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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Contact frame of Lena on the Bally, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Book dummy for first edition of Carnival Strippers, page 1, 1975
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Book dummy for first edition of Carnival Strippers, page 2-3, 1975
Making Of is a partial recovery, both of what was eliminated and what was nearly forgotten. The first section shares a visual selection of some early color images and work prints, initially considered for inclusion in the original book but not chosen or seen again until this publication. These photographs were buried, along with the many memories of the exchanges and relationships that helped me find and shape my future path in photography to become a practice of presence. I learned to merge listening and looking, with the hope of expanding perspectives of what are often invisible worlds.
- S.M., August 2021
![Susan Meiselas, field notebook, 1973–75]()
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Susan Meiselas, field notebook, 1973–75
![The Tent, Essex Junction, Vermont , September 1974]()
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The Tent, Essex Junction, Vermont, September 1974
![Susan Meiselas, field notebook, 1973–75]()
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Susan Meiselas, field notebook, 1973–75
![Star and Garter I, Essex Junction, Vermont , September 1974]()
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Star and Garter I, Essex Junction, Vermont, September 1974
By virtue of the date of its production, its material fabrication—black-and-white analog photography, a hand-held Leica—and its depiction of a now-vanished milieu, Carnival Strippers has become a historical document. This means that its diverse components, including photographs, sound recordings, written transcriptions, and correspondence between Meiselas and her subjects, have come together (and now more or less live together) as a particular archive. As an archive—and as Meiselas emphasized in the eponymous title of her 2008 exhibition and catalog—the photographer and her subjects are inescapably embedded In History.
- Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Reading Carnival Strippers in 2021”
![Girl Show Pin-Up, Barton, Vermont , August 1974]()
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Girl Show Pin-Up, Barton, Vermont, August 1974
![American Girl, Barton, Vermont , August 1974]()
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American Girl, Barton, Vermont, August 1974
![Club Flamingo, Essex Junction, Vermont , August 1973]()
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Club Flamingo, Essex Junction, Vermont, August 1973
![Susan Meiselas, research from file card collection]()
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Susan Meiselas, research from file card collection
![Star and Garter II, Woodstock, Vermont , August 1973]()
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Star and Garter II, Woodstock, Vermont, August 1973
Based on the analysis of the archive, this project can now be understood as an ethnological long-term study in which letters, interviews, and friendships are documented in a textual and visual diary…Similar to an experiment, Meiselas considered which options produced a better sounding board. The gaze of this woman on the lives of other women becomes a profound exchange that is reflected in many documents: for years several of the women sent her letters, photographs, and other memories from the period, demonstrating that they were interested in continuing the exchange. In this way Meiselas’s campaign turned into a long-term project, one of the most profound examination of social issues of economy, gender relationships, and image culture in contemporary photography.
- Felix Hoffmann, "Revisiting Susan Meiselas’s Carnival Strippers," 2021
![Susan Meiselas, notes for sound recordings, 1973]()
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Susan Meiselas, notes for sound recordings, 1973
![Gay New Orleans Bally Call, Brockton, Massachusetts , June 1972]()
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Gay New Orleans Bally Call, Brockton, Massachusetts, June 1972
![Transcription of audiotape with Joe the Barker]()
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Transcription of audiotape with Joe the Barker
![The Star Tease, Tunbridge, Vermont , 1975]()
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The Star Tease, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1975
![Transcription of audiotape with Lisa]()
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Transcription of audiotape with Lisa
![Donned, Allentown, Pennsylvania , August 1972]()
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Donned, Allentown, Pennsylvania, August 1972
![Doffed, Allentown, Pennsylvania , August 1972]()
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Doffed, Allentown, Pennsylvania, August 1972
There were many long days, sitting around waiting for the night, with nothing to do except watch the crowd gather or the tent fill. There was the boredom, their alienation, and the slow connection I felt while accompanying the women, sustained by hearing about and seeing the contradictions their work imposed, witnessing them perform their sexuality, and wondering about my own.
- S.M., August 2021
![Slow Night at Club Flamingo, Essex Junction, Vermont , 1973]()
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Slow Night at Club Flamingo, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973
![Shortie Waits, Essex Junction, Vermon t, September 1973]()
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Shortie Waits, Essex Junction, Vermont, September 1973
![Shortie Watches, Essex Junction, Vermont , September 1973]()
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Shortie Watches, Essex Junction, Vermont, September 1973
The last section of Making Of is a look backwards into the bookmaking: it flows from the proofs with printer notations, to contacts sheets—still marked with initials, including L for Lena and T for Tom, or grease pencils of various editing preferences. These are complemented with pages from my handwritten field notebook, selected correspondence, quotes from initial historical research, as well as typed transcriptions of extensive audio recordings.
- S.M., August 2021
![Susan Meiselas, field notebook, 1973–75]()
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Susan Meiselas, field notebook, 1973–75
![Stack of printer’s pr...e Bally, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Stack of printer’s proofs with Lena on the Bally, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Contact sheet with Mitzi, Tunbridge, Vermont , 1974]()
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Contact sheet with Mitzi, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
![Printer's proof of&...itzi, Tunbridge, Vermont , 1974]()
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© 2025 Susan Meiselas
Printer's proof of Mitzi, Tunbridge, Vermont, 1974
![Contact sheet with Le...e Crowd, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Contact sheet with Lena Waiting for the Crowd, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Work print of Lena Waiting for the Crowd, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Work print of Lena Waiting for the Crowd, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Contact sheet with Lena Looking Out, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Contact sheet with Lena Looking Out, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Work print of Lena Looking Out, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Work print of Lena Looking Out, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Contact sheet with Giving Herself, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Contact sheet with Giving Herself, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Work print of Giving Herself, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Work print of Giving Herself, Barton, Vermont, 1974
Contact sheets share a feeling of time, my waiting for “a decisive moment,” while revealing the misses and my mind’s eye at work. Making Of begins to peel back some of the layers, reclaiming my belief in the possibility of mutual engagement with both subjects and readers through photography. Every choice becomes an act to recover and reveal oneself alongside others.
- S.M., August 2021
![Shortie Takes over the Bally, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Shortie Takes over the Bally, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Contact frame of Shortie on the Bally, Barton, Vermont , 1974]()
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Contact frame of Shortie on the Bally, Barton, Vermont, 1974
![Tent Entrance for Star and Garter, Essex Junction, Vermont , 1974]()
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Tent Entrance for Star and Garter, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1974
![Contact frame with The Managers... Essex Junction, Vermont , 1974]()
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Contact frame with The Managers, Star and Garter, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1974
![Lena Waits for a Break, Essex Junction, Vermont , September 1973]()
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Lena Waits for a Break, Essex Junction, Vermont, September 1973
![Contact frame with Le...ction, Vermont , September 1973]()
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Contact frame with Lena on Break, Essex Junction, Vermont, September 1973
In my subsequent letter to Patty, the manager who opened the door to the girl shows, I acknowledge that “in places the work is caught by my naivete, that which made it possible and necessary to do.” Although I was hopeful that viewers would consider the subtlety of what was portrayed, I wrote to Patty that what is “even more important will be what you and others will think and feel.” Patty, Shortie and Lena, and the others I came to know best are no longer here, but I feel their presence in my interrogation of the past and in the dialogue about this edition. Our time together was a gift.
- S.M., August 2021
![Susan Meiselas, letter to Patty, August 22, 1976]()
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Susan Meiselas, letter to Patty, August 22, 1976
![Susan Meiselas, letter to Patty, August 22, 1976]()
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Susan Meiselas, letter to Patty, August 22, 1976
Meiselas’s approach radiates and reaches another generation that strives to look at history with other means in order to find new ways to tell it and to test her own limits. The greatest gift is that we are now aware of the images and documents that show this process, with which one can see how a generation tried to actively liberate itself from the dregs of visual codes and limitations.
- Felix Hoffmann, "Revisiting Susan Meiselas's Carnival Strippers," 2021
![Stage Show at Casa del Rio, Tunbridge, Vermont , September 1975]()
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Stage Show at Casa del Rio, Tunbridge, Vermont, September 1975
![Night Ends at Casa del Rio, Tunbridge, Vermont , September 1975]()
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Night Ends at Casa del Rio, Tunbridge, Vermont, September 1975
