The lectures described below were held at
Antiquarian Hall, 185 Salisbury Street, Worcester.
The True Tale of Washington's Nurse
a lecture by
Benjamin Reiss
Tuesday, November 27, 2001, at 7:30 p.m.
Benjamin Reiss will discuss and read from his book, The
Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum's
America. Reiss uses P. T. Barnum's Joice Heth hoax to examine
the contours of race relations in the antebellum North. Barnum's
first exhibit as a showman, Heth was an elderly enslaved woman
who was said to be the 161-year-old former nurse of the infant
George Washington. Seizing upon the novelty, the newly emerging
commercial press turned her act--and especially her death--
into one of the first media spectacles in American history. In
piecing together the fragmentary and conflicting evidence of the
event, Reiss paints a picture of people looking at history, at the
human body, at social class, at slavery, at performance, at death,
and always-if obliquely-at themselves. At the same time, he
reveals how deeply an obsession with race penetrated different
facets of American life, from public memory to private fantasy.
Benjamin Reiss is currently in residence at the Society as an
American Antiquarian Society-National Endowment for the
Humanities fellow working on a project about antebellum
literary culture and mental institutions. He is an assistant
professor of English at Tulane University.
For further information on seminars, contact John Hench at
jhench[at]mwa.org or (508) 755-5221.
Detailed seminar announcements -- including information on the suppers
that follow -- are posted on this web site at least
two weeks in advance.
American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01609-1634
Tel.: 508-755-5221
Fax: 508-753-3311 e-mail the library
Benjamin Reiss will discuss and read from his book, The
Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum's
America. Reiss uses P. T. Barnum's Joice Heth hoax to examine
the contours of race relations in the antebellum North. Barnum's
first exhibit as a showman, Heth was an elderly enslaved woman
who was said to be the 161-year-old former nurse of the infant
George Washington. Seizing upon the novelty, the newly emerging
commercial press turned her act--and especially her death--
into one of the first media spectacles in American history. In
piecing together the fragmentary and conflicting evidence of the
event, Reiss paints a picture of people looking at history, at the
human body, at social class, at slavery, at performance, at death,
and always-if obliquely-at themselves. At the same time, he
reveals how deeply an obsession with race penetrated different
facets of American life, from public memory to private fantasy.
