A01=Blake Allmendinger
Actors
American Frontier
American Literature
American Studies
American West
Author_Blake Allmendinger
Botanist
Category=DS
Category=NHK
Colonialism
Con Artist
Crime
Criminal
Criminal Act
Cultural Ethnographer
Dancers
East Coast
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Forgery
Fur Trappers
Geologist
Helena Modjeska
Impersonation
Imposters
Indian Scouts
Industrialism
Isadora Duncan
Literary Realism
Literature
Mapmaker
Military Leaders
New England
Nineteenth Century History
Population Growth
Public Identity
Public Self
Sexual Identity
Social Identity
Surveyor
Technology
Traders
Translator
Western Frontier
Western Literature
Western Territories
Willa Cather
Writers
Yone Noguchi
Zoologist
Product details
- ISBN 9781496225061
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jun 2021
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
During the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the American West underwent a series of transformations, certain pivotal figures also undertook a process of self-transformation. Geographic Personas reveals a practice of public performance, impersonation, deception, and fraud, exposing the secret lives of men and women who capitalized on changes occurring in the region. These changes affected the arts; land ownership; scientific exploration; definitions of race, gender, and sexual orientation; and relations between the United States and other countries throughout the world.
In addition to well-known figures such as Clarence King and Willa Cather, Geographic Personas examines lesser-known players in the performative process of westward expansion, including Isadora Duncan, the founder of modern American dance; Polish actress Helena Modjeska; Adolf Hitler’s favorite author, Karl May; Japanese poet Yone Noguchi; Sylvester Long, a mixed-race star of Native American silent films whose mother was born into slavery; and the perpetrator of the greatest land grant hoax in U.S. history.
While scholars have written about the environmental, demographic, and economic changes that occurred in the West during the nineteenth century, Allmendinger adds a crucial piece to this dialogue. He brings to light the experiences of artists, dancers, film stars, con men, and criminals in stories of self-transformation that are often sad, tragic, and poignant.
In addition to well-known figures such as Clarence King and Willa Cather, Geographic Personas examines lesser-known players in the performative process of westward expansion, including Isadora Duncan, the founder of modern American dance; Polish actress Helena Modjeska; Adolf Hitler’s favorite author, Karl May; Japanese poet Yone Noguchi; Sylvester Long, a mixed-race star of Native American silent films whose mother was born into slavery; and the perpetrator of the greatest land grant hoax in U.S. history.
While scholars have written about the environmental, demographic, and economic changes that occurred in the West during the nineteenth century, Allmendinger adds a crucial piece to this dialogue. He brings to light the experiences of artists, dancers, film stars, con men, and criminals in stories of self-transformation that are often sad, tragic, and poignant.
Blake Allmendinger is a professor of English at the University of California–Los Angeles. He is the author of several books, including Imagining the African American West (Nebraska, 2005) and The Melon Capital of the World (Nebraska, 2015).
