1850s
A01=Michael D. Pierson
Author_Michael D. Pierson
Category=JBSF
Category=JBSF1
Category=NHK
Category=NHWF
Category=NHWR3
confidence man
Democrats
entertainment
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
female reformers
fraud
grifters
hoax
insanity
low-brow
newspapers
Ohio
Republicans
scandal
women's rights
Product details
- ISBN 9780807178720
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 05 Apr 2023
- Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Popular entertainment in antebellum Cincinnati ran the gamut from high culture to shows barely above the level of the tawdry. Among the options for those seeking entertainment in the summer of 1856 was the display of a "Wild Woman," purportedly a young woman captured while living a feral life beyond the frontier. The popular exhibit, which featured a silent, underdressed woman chained to a bed, was almost assuredly a hoax. Local activist women, however, used their influence to prompt a judge to investigate the display. The court employed eleven doctors, who forcibly subdued and examined the woman before advising that she be admitted to an insane asylum.
In his riveting analysis of this remarkable episode in antebellum American history, Michael D. Pierson describes how people in different political parties and sections of the country reacted to the exhibit. Specifically, he uses the lens of the Wild Woman display to explore the growing cultural divisions between the North and the South in 1856, especially the differing gender ideologies of the northern Republican Party and the more southern focused Democrats. In addition, Pierson shows how the treatment of the Wild Woman of Cincinnati prompted an increasing demand for women's political and social empowerment at a time when the country allowed for the display of a captive female without evidence that she had granted consent.
In his riveting analysis of this remarkable episode in antebellum American history, Michael D. Pierson describes how people in different political parties and sections of the country reacted to the exhibit. Specifically, he uses the lens of the Wild Woman display to explore the growing cultural divisions between the North and the South in 1856, especially the differing gender ideologies of the northern Republican Party and the more southern focused Democrats. In addition, Pierson shows how the treatment of the Wild Woman of Cincinnati prompted an increasing demand for women's political and social empowerment at a time when the country allowed for the display of a captive female without evidence that she had granted consent.
Michael D. Pierson is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and author of Lt. Spalding in Civil War Louisiana: A Union Officer's Humor, Privilege, and Ambition.
