The Queer Cultural Borderlands: Female Impersonation and Vaudeville in Windsor-Detroit
Nicholas Hrynyk, Ph.D.
Department of Philosophy, History, and Politics
Thompson Rivers University
“Stunning Gowns, Fine Singing, Great Impersonations,” read the Border Cities Star on October 27, 1928. They were referencing “The Dumbells,” a Canadian female impersonator group that regularly performed in Windsor, Ontario and nearby cities throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The Dumbells, like many other female impersonation acts, were part of the vaudeville craze that flourished in the early twentieth century, showcasing gender impersonation as an art form. Yet, these acts were more than simply an extension of vaudeville’s appeal in the 1920s and 1930s, they reflected tensions around gender, sexuality, race, and class within a gender and sex binary system in the Windsor-Detroit region. These performances often mocked queerness and espoused latent misogyny and racism, differentiating these performances from the art of drag—an art form embraced by queer communities since the 19th century. Moreover, female impersonation acts in the region demonstrate an overtly queer-coded artistry that transcended geographic and national border and spoke to the working-class character and changing racial makeup of the Windsor and Detroit area.
Unlike the elite circles often associated with queer art in major metropolitical areas such as New York or London, the Windsor-Detroit region’s industrial, working-class background provided a distinctly different context for female impersonators. Female impersonation acts were considered by some to be a rather “low-class” form of art in comparison to operas, symphonies, and ballets. Their popularity stemmed from the affordability to attend these shows for many working-class and emerging middle-class patrons, as well as the ways in which they adopted cues from social and cultural tensions in the region. Additionally, female impersonation acts were part of larger vaudeville shows containing minstrel performances or “Black face” acts. As one of the earliest forms of mass entertainment within modern culture, vaudeville spoke to the gendered, racial, and class anxieties that permeated American culture (and by proxy Windsor). In the words of Albert F. McLean, Vaudeville’s roots “lay deep in the experience of the millions who had swarmed into American cities in the latter decades of the nineteenth century and who sought images, gestures, and symbols which would objectify their experience and bring to their lives a simple and comprehensive meaning.”[1]
Early performances from Julian Eltinge, a famous early twentieth-century female impersonator, at the Detroit Opera House in February 1912 had familiarized audiences in Windsor and Detroit with female impersonation as an extension of vaudeville rather than that of gender transgression. Eltinge’s ability to “pass”—to be perceived as a different gender—as a woman was a key aspect of his success, requiring a mastery of makeup, costumes, mannerisms, and voice modulation. The Detroit Free Press noted in 1912 that Eltinge brought his “most bewitching imaginings of feminine loveliness” to Detroit audiences.[2] His performances highlighted the performative nature of gender, aligning with later theories from scholars like Judith Butler. But this acclaim also reflected an uncomfortability with illusion and transformation, where impersonation was accepted as long as it remained within the confines of entertainment. For female impersonators like Eltinge, their social acceptability in the region was linked to their off-stage personas and identities. The Detroit Free Press commented in 1912 that despite Eltinge’s ability to outshine his female stage companions as a woman, he was “thoroughly masculine” under the makeup and clothing.[3]
Another group, The Dumbells, remained respectable to the public because of their military origins. The Dumbells were a Canadian female impersonation troupe originating during World War One. Conceived of near Vimy Ridge, France in 1917, the Dumbells took their name from the symbol of the Canadian army’s Third Division: a red dumbbell that signified strength. It must be noted that military female impersonation shows were not uncommon in the Canadian military through both World Wars. Historian Paul Jackson notes that female impersonators were not looked upon with suspicion because homosexuality was considered a “rare condition” in the pre-Alfred Kinsey environment. For The Dumbells, their military background afforded them a great deal of success, performing seventeen shows in the Windsor-Detroit area during the 1920s. Patriotic zeal and curious enthusiasm among Canadian and Americans seemed to underpin the wave of interest among citizens flocking to see this queer take on the vaudeville craze.
Additionally, The Dumbells received praise for their maintenance of female respectability and femininity, as well as poking fun at femininity. Despite the transgression of men wearing female clothing, the artistry and entertainment value of these shows sanitized them for public consumption, especially if they mocked or played up caricatures of femininity. In the Detroit Free Press’s review of the Dumbells’ show, “Biff! Bung! Bang!”, it was noted that characters in the show, including an “acquisitive crone” named Madame and an unnamed female burlesque performer at a French inn, were highlights of the show.[4] These caricatures of femininity—sexless crone or sexually loose woman—exemplify the ways in which the stage has traditionally admonished women for being either too old and, therefore, sexually unappealing or young, sexually loose, and an affront to standards of respectability. While mocking or poking fun at gendered and/or sexual constructs served to highlight the artificial nature of gender roles, they also could promote racist, misogynistic, and ableist ideas of people and bodies.
Intersection with Minstrelsy or “Black face”
As previously mentioned, female impersonation acts also intersected with minstrelsy or “Black face” in the early twentieth century. In 1916, Charlie Hilliard performed at Detroit’s Lyceum Theatre as a "high-yaller" woman with other minstrels. The show featured the Honey Boy Evans minstrels and drew on African American tropes and music to surround audiences with minstrel tunes that “looked back on slavery and slaveholders with something less than reverence,” in the words of historian Lawrence Lavine.[5] Minstrelsy tended to reflect and reinforce racial tensions in the Windsor and Detroit area; and combined with female impersonation acts, reveals a deeper intersection between queerness and racialized performances. Detroit, despite its growing African American population in the early twentieth century, was rife with racism, segregation, and police profiling. Black residents faced systemic discrimination in employment, housing, and education, and racially charged performances in white-dominated theatres served to reinforce these inequities. The inclusion of minstrelsy in female impersonation acts highlights how race and gender could be manipulated in tandem for profit and spectacle.
The extent to which minstrelsy was included in female impersonation vaudeville is near impossible to know, but the presence of minstrelsy in Detroit (and by proximity Windsor) is telling of the historical tensions around race in the area. The migration of African Americans from the South to northern cities, including Detroit, was driven in part by the hope of finding better job opportunities. Yet, African Americans were greeted with racist employment, housing, and educational barriers when they arrived. For instance, African Americans were largely confined to specific neighbourhoods due to restrictive housing covenants and discriminatory real estate practices. As a result, neighbourhoods such as Black Bottom and Paradise Valley became centers of African American culture and commerce. Additionally, Detroit’s public schools were racially segregated. African American students attended separate, often underfunded, and poorly equipped schools compared to their white counterparts. This inferior quality of education perpetuated educational inequalities and exacerbated the limited employment opportunities, wage disparities, and occupational segregation already facing African Americans.
It comes as no surprise then that Detroit was home to entertainment that would exploit such division for financial gain and fame. The racism underscoring some of the “entertainment” value of these performances reverberated with the changing racial demographics of the area.[6] Despite the large populations of Black Canadians and African Canadians in the Windsor/Detroit region, some female impersonation shows continued to be tinged by racial appropriation and racist imagery. In October 1923, James Barton appeared in “Dew Drop Inn” at Detroit’s Shubert Theatre. The show centred around an African American porter in the American South. Barton’s fame centred on his ability to “pass” as African American, with a promotion editorial in The Border Cities Star telling readers, “if you can find one little action or mannerism of James Barton. . . that is not distinctly [‘Black’] you are one against thousands.”[7] Barton’s performance reveals that “passing” was not just celebrated for those who could adopt the mannerisms and aesthetic of an opposite gender, but that of another race. Considered one of, if not the, greatest minstrel of the period, Barton’s “passing” meant the perpetuation of racial stereotypes and simplifications that were both harmful and divisive. Additionally, these racial stereotypes and caricatures were used to appeal to audiences and generate profits for white entertainers.
The Decline of Vaudeville
By the end of the 1930s, interest in female impersonation (and vaudeville more broadly) was waning. Hollywood and the silver screen were capturing a new generation of audience, distracting them from the realities of domestic and foreign troubles. Americans wanted to forget the troubles of a depressed economy and the threats or war plaguing Europe by the late 1930s. And as Hollywood surely usurped Vaudeville of its prominent place in the cultural landscape of America and Canada, so too did female impersonation acts fade from public consciousness. In 1938, the Windsor Daily Star reported that The Dumbells “couldn’t afford new costumes as they once did. They couldn’t have the expensive scenery audiences came to demand in the flapper stage of post-war Canada and the United States.”[8]
Dr. Nicholas A. Hrynyk is an Assistant Professor at Thompson Rivers University, specializing in 2SLGBTQIA+ history, feminist and queer studies, and disability/mad studies. He previously held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto. His research, which explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, and the body, has been generously supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and other grants. Currently, Hrynyk is research anticipations of violence for queer people and the history of HIV/AIDS and dance in Canada. His work has been published in Disability Studies Quarterly, Feminist Theory, and the Journal of Canadian Studies, among others. He also contributes to collaborative research on queer archival practices and social justice.
[1] Albert F. Maclean Jr., American Vaudeville as Ritual (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1965), 2.
[2] “The Stage: Julian Eltinge. He Comes to the [sic] Detroit In The Fascinating Widow,” Detroit Free Press, February 11, 1912, C10. Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4]F.D., “Captain M. W. Plunkett present ‘The Dumbells,’ Detroit Free Press, October 10, 1921, 6.
[5] Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 194.
[6] Determining the precise number of Black Canadians in the region is quite difficult, but by the early 1900s, Windsor had become a significant hub for Black Canadians, particularly from those immigrating from the United States in search of economic opportunity or fleeing racial segregation. Chatham, located nearby Windsor, also had (and continues to have) a notable Black community. Chatham has a long history of Black settlement, dating back to the early 19th century when Black refugees from the United States, including those who escaped slavery, settled in the area. The communities in Chatham and Windsor both played prominent roles in the Underground Railroad network. See J. Blaine Hudson, “Canada” in Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad (Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland & Company, 2006), 54 and 90.
[7] “Blackface Star Heads New Revue,” Border Cities Star, October 9, 1923, 12.
[8] “Dumbells a Memory but Stars still Shine,” Windsor Daily Star, July 13, 1938, 6.