1790s
19th century
A01=Sara E. Lampert
actor
actresses
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
American culture
American theater
Author_Sara E. Lampert
automatic-update
ballet
beliefs
breeches roles
career
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AVGJ
Category=AVH
Category=AVLP
Category=AVN
Category=AVP
Category=BG
Category=BGF
Category=DNBF
Category=HBTB
Category=JBSL
Category=JFSL
Category=NHTB
celebrity
Celeste
Charlotte Cushman
Clara Fisher
COP=United States
dance
dancers
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
domesticity
early 19th century
entertainment
entertainment culture
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
expansion
family
family dynamics
family life
family politics
Fanny Elssler
Fanny Kemble
femininity
gender
growth
history
ideas
Josephine Clifton
Language_English
lifestyle
management
manager
Matilda Heron
melodrama
morality
music
nationalism
opera
PA=Available
patriarchy
popular culture
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
sentimentalism
singer
softlaunch
stage
starring system
stock
theater
theatergoer
tour
touring
United States
virtue
womanhood
women and public life
Product details
- ISBN 9780252085260
- Weight: 481g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 20 Oct 2020
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Women performers played a vital role in the development of American and transatlantic entertainment, celebrity culture, and gender ideology. Sara E. Lampert examines the lives, careers, and fame of overlooked figures from Europe and the United States whose work in melodrama, ballet, and other stage shows shocked and excited early U.S. audiences. These women lived and performed the tensions and contradictions of nineteenth-century gender roles, sparking debates about women's place in public life. Yet even their unprecedented wealth and prominence failed to break the patriarchal family structures that governed their lives and conditioned their careers. Inevitable contradictions arose. The burgeoning celebrity culture of the time forced women stage stars to don the costumes of domestic femininity even as the unsettled nature of life in the theater defied these ideals.
A revealing foray into a lost time, Starring Women returns a generation of performers to their central place in the early history of American theater.
Sara E. Lampert is an associate professor of history at the University of South Dakota.
