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Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
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Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line Paperback - 2010

by Martha A. Sandweiss

Clarence King--a late 19th-century celebrity, brilliant scientist, and explorer--hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: For 13 years he lived a double life as a prominent white geologist and as a black Pullman porter and steelworker.


Summary

Read Martha A. Sandweiss's posts on the Penguin Blog

The secret double life of the man who mapped the American West, and the woman he loved

Clarence King was a late nineteenth-century celebrity, a brilliant scientist and explorer once described by Secretary of State John Hay as "the best and brightest of his generation." But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for thirteen years he lived a double life-the first as the prominent white geologist and writer Clarence King, and a second as the black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd. The fair, blue-eyed son of a wealthy China trader passed across the color line, revealing his secret to his black common-law wife, Ada Copeland, only on his deathbed. In Passing Strange, noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the dramatic, distinctively American tale of a family built along the fault lines of celebrity, class, and race- a story that spans the long century from Civil War to civil rights.

From the publisher

Martha A. Sandweiss is Professor of History at Princeton University. She began her career as a museum curator and taught for twenty years at Amherst College. She is the author of numerous works on western American history and the history of photography, including Print the Legend: Photography and the American West, winner of the Organization of American Historians' Ray Allen Billington Award, and Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace, and is the co-editor of the Oxford History of the American West.

Details

  • Title Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
  • Author Martha A. Sandweiss
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 400
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, NEW YORK
  • Date 2010-01-26
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Index, Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780143116868 / 014311686X
  • Weight 0.72 lbs (0.33 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.4 x 5.36 x 0.82 in (21.34 x 13.61 x 2.08 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1851-1899
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
    • Topical: Black History
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2008034886
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

Media reviews



Citations

  • New York Times Book Review, 01/24/2010, Page 20

About the author

Martha A. Sandweiss is Professor of History at Princeton University. She began her career as a museum curator and taught for twenty years at Amherst College. She is the author of numerous works on western American history and the history of photography, including Print the Legend: Photography and the American West, winner of the Organization of American Historians' Ray Allen Billington Award, and Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace, and is the co-editor of the Oxford History of the American West.
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Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
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Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

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Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
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Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line
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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

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Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

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Passing Strange : A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

by Martha A. Sandweiss

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