Jumping Through Hoops (eBook)

Performing Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Circus

Betsy Golden Kellem (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
300 Seiten
The Feminist Press at CUNY (Verlag)
978-1-55861-345-4 (ISBN)

Infos

The fascinating story of how nineteenth-century circus women performed impossible feats and changed American culture.Jumping Through Hoopsreveals the hidden history of early female circus performers: boundary-breaking women like Lavinia Warren, known as The Queen of Beauty; Millie-Christine McKoy, the Two-Headed Nightingale; and Patty Astley, the mother of the modern circus. These astounding female and gender-nonconforming artists wrestled snakes, performed magic tricks with electricity, and walked across waterfalls on tightropes, shattering taboos by performing in public at a time when respectable women were mostly confined to their homes.Betsy Golden Kellem deftly explores how major forces in the long nineteenth century combined to create the uniquely American spectacle of the traveling circus. During the transformation of the circus from scrappy mud shows to a major international business, these extraordinary circus women challenged contemporary ideas of femininity, creating new possibilities for women far beyond the big top.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.6.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Schlagworte: aerialist • Aimee Austin • Ann Leak • Barnum’s American Museum • circassian beauty • Circus • circus history • circus women • Ella Zoyara • Julia Pastrana • Lavinia Warren • lion tamer • Lulu Hurst • Madame Josephine Clofullia • Millie-Christine McKoy • Nala Damajante • patty astley • Philip Astley • P. T. Barnum • queer circus • sideshow • The Human Fly • The Invisible Girl • tightrope walker • Zazel
• ISBN-10: 1-55861-345-5 / 1558613455
• ISBN-13: 978-1-55861-345-4 / 9781558613454