A British Burlesque Artist in Belle Époque Cairo

featuring Gwendolyn Collaço

with Andras Riedlmayer and Paul Drummond

| While killing time at the Booksellers' Row in Westminster, historian and curator Gwendolyn Collaço stumbled on a collection of postcards from early 20th-century Egypt, some featuring the British burlesque artist Miss Kitty Lord. When she realized that the postcards were a set belonging to a single person — none other than Kitty Lord herself — the chance discovery became a research quest that culminated in an exhibition at Harvard University Library, presenting a visual time capsule of Belle Époque Cairo that mapped the social and romantic life of a fascinating and little-known figure. In this episode from the Ottoman History Podcast vault, Collaço discusses what she uncovered about Kitty Lord through collaborations with the historian and bibliographer András Riedlmayer and memorobilia shop owner Paul Drummond, who appear in the podcast to share their side of the story.   

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While killing time at the Booksellers' Row in Westminster, historian and curator Gwendolyn Collaço stumbled on a collection of postcards from early 20th-century Egypt, some featuring the British burlesque artist Miss Kitty Lord. When she realized that the postcards were a set belonging to a single person — none other than Kitty Lord herself — the chance discovery became a research quest that culminated in an exhibition at Harvard University Library, presenting a visual time capsule of Belle Époque Cairo that mapped the social and romantic life of a fascinating and little-known figure. In this episode from the Ottoman History Podcast vault, Collaço discusses what she uncovered about Kitty Lord through collaborations with the historian and bibliographer András Riedlmayer and memorobilia shop owner Paul Drummond, who appear in the podcast to share their side of the story.

Contributor Bios

Gwendolyn Collaço is the Anne S.K. Brown Curator for Military and Society at Brown University. She holds a joint Ph.D. in the History of Art & Architecture and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. She specializes in early modern Islamicate manuscripts and print culture with an emphasis on the circulation of works on paper via the art market in Istanbul. She curates across museum and library collections, as well as international art festivals, like the Azerbaijan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2026). Her published work appears in journals, such as Ars Orientalis, Muqarnas, and several edited volumes.

András J. Riedlmayer served as director of the Documentation Center for Islamic Architecture of the Aga Khan Program at Harvard University's Fine Arts Library for 35 years until his retirement in 2020.

Paul Drummond is owner of Pleasures of Past Times shop in London.

Michael Talbot is Associate Professor in the History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Middle East at University of Greenwich.

Chris Gratien is Associate Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches classes on global environmental history and the Middle East. His first book, The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier, explores the social and environmental transformation of the Adana region of Southern Turkey during the 19th and 20th century.

Shireen Hamza is an historian, artist and organizer living in Chicago. She teaches with the Prison & Neighborhood Arts & Education Project, organizes with a community bail fund, and participates in the disability dance community. She completed her PhD in Harvard's History of Science department and continued her research on medicine and environment in the medieval Islamic world through a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University’s Science in Human Culture program. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow with a research group based in Melbourne, “Pursuing Public Health in the Preindustrial World, 1100-1800.”

Credits

Episode No. 578
Release Date: 9 January 2025
Recording Location: Harvard University
Produced by Chris Gratien and Shireen Hamza
78 rpm recordings featured in podcast: Kahraman - Weno El Habib Weno & Yaba Albi; Halim al-Rumi - Ya Mkahel Remshak
Images and bibliography courtesy of Gwendolyn Collaço

Images

The postcards below are from Kitty Lord's trips to Cairo. Listen to the podcast and visit Gwendolyn Collaço's exhibition on Archnet to learn more!

Further Listening

	Ziad Fahmy	557 12/20/23	The Politics of Street Sounds in Interwar Egypt The Sound of Revolution in Modern Egypt
	Lucia Carminati	551 9/28/23	Life and Labor on the Suez Canal
	Robyn Dora Radway	465 7/5/20	Mementos from Habsburg Life in Ottoman Istanbul
	Mary Roberts	445 1/18/20	Ottomans, Orientalists, and 19th-Century Visual Culture
	Burcu Karahan	448 2/7/20	Freedom and Desire in Late Ottoman Erotica
	András Riedlmayer	305 3/9/17	Documenting the Destruction of Balkan Waqf Institutions
	Gwendolyn Collaço	262 8/25/16	Festivals and the Waterfront in 18th Century Istanbul

Select Bibliography

Albert, Magdy. "The Urban Development of the Azbakiyya Perimeter from Azbak to Abbas II." M.A. Thesis, American University in Cairo, 2000.

Amīn, Aḥmad. Qāmūs al-‘Ādāt wa’l-Taqālīd wa’l-Ta’ābīr al-Miṣriyya. 2nd edition. Cairo, 1953. Cited in Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. Azbakiyya and Its Environs : From Azbak to Ismāʻīl, 1476-1879. Supplément Aux Annales Islamologiques, Cahier No 6. Le Caire: Institut Français D'archéologie Orientale, 1985, 18-19.

Baedeker, Karl. Egypt and the Sudân: Handbook for Travellers. 6th ed. Leipzig, New York: K. Baedeker; C. Scribner's Sons, 1908.

Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. Azbakiyya and Its Environs: From Azbak to Ismāʻīl, 1476-1879. Supplément Aux Annales Islamologiques, Cahier No 6. Le Caire: Institut Français D'archéologie Orientale, 1985.

Breward, Christopher. Fashioning London: Clothing and the Modern Metropolis. Oxford: Berg, 2004. 72-8.

“Cases in Court. Two Actions against ‘The Stage.’” The Stage (January 27, 1910): 21-25.

Danielson, Virginia. “Artists and Entrepreneurs: Female singers in Cairo during the 1920s.” In Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, edited by Nikki Keddie and Beth Baron, 292-309; especially 296. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

Mostyn, Trevor. Egypt's Belle Epoque: Cairo 1869-1952. London: Quartet Books, 1989.

Myntti, Cynthia. Paris along the Nile: Architecture in Cairo from the Belle Époque. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2010.

Reid, Donald Malcom. Whose Pharaohs?: Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian national Identity from Napoleon to World War I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. 64-92.

Russell, Mona. Creating the New Egyptian Women: Consumerism, Education, and National Identity, 1863–1922, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Especially 31-2.

Scharabi, Mohamad. Kairo: Stadt und Architektur im Zeitalter des europäischen Kolonialismus. Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, 1989.