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The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum's America
Contributor(s): Reiss, Benjamin (Author)
ISBN: 0674055640     ISBN-13: 9780674055643
Publisher: Harvard University Press
OUR PRICE:   $31.68  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: March 2010
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States - 19th Century
- Social Science | Popular Culture
- Social Science | Slavery
Dewey: 306.097
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6" W x 9.1" (0.95 lbs) 288 pages
Themes:
- Ethnic Orientation - African American
- Chronological Period - 1800-1850
- Topical - Black History
- Chronological Period - 19th Century
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

In this compelling story about one of the nineteenth century's most famous Americans, Benjamin Reiss uses P. T. Barnum's Joice Heth hoax to examine the contours of race relations in the antebellum North. Barnum's first exhibit as a showman, Heth was an elderly enslaved woman who was said to be the 161-year-old former nurse of the infant George Washington. Seizing upon the novelty, the newly emerging commercial press turned her act--and especially her death--into one of the first media spectacles in American history.

In piecing together the fragmentary and conflicting evidence of the event, Reiss paints a picture of people looking at history, at the human body, at social class, at slavery, at performance, at death, and always--if obliquely--at themselves. At the same time, he reveals how deeply an obsession with race penetrated different facets of American life, from public memory to private fantasy. Concluding the book is a piece of historical detective work in which Reiss attempts to solve the puzzle of Heth's real identity before she met Barnum. His search yields a tantalizing connection between early mass culture and a slave's subtle mockery of her master.


Contributor Bio(s): Reiss, Benjamin: - Benjamin Reiss is Professor of English, Emory University.