"Not Maid in Panama"
Black Women's Representation in the Panama Canal Museum Collection
Fruit Peddlers in Panama Canal Zone, date unknown (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2013-011-009)
This exhibit represents women, especially Black women, at work and leisure, in the Panama Canal Zone to identify how these women’s expressions and presence disrupts colonial, US-based archival narratives about them. Though these women are meant to be subjects in records and archives, they are not passive. Their appearance shows a range of emotions such as defiance, control, laughter and that demonstrate their activeness and agency. The exhibit shows Black women’s experiences as embodied in their labor, activity and work. Their work contrasts with white women’s domesticated experiences as officers’ and engineers’ wives in the Zone. While the elite women domesticated Panama through dinner parties and Church activities, Black women are in the outdoors and claim space through labor on the land.
The title of the exhibit plays on Sue Core’s Maid in Panama (1938) to counter the stereotypes projected about Black women and foreground these women's experiences. Maid in Panama is a collection of stories compiled by Sue Core and written by white American women who lived in the Canal Zone. The stories reveal the unequal racial and class dynamics in the domestic sphere in which white women employed Black women as domestic workers. The writers narrated their domestic concerns in dealing with servants, but the stories reveal how white women attempted to control and “civilize” Black women in the domestic sphere.
“the colonial state archive both mediates and subsumes the uncertainties of liberal and imperial governance; in it, one reads the predicaments, both known and unknown, that give rise to the calculations, strategies, forms, and practices of imperial rule” (Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents, 4-5).
This exhibit reveals the way institutional archives display the tension between dominant colonial narratives and the marginal narratives of workers. The Panama Canal Museum Collection at the University of Florida libraries attempt to dislodge the colonial narratives but to do so, archivists and librarians still must rely on the archives generated by white expatriates or Zonians or North Americans who saw Black workers as “uncivilized”. However, in interrogating these archives and identifying women’s resistance or the sheer diversity of their roles we hope to dislodge that narrative.
Birds-eye View of the Maritime Canal and the Isthmus of Panama, 1902 (Map & Imagery Library, G4872.P3 1902 .M8, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00076775)
Souvenir pictures of West Indian women were intended for North American or European tourists to promote a creolized West Indian womanhood replete with costumes and markers of exoticism. This represents a visual consumption of women as representative of the land, culture and they embody a timeless space. However, women's representation as creole could also have empowering connotations as noted by Pamela R. Franco in her discussion of the women's flamboyant outfits in the Carnival:
'The Martinican dress connoted many things. For black women, it allowed them a certain visibility and an opportunity for self-identification. They may have also used the dress as “an ideological weapon” in the constant power struggle with the local white authorities.' (Franco, "The Martinican: Dress and Politics in Nineteenth-century Trinidad Carnival", 72)
Three souvenir booklet images featuring West Indian women in "costume", date unknown (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II-2018-078-009 and II-2019-017-001)
However, even in tourist photographs, women’s expressions disrupt the narrative of colonial record keeping. In this photograph, the girl shows annoyance and surprise. Her expression indicates that she might have been pictured without her consent or enthusiasm. Her disagreement with the process of being photographed is recorded, though her photograph was intended only to represent an exotic image of Black women and children.
Photograph with caption: "Young girl standing in a street," date unknown (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II-2019-999-118)
Cookbooks from the 1960s and 1970s in the Panama Canal Museum Collection demonstrate a feminized colonial narrative of life the Panama Canal Zone. Through these recipes, a class of women comprising officer’s wives presented a lavish domesticated life that was completely at odds with the working class of the Panama Canal Zone.
"From Our Panama Kitchens" cookbook, Howard/Albrook Officer Wives Club (HAOWC) (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II.2019.999.69)
These cookbooks were collectively written and published by Officers' Wives Clubs, where elite white women participated in church activities and garden parties.
This is an excerpt from a cookbook "Here's To Us" that shows the names of contributors, who collaboratively created the book.
"Here's To Us" cookbook, 1987 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II.2018.14.1)
There were several clubs and each created its own recipe book.
"Quarry Heights Officers' Wives' Club Cookbook," 1978 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II.2019.13.2)
Women who attended the same church created a cookbook for that church, for private distribution or charity sales.
"Angelfood from St. Hilda's" cookbook, Cathedral of St. Luke (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2010.020.001)
The cookbooks of the women's club represent a cultural space of American expatriates who enjoyed a very glamorous life. Hindi Diamond, the woman journalist with The Panama American, writes about the exciting nightlife and garden parties of the elite Americans in her memoir, GrinGa: My Love Affair with Panama. The same world is represented in a domesticated way in the cookbooks.
"Ways to Wonderful Food" cookbook, Inter American Geodetic Survey Womens Club of the Canal Zone, 1974 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II.2018.13.1)
These cookbooks evoked a world of garden parties and church gatherings. They offered quick party recipes indicating that these parties were common and thus, women needed to be ready for them all the time.
"Favorite Recipes" cookbook, HHC LEA Spouse Support Group, date unknown (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2014.5.1)
The Panama Canal Tropical Cookbook published by the Canal Zone College Club offers some party recipes by men. This uncommon contribution arranged by women show the deep investment of the Zonians in the domestic space.
"Panama Canal Tropical Cookbook," Canal Zone College Club, 1915 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002.029.015)
These varied recipes show that men contributed their favorite recipes, which are not linked to the daily tasks of cooking. They are meant for special occasions.
Women published and distributed cookbooks as small scale business enterprises. These books were meant to encourage and instruct readers to learn the mechanisms of cooking and become better at the craft.
"Here's To Us" cookbook, 1987 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II.2018.14.1)
They contain instruction on cuts of meat and how distinguish between them as well as how to cut pieces of meat.
"From Our Panama Kitchens" cookbook, Howard/Albrook Officer Wives Club (HAOWC) (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II.2019.999.69)
Some provide practical advice to use leftovers.
Some provide measurement quantities and their conversion in different systems.
Some cookbooks contained coupons and order forms for discounts on various items.
"The Gorgas Gourmet " cookbook, 1992 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, II.2018.17.1)
The Introduction of the Panama Tropical Cookbook claims why it is important for women to become competent homemakers.
These cookbooks also demonstrate how the concept of "native" was transferred as "exotic" onto food.
"Favorite Recipes of Friendship Circle" cookbook, Balboa Union Church, date unknown (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2010.020.001)
For example, in the Balboa Union Church Cookbook (undated, possibly early twentieth century), a few "East Indian" recipes are included at the end of the book to add an exotic flavor. This inclusion indicates a domestication of the Indian colony by Zonian women in the Panama Canal Zone.
Recipe describing fried dough to be served with curries.
A rice recipe in the Balboa Church cookbook.
Chicken Curry recipe.
The recipes are from the Panama Tropical Cookbook and these recipes are separately categorized under the label of "Native" recipes.
In sharp contrast to this domestication of the Panama Canal Zone, Black women's labor in the Canal Zone depicts a range of human experience and emotions. In the poetry collection, An Old Woman Remembers…: The Recollected History of West Indians in Panama 1855-1955, Carlos Russell shows the stark differences between Black and white populations by emphasizing the evaluation of their labor in silver and gold: "Gold was better than Silver./ Everything was separated./Them had gold commissaries,/We had silver commissaries." Russell ends with "A Black man was a janitor,/a white man a maintenance engineer."
In these pictures, Black women engage in different roles and moods. They express humor, anger, laughter and capability as they clean, wash, sell and enjoy breaks or festivals. Alongside pictures of working class women, there are also pictures of professional women such as teachers in Latin American Schools.
The woman in the picture is a proprietress of a boarding house and she displays some economic independence and command over her space. The picture is titled on the back “Interior view of restaurant showing proprietress” with a date that says March 17, 1930. The woman is neatly dressed and is going about her day’s work. The items that are placed on the table before her suggests that the business is going well.
Photograph with caption: "Interior view of restaurant showing proprietress," March 17, 1930 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2003-017-030-002, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI008135)
This 1907 picture by Underwood and Underwood is titled Native Indian women washing clothes at a spring near Panama City, Panama and the title on the verso is Indian washerwomen at work in Panama. It shows a group of women washing clothes. The formal elements of the picture suggest a touristic gaze cast on the women. The brief narrative on the verso derides the hardships and resourcefulness and labor of the women. Yet, the women are busy at work and are bemused at the camera. The women's reaction reveal that the camera is invasive and unwelcome.
"Native Indian women washing clothes at a spring near Panama City, Panama," Underwood and Underwood, 1907 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2013.2.68, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00015188)
The women in the picture look deeply annoyed, bemused and angry at the intrusion of the camera. This is because the camera invades their privacy at the moment when they are in an awkward posture of washing clothes. Their body language suggest confidence, and defiance as well as discomfort.
"Native Washerwomen, Isthmus of Panama," date unknown (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2004-034-004-007)
While women contributed their labor in the Panama Canal Zone to sustain the local economy, their distant picturization also erases their labor. In this 1908 picture, the mother travels with her children to sell bananas. Her labor is twofold: one that is situated in the market and the other that of mothering.
"Natives Crossing Chagres to Sell Bananas, Panama, October 18, 1908" (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2016-066-047)
Selling fruits was laborious because it required women to travel with baskets of fruits selling from door to door.
"Selling Bananas At Culebra," date unknown (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2013-001-633)
There are powerful moments of joy especially in pictures of female children and women in everyday life and in festivals and carnivals. For example, this is a picture taken in Colon, April 1934 of three girls who are enjoying a beverage and are clearly excited to have their picture taken.
"Three of a Kind, All Smiles," April 1934 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2011-010-039)
The girls have dressed up ready to enjoy the Carnival in Colon in 1948. While one of them is distracted by other children, another glances at the camera conscious of being photographed.
Photograph of children during Carnival in Colon, 1948 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2014-011-001)
Middle-class black women are represented significantly in school education, especially in the pictures of 1950s and 1960s onwards. Many women taught in the "Latin-American" schools attended by the West Indian population. Schooling in the Panama Canal Zone 1904-1979 states that the Panama Canal West Indian Employees' Association made efforts to improve the school system among other issues.
On the right is a picture of Pat Nixon's (wife of U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon) visit to Paraiso Elementary School.
Photograph from a photo album relating to Latin American Schoolsof Pat Nixon visiting a classroom at Paraiso Elementary School, February 24, 1955 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002-022-008h, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI006516)
Miss Elsie Graham's class at Paraiso Elementary.
Photograph from a photo album relating to Latin American Schools of Acting Governor Paxson's visit to Elsie Graham's Third Grade Class, Paraiso Elementary School, October 8, 1954 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002-022-008j, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI006516)
Women played significant roles as administrators and teachers.
Photograph from a photo album relating to Latin American Schools, circa 1950s (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002-022-008ae, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI006516)
Administrators at school.
Photograph from a photo album relating to Latin American Schools of Panamanian teachers visiting Paraiso Elementary School, March 12, 1954 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002-022-008m, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI006516)
Women teachers sharing a lighthearted moment.
Miss Sadie Springer's class at Paraiso Elementary.
Photograph from a photo album relating to Latin American Schools of Sadie Springer's Art class and visiting Panamanian teachers, Paraiso Elementary School, March 12, 1954 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002-022-008n, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI006516)
Emily Butcher was an important teacher and her life and service impacted many students.
Photograph from a photo album relating to Latin American Schools of teacher Emily Butcher (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002-022-008q, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI006516)
Ms. Butcher at a scholarship banquet of 1965.
Photograph from a photo album relating to Latin American Schools of teacher Emily Butcher at a scholarship banquet (Panama Canal Museum Collection, 2002-022-008v, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/PCMI006516)
Paraiso Elementary School. Emily Butcher, Music Supervisor in the Latin American Schools, Panama Canal Review, April 1, 1955 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00097366)
La Boca Alumni Chorus with director Emily E. Butcher, Panama Canal Review, June 1, 1956 (Panama Canal Museum Collection, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00097366)
In this exhibit, I show black women in different decades beginning with early twentieth century to the mid twentieth century. I have plotted the different photographs from the UFDC and the Pan Caribbean Sankofa Gallery to create a narrative of women experiences. The photographs record different aspects of their life and living including labor, joy and their roles as workers, mothers and teachers. There are other sources that record women's presence and more generally, people's lives, in the Panama Canal Zone such as the Gamboa Reunion Gallery .
Amrita Bandopadhyay is a PhD candidate at the Department of English at University of Florida. Her research interests include Caribbean and South Asian Literature, Postcolonial Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies. She teaches courses on literature and composition.
