| Description |
xi, 278 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Summary |
"Images of the corseted, domestic, white middle-class female and the black woman as slave mammy or jezebel loom large in studies of nineteenth-century womanhood, despite recent critical work exploring alternatives to those images. [In this book, the author] focuses on women's bodies as a site for their public self-construction. Rather then relying on familiar binaries such as public/private and victim/agent, Piepmeier presents women's public embodiment as multiple, transitional, strategic, playful, and contested. Piepmeier looks closely at the lives and works of actress and playwright Anna Cora Mowatt (1819-1871), Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), abolitionist and feminist orator Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), antilynching journalist Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), and Godey's Lady's Book editor Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879). Piepmeier's analysis of these women places their written documents in conjunction with salient cultural contexts, including freak shows, scientific writing, tall tales, and popular visual images of athletic women. By destablizing and complicating traditional binary categories, Piepmeier makes culturally obscured or unreadable aspects of women's lives visible, offering a more complete understanding of nineteenth-century female corporeality"--Publisher description. |
| Contents |
The most thrilling sensations : Anna Cora Mowatt and sensational womanhood -- Woman goes forth to battle with Goliath : Mary Baker Eddy, medical science, and sentimental invalidism -- As strong as any man : Sojourner Truth's tall-tale embodiment -- The supreme right of American citizenship : Ida B. Wells, the lynch narrative, and the production of the American body -- We have hardly had time to mend our pen : Sarah Hale, Godey's lady's book, and the body as print. |
| Subject |
Human body -- Social aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Human body -- Social aspects. |
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United States. |
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History. |
| Chronological Term |
19th century |
| Subject |
Human body -- Symbolic aspects -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Human body -- Symbolic aspects. |
|
Women -- Physiology -- United States.
|
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Women -- Physiology. |
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Women -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Women. |
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Women -- United States -- Public opinion.
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Public opinion. |
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Women in popular culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Women in popular culture. |
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Public opinion -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Women. |
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Womyn. |
| ISBN |
0807855693 paperback alkaline paper |
|
0807829048 cloth alkaline paper |
|
9780807829042 cloth alkaline paper |
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9780807855690 paperback alkaline paper |
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