Dean Worcester's Fantasy Islands

 

Photography, Film, and the Colonial Philippines
 

Mark Rice

 

The strongest force keeping the Philippines under American control in the early 20th century may have come from a camera.

From 1901 to 1913, Dean Worcester amassed thousands of photographs of "savage" Filipinos. These were subsequently circulated throughout the United States in various articles, books, and lectures. By imposing his own interpretations on his photographs, Worcester changed the way an entire Western nation viewed our people.