The Statue of Liberty, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and San Francisco’s Chinatown Theatres

No need to go into the history of the Statue of Liberty here (an endless Wikipedia entry here) but what of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s, the statue’s sculptor, view of the Chinese? Probably not a question you’ve ever asked yourself. Me neither. But I happened to read Elizabeth Mitchell’s e-book on the history of Bartholdi and the statue, Lady With a Past, and she describes Bartholdi’s travels across the United States raising funds to erect the statue. Bartholdi pitched up in San Francisco for a  couple of days but apparently found the Chinese quarter (Chinatown) “astonishing immoral”. Bartholdi, a Frenchman, wrote rather disparagingly of the Chinese community of California in the 1870s:

“Yesterday I went with a number of Frenchman to a Chinese theatre, a real Chinese theatre. It was horribly funny – music that would make your hair stand on end, fantastic yapping and meowing, extravagant costumes and make-ups, like the most extraordinary brightly coloured Chinese figurines. The effect was beautiful in colour. We were surrounded by Chinese whose pig-tails hung over the backs of the benches were they were seated. All the time we were there we felt like scratching ourselves. I had the satisfaction, however, of leaving the theatre without having taken anything away from my neighbours.”

Not sure which Chinese theatre in San Francisco Bartholdi went to – but probably one of these:

The Washington Street Theatre

The Jackson Street Theatre

Chinese actors in San Francisco Chinatown