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Black-and-white Photograph of a Man Mounted on a Donkey
This image, attributed to R.Y. Young, circa 1900, shows a man sitting on a donkey facing the camera. Its most interesting feature is its caption, which identifies the man in the photograph as a “modern” Arab on his “steed.” The obvious sarcasm of the photograph’s caption suggests simplicity and ignorance rather than modernity, and the message it imparts is consistent with the essentialist notion of Arab “backwardness,” the idea that Arab culture is stubbornly primitive and incapable of adapting to the modern world.
Middle-School Social Studies Handout, North Chicago Suburbs, 1987
Name: The Modern Arab and His Steed
Material: 1 photographic print on stereo card: stereograph, gelatin silver
Size: Unknown
Date: 1900
Place of Origin: American Stereoscopic Company, Publisher
Location: New York City
Source and Registration#: Library of Congress. Link to resource
(accessed June 24, 2010). Prints and Photographs Online. Call number: LOT 13710-2, no. 54
John Woods
Professor of Iranian and Central Asian History and of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago
Alexander Barna
Outreach Coordinator, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago
