Genuine Article

Gilmore Paul Gilmore

Description

In The Genuine Article Paul Gilmore examines the interdependence of literary and mass culture at a crucial moment in U. S. history. Demonstrating from a new perspective the centrality of race to the construction of white manhood across class lines, Gilmore argues that in the years before the Civil War, as literature increasingly became another commodity in the capitalist cultural marketplace, American authors appropriated middle-brow and racially loaded cultural forms to bolster their masculinity.From characters in Indian melodramas and minstrel shows to exhibits in popular museums and daguerrotype galleries, primitive racialized figures circulated as "the genuine article" of manliness in the antebellum United States. Gilmore argues that these figures were manipulated, translated, and adopted not only by canonical authors such as Hawthorne, Thoreau, Cooper, and Melville but also by African American and Native American writers like William Wells Brown and Okah Tubbee. By examining how these cultural notions of race played out in literary texts and helped to construct authorship as a masculine profession, Gilmore makes a unique contribution to theories of class formation in nineteenth-century America.The Genuine Article will enrich students and scholars of American studies, gender studies, literature, history, sociology, anthropology, popular culture, and race.

Sujets

• USA
• Inglés estadounidense
• Ethnic studies
• History of the Americas
• American English
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 28 novembre 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822380313
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Genuine Article

New Americanists

A Series Edited by Donald E. Pease

Paul Gilmore

The Genuine Article

Duke University Press

Durham and London

2001

Race, Mass Culture,

and American Literary

Manhood

∫2001 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

Typeset in Adobe Garamond by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on

the last printed page of this book.

Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Prologue: Staging Manhood, Writing Manhood: Cultural Authority and the Indian Body 21

1 ‘‘De Genewine Artekil’’: William Wells Brown, Blackface Minstrelsy, and Abolitionism 37

2The Indian in the Museum: Henry David Thoreau, Okah Tubbee, and Authentic Manhood 67

3 A ‘‘Rara Avis in Terris’’: Poe’s ‘‘Hop-Frog’’ and Race in the Antebellum Freak Show 98

Contents

4 Inward Criminality and the Shadow of Race:The House of the Seven Gablesand Daguerreotypy 125

Epilogue: Electric Chains

Notes 157 Bibliography Index 267

241

151

Illustrations

1. Frederick S. Agate,Metamora—The Last of the Wampanoags (1832) 29 2. ‘‘Negro Dentistry,’’ from William Wells Brown,Clotel (1853) 54 3. Title page of William Wells Brown,A Description of William Wells Brown’s Original Panoramic Views(1850) 57 4. The Happy Family, fromSights and Wonders in New York . . . (1864) 72 5. Sixth Saloon, fromSights and Wonders in New York . . . (1864) 72 6. Grand Entrance to the Boston Museum, fromTom Pop’s First Visit . . .(1848) 73 7. Title page ofA Sketch of the Life of Okah Tubbee(1852) 83 8. Le nain Americain, advertisement for Harvey Leach (c. 1845) 107 9. Edgar Allan Poe as ‘‘our literary Mohawk’’ 119 10. Ball’s Great Daguerrian Gallery of the West 141 1 1. Daguerreotype of the slave Jem by J. T. Zealy (1850) 144

Acknowledgments

Slightly di√erent versions of the first two chapters (‘‘ ‘De Genewine Artekil’ ’’ and ‘‘The Indian in the Museum’’) have previously appeared inAmerican Literature69 (December 1997) andArizona Quarterly54 (summer 1998), respectively. This book began as a dissertation under the direction of Bill Brown, Laura Rigal, and Ken Warren at the Uni- versity of Chicago. I developed many of its central ideas in dialogue with them in classes and conversations. Their intellectual guidance, mentorship, and encouragement helped to sustain this project in its first stages, and their continued interest has helped it to develop more fully. Once, during a workshop at Chicago, they successively made cases for the future of American literary studies as a kind of cultural history, as a category of social history, and as intellectual history. Influ- enced by their di√erent approaches, this book attempts to bring all three categories to bear in constructing a history of a particular literary formation. From the outset of this project, my friends from Chicago have read and commented on various sections and have o√ered emo- tional support and friendship. My thanks go out to Charley Davis, Will Pritchard, Christy Coch, Alexis Dudden, Aeron Hunt, Margaret Kel- ler, Alison Landsberg, Jamil Mustafa, and Paige Reynolds. I have had the good fortune to have a collegial and supportive environment at both Mississippi State and Bucknell University. I would like to thank John Rickard, Glyne Gri≈th, and Saundra Morris, in particular, for reading and commenting on parts of this book. My life in Lewisburg has flourished as Joshua Harmon, Sarah Goldstein, Will Pritchard, and Mo Healy have lent companionship during the final revisions of the manuscript. I am particularly grateful to scholars at other institutions who have generously read and commented on parts of this book: Joan Dayan, David Leverenz, Alan Trachtenberg, and Terence Whalen. Their insightful readings as the project neared completion helped me work through some of the more complex arguments surrounding ante- bellum American literary culture. At Duke University Press, Donald Pease was instrumental in supporting this project, and Reynolds Smith has patiently responded to my many queries. Lynn Walterick provided close and careful copyediting with a light and generous hand. My