ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a few examples of the way Africa is portrayed in images. Beginning with images from the nineteenth century and continuing to recent times, readers will see that the popular views of Africa have become less racist and evolutionist. In fact, it is increasingly rare to see advertisements evoke African primitiveness or wild animals other than in travel and photography ads. During the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Ota Benga, a Twa man found in the Congo by the American explorer Samuel Phillips Verner, was brought to the United States and put on display in the African Village at the World's Fair. The placement of Africans on display, whether alone or with animals, connected scientific racism to popular racism. North African women were encouraged to pose with erotic and provocative gazes, the better to communicate to the viewer of the postcard the idea that they were ready and willing to fulfill the sexual pleasures of European men.
