Meaning, memory and misogyny: LIFE photographer Hansel Mieth's monkey portrait

Afterimage, Sept-Oct, 2005 by Dolores Flamiano

Billings, South Carolina-born and Harvard-educated, was known for his editorial talent and his strongly held prejudices. Thompson praised his "consummate editing abilities" and former editor Loudon Wainwright lauded his "extraordinary gifts as the editor," (42) Wainwright echoed other LIFE insiders when he observed Billings' fondness for Shirley Temple and trains and his aversion to Indians:

    He certainly wasn't a man of elegant tastes or loftly editorial
    purposes. His favorite actress was Shirley Temple, the dimpled and
    curly-haired child star, and he was so interested in railroads and
    everything about them that his obsession became something of a staff
    joke, as was his antipathy toward American Indians--or more
    correctly toward pictures of Indians, which he felt were usually so
    faked and old-hat that they should never appear in LIFE. (43)

His prejudices extended well beyond Indians. As noted by author Michael F. Lane, a sympathetic observer, "Billings was democratic in his prejudice against people who weren't like him." (44) His diaries are replete with examples of his racist views. For instance, on a boat trip to Puerto Rico, Billings complained about the locals, calling them "greasy ugly people whom I see I am not going to like." (45) He expressed similar views on other minorities. As Lane noted, "Billings did not have a Southern drawl, but his Southern sentiments ran deep. In his Time-Life office above his desk were two pictures, one the Confederate flag, the other a sketch of the cross section of a ship with detailed instructions on how to completely pack a slave ship for maximum profit." (46)

Billings took many pictures of the African Americans who worked on his ancestral home in South Carolina (formerly a slave plantation). A portrait of Patience, one of his black maids, appears in a personal photo album, with a caption written by Billings: "It sho' look like a monkey, but it look like me, too." (47) This caption and the thinking behind it shed light on Billings' selection of the monkey photograph. This example clearly illustrates the construction of people of color as "primitives, more closely connected to the apes than the white race." (48) It is worth noting that Billings' sentiments were widely shared and the captions that appeared in LIFE under the images of people of color were often openly racist throughout the 1930s and '40s. Mieth, however, was committed to racial equality and complained bitterly about the racism she observed in the pages of the magazine and in the editorial offices. (49)

In addition to the misogynist and racist jokes, an inside joke among LIFE staffers was that the monkey bore an uncanny resemblance to Luce. According to Susan Ehrens, a photo historian who interviewed Mieth, the evolution of the rhesus monkey story was bitterly ironic for Mieth. It resulted in her most famous photo, but utterly sacrificed the assignment's scientific significance:

    When she returned to New York with her extensive study of the
    primates, she was horrified by the misuse of the photographs by her
    editors at LIFE. It seemed that Alex King, one of the writers on the
    staff, decided that when angry, the publisher Henry Luce resembled
    the monkey in Hansel's most famous photograph.... It also appeared
    in U.S. Camera, titled "Mad Monkey." It has since been reprinted by
    LIFE numerous times, most recently in the 50-year anniversary issue
    and Hansel notes, "It's one of their prized possessions." (50) When
    Loengard asked Mieth if she thought the monkey looks like Luce, she
    replied "I didn't see Luce that much. He had lots of other things to
    do rather than talk with photographers. The photographers were a low
    group of animals then." (51) This is an interesting word choice,
    given that by comparing Luce to the monkey, the LIFE staff turned
    the tables on their boss, calling attention to his well-known lack
    of humanity. Indeed, Luce was despised by several close associates,
    a fact that may have contributed to the popularity of the inside
    joke. Billings, for instance, frequently complained about Luce. A
    typical diary entry stated, "I hate Luce's guts for being a hard
    cold selfish devil." (52)