midway Plaisance. I believe that 
there were sincere attempts to present the dance in at least three 
Midway Plaisance exhibits.

This book looks at the roles played by profiteering concessionaires, 
sideshow sheiks and self-appointed censors as the fair's danse du 
ventre gained notoriety and its imitation form, hoochy coochy, caught 
on. It will show that cultural prejudice and intolerance colored the 
reviews. It discusses the allure of Orientalism and the reaction of one 
puritanical vice-hunter who condemned and, at the same time, 
unwittingly sparked popular interest in danse du ventre. The 
long-debated etymology of "hoochy coochy" is also discussed and a 
new derivation suggested and explained. Finally, I briefly trace the 
evolution of the form into a popular recreational activity and tell how 
some contemporary hobbyists and performers cope with the baggage of 
a bygone era.

Little Egypt was a pre-Hollywood American sex symbol. She was created 
by and personified the Western obsession for the exotic. She was born 
in an age when showmen, in deliberate Barnum-esque fashion, outdid 
each other to manipulate the press and mislead the public by fabricating 
larger-than-life personalities. In this case, the Little Egypt legend has 
fooled many people for almost a century.

NOTES:
These quotations were taken from the following sources:
Encylopedia Americana Volume 6 (Danbury, CT: Grolier Inc., 1991), 
p. 428.

Album of American History Vol. III (New York: Charles Scribner's 
Sons, 1969), p. 434.

Burg, David F., Chicago's White City of 1893 (Louisville: The 
University Press of Kentucky, 1976), p. 222.

Laurie, Joe, Jr., Vaudeville: From the Honky-tonks to the Palace 
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953), p. 40.

Reader's Digest Strange Stories, Amazing Facts (Pleasantville, NY & 
Montreal: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1976), p. 161.

Wilson, Serena and Alan Wilson, The Serena Technique of Belly 
Dancing (New York: Drake Publishers Inc., 1972), p. 13.