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Title: Pretty Hula Girls, Honolulu, Hawaii
Description: Photograph showing four Hawaiian women playing musical instruments and dancing outside at Punch Bowl Mountain in Honolulu. The women wear their long hair down and are attired in flower leis around the crown of their heads and around their necks, white chemise shirts, and skirts. Two women sit holding a gourd and a guitar. Behind them, two women stand with their left arms out as they dance the hula., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyright 1901, by B. L. Singley., Text printed on verso: We here see a group of hula dancers, with leis of fragrant leaves and flowers crowning their heads and cast about their necks, a very pretty custom of the Hawaiians, especially worn on festive occasions. The hula hula has always been a feature of court festivities and also a common entertainment of the islanders, often danced in the lanai or open parlor of the home. The ancient hula was not danced to the accompaniment of musical instruments but rhythmic measures muttered by old men who kept time by striking a gourd; in the modern version of the dance, the lissom dancers, trained from childhood to delight the senses, sway their graceful figures to the music of the flute, guitar and other stringed instuments and the beat of the tom-tom. The white chemise and airy skirt with garlands about head and shoulders and sometimes ankle decorations form the dress of the dusky hula girls. This view was taken in the crater of Punch Bowl Mountain, an extinct volcano., Keystone View Company was founded in 1892 by B.L. Singley, an amateur photographer from Meadville, Pennsylvania. Keystone View Company was the leader in promoting stereographs for educational purposes. In 1912 the company purchased rights to some Underwood & Underwood negatives for use in educational sets, and in 1922 purchased the remaining stock of Underwood materials. The company remained in business until 1970.
Creator: Keystone View Company
Date: 1901
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department stereo - Keystone View Company - Portraits & Genre [P.2014.12.5]

Title: The Dancing Chinaman. An amusing cut-out
Description: Racist caricature of a Chinese man printed as a paper toy marionette. Depicts the man wearing a queue hairstyle, attired in a green tunic with yellow trim, red pants with green trim, yellow socks, and black cloth slip-on shoes, and with long fingernails. He smiles broadly and holds two fingers up on each hand. Printed in segments of head, torso, and separate arms and legs with instructions on how to cut the pieces out and attach them with strings to sticks to make a puppet. In the right, shows a diagram with the constructed toy and two white hands holding the sticks to make him dance., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyright 1909, by the North American Company., Published in the September 12, 1909 Sunday supplement of the North American newspaper., Text printed on recto: Directions: Paste this sheet upon a sheet of heavy cardboard: let it dry thoroughly, and cut out pieces around heavy black lines. Join parts together by knotting a piece of string on either side, as in diagram. (A to A, B to B, C to C, D to D and E to E.) Then take two sticks about eight inches long (two pencils will do), cut two pieces of black thread about twenty-four inches long: fasten them at either side of figure’s head (1 and 2) and at each end of one stick, as in diagram. Cut two pieces of black thread about six inches long, make them fast at bottom of arm and knee (Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6), as in diagram. Cut then at either end of other stick, as in diagram. Hold stick No. 1 in left hand and No. 2 in right hand, let feet of figure touch floor and tilt stick No. 2 up and down in a seesaw manner. With a little practice you will be able to work your marionette in first-class order., RVCDC, Larry Semon (1889-1928) worked as a cartoonist for Philadelphia and New York newspapers before becoming an actor, director, producer, and screenwriter during the silent film era.
Creator: Semon, Larry, 1889-1928
Date: 1909
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC- Paper toys - Dancing [P.2024.71.1

Title: A typical scene in Hawaii. The hula-hula dance
Description: Photograph depicting six Hawaiian women hula dancing in front of spectators during King Kalakaua's Silver Jubiliee celebrating his fiftieth birthday in 1886 in Honolulu. The women, barefooted and attired in flower leis around the crown of their heads and around their necks, anklets, white long-sleeved shirts, and fabric skirts, dance with their arms out to the left. Behind them a large crowd of spectators sit and stand and watch. Also visible are a palm tree and partial views of tents and a pavillion. In the right of the postcard is an advertisement for "Zenith Art Lusters" from N.Z. Graves Co., Philadelphia. Nelson Z. Graves (1849–1930) formed N.Z. Graves & Co., a manufacturer of varnish, japan, and pigments, in 1888., Text from item., Date inferred from postcard design., Text printed on recto: Put heavy accent on the syllables marked thus: -. Speak lightly the syllables marked thus: U. Zenith Art Lusters! Oh, come in and buy. They’ll brighten your home up and tickle the eye. There never was anything suited to please. Equal in quality, like unto these. Floors, chairs and tables, all shine at their touch, Old furniture scuffed, from using too much. Walls, ceilings and plaster and any such things, Wear better, look better, covered with stains. Step in and ask and the dealer will give a fine little booklet that helps you to live. Like artists, with comfort and beauty about. Costs you naught, aids you much, counsels you well. To learn more about “Zenith Art Lusters” ask the dealer from whom this card came or Dept. “R.”, Sheet number: 40B02A, Divided back.
Creator: Brightbill, George M., collector
Date: [ca. 1909]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | PRINT PRINT Brightbill postcards [Business and Industry - Miscellaneous - 40]

Title: Japan
Description: Trade card promoting coffee manufacturers Arbuckle Brothers and depicting Japanese men acrobats, jugglers, and dancers in a festival. In the left, shows a Japanese man acrobat wearing a chonmage hairstyle, a white headband, a pink kimono, and pink pants. He balances upside down on a flagpole with a pink banner and holds a fan in his right hand. In the right, a Japanese man, wearing a blue kimono, juggles a bottle and bowls. In the center is a fan with a vignette depicting three barefooted Japanese men, attired in black hats, yellow shirts, and blue pants, dancing holding branches. A Japanese man stands, attired in a black hat and green shirt, and holds a pink banner on a pole. Arbuckle's Coffee was founded by brothers John and Charles Arbuckle following the Civil War. The company was one of the first to sell roasted coffee and to place it in one pound packages. Arbuckle often included trade cards in the packages., Title from item., Date from copyright statement: Copyright, 1893, by Arbuckle Bros. N.Y., Series no. on verso: No. 34., Advertising text on verso: Grind your coffee at home…. Japan. The Japanese have the most advance civilization of any nation on Asiatic soil. Indeed in some regards they are even more advanced than the proudest of western countries. But in many ways they are ludicrously far behind. They cling to ancient forms of government and the Mikado is an autocrat, absolute almost over the life and death of his subjects. A country which yields such power to the individual, can never hope to work out its highest possibilities. So even the sports and pastimes of such a nation can never be the spontaneous expression of the animal spirits of the young of that land. Juggling is a fine art in Japan. Beside the Japanese juggler, the man of legerdemain of other countries is a clumsy bungler. The feats performed by the former are beyond all comparison. To achieve such dexterity, it may well be presumed that the wizard has been taught from earliest childhood. In fact the jugglers are sometimes a caste, so that the child often starts with the hereditary traits of forefather in the same line, and of the added experience of these. Of the acrobats of Japan who are also super-eminent much the same can be said. One would scarcely believe that the human body could be so sinuous and might be so contorted at will. The Japanese Festivals or Feasts are frequent. The main celebrations are held after dark; then fireworks are displayed, and lanterns are hung. These latter transform the most commonplace scenes into fairyland. The dancing indulged in on these occasions in most picturesque. As the figures flit from light into dark and back again, they form scenes never to be forgotten. The Japanese wrestlers are world-famed, and their contests are most skillful. This is one of a series of Fifty (50) cards giving a pictorial History of Sports and Pastimes of all Nations., RVCDC
Date: 1893
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department trade card - Arbuckle [P.2025.35.1]

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