Lives of Chang and Eng
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€31.99
19th-century popular culture
A01=Joseph Andrew Orser
Asian Americans in 19th-century U.S.
Asian Americans in popular culture
Asians and American slavery
Author_Joseph Andrew Orser
Category=DNBH
Category=JBCC
Category=JBFM
Category=NHF
Category=NHK
chang and eng bunker
Chang Bunker
conjoined twins in american history
Eng Bunker
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
interracial marriages
mixed-race families
orientalism
racial identity of white Americans
racism in popular culture
Siamese twins
siamese twins in american history
sideshow performers
the United States and Asia
treatment of disabled persons in american history
Product details
- ISBN 9781469642338
- Weight: 409g
- Dimensions: 152 x 231mm
- Publication Date: 01 Feb 2018
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Connected at the chest by a band of flesh, Chang and Eng Bunker toured the United States and the world from the 1820s to the 1870s, placing themselves and their extraordinary bodies on exhibit as ""freaks of nature"" and ""Oriental curiosities."" More famously known as the Siamese twins, they eventually settled in rural North Carolina, married two white sisters, became slave owners, and fathered twenty-one children between them. Though the brothers constantly professed their normality, they occupied a strange space in nineteenth-century America. They spoke English, attended church, became American citizens, and backed the Confederacy during the Civil War. Yet in life and death, the brothers were seen by most Americans as ""monstrosities"", an affront they were unable to escape.
Joseph Andrew Orser chronicles the twins' history, their sometimes raucous journey through antebellum America, their domestic lives in North Carolina, and what their fame revealed about the changing racial and cultural landscape of the United States. More than a biography of the twins, the result is a study of nineteenth-century American culture and society through the prism of Chang and Eng that reveals how Americans projected onto the twins their own hopes and fears.
Joseph Andrew Orser chronicles the twins' history, their sometimes raucous journey through antebellum America, their domestic lives in North Carolina, and what their fame revealed about the changing racial and cultural landscape of the United States. More than a biography of the twins, the result is a study of nineteenth-century American culture and society through the prism of Chang and Eng that reveals how Americans projected onto the twins their own hopes and fears.
Joseph Andrew Orser teaches history at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
