Photographs from an American Album: TheAlbatrossNudes, 1899–1900

Abstract

In 1899–1900 the Albatross, a US Fish Commission vessel, traveled through the Pacific Islands for seven months, charting coastlines, collecting mineral specimens, and taking photographs. These photographs now reside in several repositories, including five elaborately composed albums at the Phillips Library, Salem, Massachusetts. This article considers these albums, which include a number of nude photographs, in the context of popular nude photography, ethnographic photography, and a longer history of sexualized representations of Pacific Island women. As products of an American imperial-scientific voyage, a study of the Albatross photographs in the Phillips Library collection provides a very precise example from which to discern wider patterns of representation. The author argues that the voyeuristic quality of the nude photographs in the albums is enhanced through the combination of two photographic genres, the nude and the ethnographic. Further, by including nude photographs in albums made for personal use, yet intended to document a scientific voyage and shared with companions, the author of the albums participated in an American imperialist imaginary of the South Pacific produced through the combination of scientific authority and racial and economic privilege. The placement of the photographs in albums further directs the viewer's response to the photographs' subjects as collected specimens.

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