The Many Resurrections of Henry Box Brown / Martha Cutter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cutter, Martha J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brown, Henry Box, 1815 or 1816-.

Brown, Henry Box.

Brown, Henry Box, 1815 or 1816---In literature.

Brown, Henry Box, 1815 or 1816---In mass media.

African Americans in the performing arts--History--19th century.

African Americans in the performing arts.

Slavery in mass media--History--19th century.

Slavery in mass media.

African Americans in popular culture.

Fugitive slaves--United States.

Fugitive slaves.

African American abolitionists.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (361 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2022]

Summary:

On March 23, 1849, Henry Brown climbed into a large wooden postal crate and was mailed from slavery in Richmond, Virginia, to freedom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "Box Brown," as he came to be known after this astounding feat, went on to carve out a career as an abolitionist speaker, actor, magician, hypnotist, and even faith healer, traveling the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada until his death in 1897.The Many Resurrections of Henry Box Brown is the first book to show how subversive performances were woven into Brown's entire life, from his early days practicing magic in Virginia while enslaved, to his last shows in Canada and England in the 1890s. It recovers forgotten elements of Brown's history to illustrate the ways he made himself a spectacle on abolitionist lecture circuits via outlandish performances, and then fell off these circuits and went on to reinvent himself again and again. Brown's stunts included creating a moving panoramic picture show about his escape; parading through the streets dressed as a "Savage Indian" or "African Prince"; convincing hypnotized individuals that they were sheep who would gobble down raw cabbage; performing magic, dark séances, and ventriloquism; and even climbing back into his "original" box to jump out of it on stage.In this study, Martha J. Cutter analyzes contemporary resurrections of Brown's persona by leading poets, writers, and visual artists. Both in Brown's time and in ours, stories were created, invented, and embellished about Brown, continuing to recreate his intriguing, albeit fragmentary and elusive, story. The Many Resurrections of Henry Box Brown fosters a new understanding not only of Brown's life but of modern Black performance art that provocatively dramatizes the unfinished work of African American freedom.

Contents:

Introduction. The many resurrections of Henry Box Brown, the man who mailed himself to freedom

Slavery and freedom in US visual culture : the performative personae of William Wells Brown, William and Ellen Craft, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth

Becoming Box Brown, 1815-1857

Performing fugitivity : Henry Box Brown on the nineteenth-century British stage, 1857

Performing new panoramas, mesmerism, spiritualism, and second sight, England, 1857-1875

Canada, the United States, and beyond : performing slavery and freedom, 1875-1897

The absent presence : Henry Box Brown in contemporary museums, memorials, and visual art

Playing in the archives : Box Brown in contemporary children's literature and visual poetry

Coda. The resilience of Box Brown and the afterlives of slavery.

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780812298642

0812298640

OCLC:

1314626890