Carnival Strippers
New England, 1972-1975.
From 1972 to 1975, I spent my summers photographing and interviewing women who performed striptease for small town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. As I followed the girl shows from town to town, I photographed the dancers' public performances as well as their private lives. I also taped interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers, and paying customers.
-S.M.
Woodstock, Vermont, 1973
The managers, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1974
Variant for "Team Dream," Woodstock, Vermont, 1973
Notes on fair schedule for Carnival Strippers, 1973
The women I met ranged in age from seventeen to thirty-five. Most had left small towns, seeking mobility, money and something different from what was prescribed or proscribed by their lives that the carnival allowed them to leave. They were runaways, girlfriends of carnies, club dancers, both transient and professional.
They worked out of a traveling box, a truck that unfolded to form two stages, one opening to the public carnival grounds, another concealed under a tent for a private audience. A dressing room stands between them. Again and again, throughout the day and night, the woman performers moved from the front stage, with its bally call—the talker's spiel that entices the crowd—to the stage, where they each perform for the duration of a 45 pop record.
(From Carnival Strippers book, 1976)
Competing for clients, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1975.
Lulu and Debbie, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Playing strong, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1975
Lena after the show, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
Notes on Lena, date unknown
Patty's Show, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Lena on the Bally Box, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
Alternate for "Lena" or "Tom with Lena on the Bally Box," Barton, Vermont, 1974
Ready for the last show, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
Taken by the crowd, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Ideas for sound recordings, 1973
Contact sheet of dressing room, Fryeburg, Maine, 1975
Between show, Fryeburg, Maine, 1975
The all-male audience typically included farmers, bankers, fathers, and sons, but "no ladies and no babies." The degree of suggestion on the front stage and participation on the back stage under the tent varied greatly from town to town, depending on legislation and local leniency. The show stayed at each spot for three to five days each year; then the carnival was torn down, the truck packed up, and the women followed.
(From Carnival Strippers book, 1976)
Lena, Barton, Vermont, 1974
Notes on Men, date unknown
The Wives, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1974
Curtain call, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
Shortie and Larry getting ready, Showhegan, Maine, 1973
Lena's notes on her audio transcription, 1975
Lena, on break, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
The Bally call, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Before the show, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Gawker, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Notes, date unknown
Shortie in the Bally, Barton, Vermont, 1974
“Backstage or on stage, before show and after, Meiselas handles the charged material with the precision of computing a complex equation, mindful of mystification and deprivation but never letting either take charge, always focusing on the person who animates the idea.”
—Buffalo Evening News, June 4, 1975 by Anthony Bannon
Late Show, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
Shortie, Presque Isle, Maine, 1973
Variant for "Waiting for the Tent to Fill," Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
The Girl Show, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Playboy Book Club, November 1976
“Carnival Strippers does not stoop to whining about what men do to women, anymore than the Nicaraguan work descends to the level of anti-Somoza propaganda. In both cases Meiselas portrays a subtler and more basic contest, in which the universal drive toward decency contends against the lower forms of lust, and the conventional hypocrisies. The work is political but not polemical.”
—American Photographer, March 1981 by Laurence Shames
Notes on portraits, date unknown
Susan photographing Ginger, Essex Junction, Vermont, by Cate Mother, 1975
Snapshot of Susan Meiselas and Ginger, by Cate Mother, 1975
Ginger, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1975
Tunbridge, Vermont, 1975
Sammy, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1974
Mitzi, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Coffee, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1975
Lena's first day. Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
Lena, third season, Lehighton, Pennsylvania, 1975
Contact sheet of Lena's first day, Essex Junction, VT, 1973
Contact sheet of Lena's third season, Lehighton, PA, 1975
Lulu, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
Snapshot of Lulu, date unknown
Lulu's photo captions, 1975
Snapshot of Lulu, date unknown
Snapshot of Lulu, date unknown
Glossary of Girl Show Terms, 1975
From "Carnival Women", date unknown
From "Carnival Women", date unknown
From "Carnival Women", date unknown
The first edition of Carnival Strippers was 150 pages with seventy-three images and was published in French and English editions. Critics in the United States lauded the book as "depressing though definitely illuminating" and a "fine and compassionate documentary."
- Sylvia Wolf, from Carnival Strippers 2nd edition, 2003
Storyboard, 1975
Captions for Lena, 1975
Test cover, 1975
Carnival Strippers book cover, 1st edition, 1976
Book dummy, title page, 1975
Title spread from Carnival Strippers, 2nd Edition, 2003
Spread, pages 14-15, from Carnival Strippers, 2nd Edition, 2003
Spread, pages 124-125, from Carnival Strippers, 2nd Edition, 2003
Within a few years of its publication, two plays – one in the United States and one in France – were produced based on Carnival Strippers. Ricardo E. Velez directed the Everyman Company of Brooklyn, New York, in a production of Strippers in May 1977. (A different production, titled Strip et Boniment, was directed by Judith DePaule for the company Sentimental Bourreau and performed in Paris and Nancy, France, in 1991.)
- Sylvia Wolf, from Carnival Strippers 2nd edition, 2003
Poster for the play adaptation of Carnival Strippers, 1977
Scene from Carnival Strippers play
Scene from Carnival Strippers play
Scene from Carnival Strippers play
