Jumping Through Hoops
eBook - ePub

Jumping Through Hoops

Performing Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Circus

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Jumping Through Hoops

Performing Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Circus

About this book

The fascinating story of how nineteenth-century circus women performed impossible feats and changed American culture.

Jumping Through Hoops reveals 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.

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Yes, you can access Jumping Through Hoops by Betsy Golden Kellem in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
The Feminist Press at CUNY
Year
2025
Print ISBN
9781558613447
eBook ISBN
9781558613454
Edition
0
Topic
History
Subtopic
North American History
Index
History

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Epigraph
  7. Introduction Step Right Up!
  8. Chapter 1. Media and Sources in an Era of Connection
  9. Chapter 2. Building the Nineteenth-Century Big Top
  10. Chapter 3. Womanhood, Real and True
  11. Chapter 4. The Queen of Beauty and the Armless Wonder
  12. Chapter 5. Women Take Flight
  13. Chapter 6. Invisible Girls and Electric Women
  14. Chapter 7. Circassian Beauties in the American Sideshow
  15. Chapter 8. The Remarkable Life of Millie-Christine McKoy, the Two-Headed Nightingale
  16. Chapter 9. The Splendor and Terror of Bearded Ladies
  17. Chapter 10. Ella Zoyara, the “Boy-Girl”
  18. Chapter 11. New Women Join the Circus
  19. Conclusion Taming Savage Beasts
  20. Acknowledgments
  21. Notes
  22. Bibliography
  23. About the Author
  24. Also Available from Feminist Press
  25. About Feminist Press