"Tanganyika for an African Holiday" Brochure, 1958
Unknown Artist
Ink on paper
Courtesy of the Todd Webb Archive L2020.85.3
Not on View
The racialized visual imagery of this brochure, which Webb saved from his trip, reinforces colonialist stereotypes of African people. Featuring the disembodied, smiling head of a Maasai ilmoran (warrior) on a bright background, the pamphlet promotes the ideology of cultural tourism. It exoticizes the ilmoran’s plaited hair, the large beaded hoops pierced through the top of the ear, and visibly stretched left earhole, and objectifies the individual to advertise a Tanganyikan (Tanzanian) holiday.
Such imagery may have influenced what Webb believed he would find on the African continent—a distillation of what he described in his journal as “Africanness”—and reinforced the expectations of Euro-Americans travelers for whom the brochure was created.
Image: In Copyright–Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable. Courtesy of the Todd Webb Archive