The Lives of Chang and Eng - Siam's Twins in Nineteenth-Century America (Hardcover)

Connected at the chest by a band of flesh, Chang and Eng Bunker toured the United States and the world from the 1820s to the 1870s, placing themselves and their extraordinary bodies on exhibit as "freaks of nature" and "Oriental curiosities." More famously known as the Siamese twins, they eventually settled in rural North Carolina, married two white sisters, became slave owners, and fathered twenty-one children between them. Though the brothers constantly professed their normality, they occupied a strange space in nineteenth-century America. They spoke English, attended church, became American citizens, and backed the Confederacy during the Civil War. Yet in life and death, the brothers were seen by most Americans as "monstrosities," an affront they were unable to escape. Joseph Andrew Orser chronicles the twins' history, their sometimes raucous journey through antebellum America, their domestic lives in North Carolina, and what their fame revealed about the changing racial and cultural landscape of the United States. More than a biography of the twins, the result is a study of nineteenth-century American culture and society through the prism of Chang and Eng that reveals how Americans projected onto the twins their own hopes and fears.

General

Imprint:	The University of North Carolina Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	November 2014
First published:	November 2014
Authors:	Joseph Andrew Orser
Dimensions:	235 x 243 x 19mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover - Cloth over boards
Pages:	288
ISBN-13:	978-1-4696-1830-2
Categories:	Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Disability: social aspects Books > History > American history > General Promotions
LSN:	1-4696-1830-3
Barcode:	9781469618302

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