Illusion and deception in Barnum's circus and nineteenth-century department stores

Illusion is central to both Abselon's description of the "pantomime of gentility," and Cook's description of what he calls "artful deception." As described by Abselon and Cook, what role does illusion play in Barnum's museum exhibits and in late 19th century department stores? Does illusion operate similarly or differently in these two contexts? Why is illusion so compelling to nineteenth-century, middle -class audience. For this question use the following two texts: Cook, Arts of Deception) and Abselon, When Ladies Go -- A Thieving

Both Elaine S. Abselon and James Cook focus in their respective texts upon the intersection of race, gender, and class that occurred in the twin modern temples of illusion, the department store and the circus, of the 19th century middle class. For Abelson, the popularity of the newly-created department store enabled merchants to display the supposed bounty of the middle class' new largess, combined with the illusion that everyone could purchase the consumer trappings of gentility, if they only worked hard enough to do so. However, although women were part of the rising middle class in the second half of the nineteenth century unlike their male counterparts, they were not permitted to work. (Abselon 1)

Many women who were taken in by the illusion of ready access to gentility, but without means resorted to stealing. Because 19th century moral stereotypes could not admit the moral folly of women and the department store managers were "loath to accuse" their middle-class customers, as these consumers represented the very group that they were trying to encourage to look and buy. (Abselon 149) Instead, to conceal this shady side of the ideology of consumerism that propped up Victorian capitalism, women of the middle class, but not those of the working class, were allowed to shoplift and plead an incapacitating mental illness, kleptomania. This fiction allowed the illusion of society to continue.

James W. Cook presents the example of P.T. Barnum, the "Prince of Humbug," as doing the opposite of the detectives and owners of the department stores -- rather than to hide crimes through the use of medicinal terms, Barnum made medical follies and his own crimes a spectacle. Barnum took individuals with medical maladies, such as dwarves or bearded ladies and made them into spectacles of 'them.' In the circus, ordinary individuals who were different to the eyes of the middle class audiences, or as in the case of Joice Heath, by race, became entertainment. By making these different individuals freaks rather than ordinary people, the supposedly 'normal' middle class position was reaffirmed, through making so-called freaks conspicuous rather than hiding them with medical terms.

One false entertainment was a 161-year-old former slave of George Washington's father. Even when Heath's death resulted in fiction being uncovered, Barnum made money by charging admission to the man's public autopsy. Again, this division, where the spectacle of a Black man was not allowed middle class privacy even in death, affirmed the break between 'us' of the middle class, and 'them' in the spectacle, just as treating middle class women as 'sick' covered up the crimes that the working class were prosecuted for, so that the illusion and societal spectacle of consumption could continue.

Question 2

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an abolitionist work, but to what extent is Harriet Jacobs arguing for racial equality? And, to the extent that she is, what is the basis of her argument? Your answer should draw specific examples from the text. For this question use the following text: Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Despite the abolitionist nature of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author Harriet Jacobs does not argue for racial equality in modern terms. Jacobs, after all, was writing to a white, Northern, abolitionist audience and using her life's narrative as political propaganda as well as laying her heart bare. Thus she does not demonize white people, nor attempt to alienate them. Jacobs describes her first white mistress as kind. Slavery is shown as corrupting the moral nature of whites, as in the sexual behavior of Dr. Flint towards her, as well as blacks, in addition to curtailing human freedom.

Jacobs argues for the moral integrity of all human beings in a way that her audience would likely respond to as middle-class Christians rather than as fellow and equal sufferers with Black slaves. She affirms the middle-class ideology of the necessity of young individuals to live with two parents, and for spouses in a moral fashion, not in sin with an owner. Jacobs does not write about this moral equality in social or intellectual terms. Significantly, Jacobs hides in a garret in her grandmother's home, returning to her family abode.

Jacobs is also helped by whites, and finally set free by the efforts of a white mentor, Mrs. Bruce. The text of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl claims of its white audience the moral authority of Jacob's suffering, but it is also written a cry for help and compassion from a woman who is presenting herself as oppressed, despite her incredible fortitude in weathering her circumstances. To live in an attic and to escape slavery is hardly an accomplishment to be 'sneezed' at, and one in which few of her white readers would have been able to match. To call upon the compassion of her readers, however, Jacobs narrates her tale along the lines of a story of a Christian forced into sin, forced to suffer things no human being should have to suffer, who was saved by Mrs. Bruce's sense of injustice. Jacobs thus creates her construction of equality in moral terms, rather than in terms of her not inconsiderable accomplishments.

Question 4

Compare the Dead Man in City Crimes with Dr. Flint Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. What do they have in common, and how do they differ? How is human evil represented in these two characters, and what made them compelling villains to antebellum Americans?

Dr. Flint is a villain because he takes advantage of a young and vulnerable woman in his charge -- and also because he desires an individual of another race. Flint leaves Jacob vulnerable to the hatred of his wife as well, and has an illegitimate bi-racial child with Jacobs, something that was seen as unnatural in the 19th century. Flint is also, much like Dead Man, a violator of a societal in the sense that Flint is given the responsibility of protecting an individual's well being as a slave owner within the confines of an accepted code of morality, and he flagrantly transgresses that system of morality, even though he appears respectable on the surface. Flint, like Dead Man, is not only corrupting -- he corrupts everyone he meets. He corrupts Jacobs, but he also corrupts his own wife, by forcing her to live in an intolerable situation, and thus encouraging the woman to turn against poor Harriet.

However, Flint, unlike Dead Man, has the letter of the law to back him up -- another element of the tale that would be particularly horrifying to law-abiding Northerners who read Jacob's saga. Unlike Dead Man, who strives to live outside of society and the law, and thus would be horrifying and seemingly evil to antebellum audiences, Flint is an entrusted medical man, a pillar of the community who is married and has all of the trappings of middle-class respectability. Thus Flint highlights the impossibility of being a good slaveholder for any length of time, because the institution itself is full of temptations for a man that strike on his basest level, while Dead Man's attempt to create his own code of conduct, although evil, actually highlights the need for strict law and order.