“May she read liberty in your eyes?” Beecher, Boucicault and the Representation and Display of Antebellum Women’s Racially Indeterminate Bodies

Merrill, Lisa

doi:10.1353/dtc.2012.0007

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…32 But, as I have argued elsewhere, the performative dimension of Beecher's embodied appeals; his selection of young, light-complected mixed-race fugitive slave girls who appeared, like props, on the pulpit with him; and particularly the specific spatial location of his chosen setting heightened and complicated those meanings for his congregants. 33 The first time Beecher put an enslaved girl's body on display in his Brooklyn church in order to secure her freedom occurred at the conclusion of his sermon on Sunday morning, 1 June 1856. Beecher announced to his congregation that he would present to them a young woman named Sarah "who had been sold by her [white] father to be sent South-for what purpose you can imagine when you see her."…”

Section: Act 2 Henry Ward Beecher: Staging a Spectacle Of "White"-apmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Most Fitting Companions”: Making Mixed-Race Bodies Visible in Antebellum Public Spaces

Merrill¹

2015

Theat Surv

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In the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War, free and fugitive persons of color were aware of the need to frame how they were seen in their everyday lives as part of an arsenal of rhetorical strategies to attract audiences to the abolitionist cause. In this article, I examine three spatial contexts that nineteenth-century mixed-race persons navigated for abolitionist ends in which their hybrid bodies were featured as an aspect of their public performances. These locations—Britain's imperially sponsored Crystal Palace, a Brooklyn church pulpit, and the dramatic reader's lectern—were not merely static places but were spaces animated and made meaningful by the interactions performed therein. Each framed a particular ocular and locational politics and strategically imbued some degree of social class privilege on the hybrid persons following its social scripts. But in so doing, each setting also reinforced colorism and contributed to notions of the supremacy of “whiteness” even while it furthered an antislavery agenda.

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Section: Act 2 Henry Ward Beecher: Staging a Spectacle Of "White"-apmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Most Fitting Companions”: Making Mixed-Race Bodies Visible in Antebellum Public Spaces

Merrill¹

2015

Theat Surv

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“…15 More recently, Lisa Merrill has noted Boucicault's 'ambivalence to the abject status of actual enslaved persons'. 16 While Boucicault's intentions for the piece remain in dispute, part of his aim was clearly to make money. Boucicault and Agnes Robertson, originating the roles of Wahnotee and Zoe, were involved in a contract dispute with William Stuart and Thomas C. Fields, managers of the Winter Garden.…”

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Spectacle and Sensation in The Octoroon/An Octoroon

Curry¹

2019

Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film

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Dion Boucicault's 1859 sensation melodrama The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana attracted audiences with emotionally charged situations, such as a slave auction, combined with the visual sensation of a realistic depiction of a scene of spectacular danger, the onstage burning of a steamboat. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' 2014 adaptation called An Octoroon, while departing significantly from Boucicault's approach to visual storytelling, also uses a visual sensation to create an emotional impact. Jacobs-Jenkins invites an audience to enjoy Boucicault's storytelling, revisiting a melodrama now rarely revived, while simultaneously inviting them to engage with and critique the troubling racial stereotypes of the original.

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Hissing, Bidding, and Lynching: Participation in Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon and the Melodramatics of American Racism

Preston¹

2018

TDR/The Drama Review

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Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s 2016 An Octoroon encouraged Boston theatregoers to hiss and cheer like the audiences for Boucicault’s 1859 The Octoroon, then encouraged them to bid for slaves and scream for a lynching. For some, participation may have encouraged a self-satisfied post-racial bliss; for others, it may have bolstered psychic investments in racism and misogyny. Many, however, were confused: What is an appropriate response to the melodramatic extremes of American race relations?

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“May she read liberty in your eyes?” Beecher, Boucicault and the Representation and Display of Antebellum Women’s Racially Indeterminate Bodies

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

“Most Fitting Companions”: Making Mixed-Race Bodies Visible in Antebellum Public Spaces

“Most Fitting Companions”: Making Mixed-Race Bodies Visible in Antebellum Public Spaces

Spectacle and Sensation in The Octoroon/An Octoroon

Hissing, Bidding, and Lynching: Participation in Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon and the Melodramatics of American Racism

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