Performing Menken
Adah Isaacs Menken and the Birth of American Celebrity

This book examines the life of actress Adah Isaacs Menken in the culture of the Civil War period.

Renée M. Sentilles (Author)

9780521820707, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 May 2003

326 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.65 kg

"A useful model of interdisciplinary research and analysis, the book is also a nuanced and insightful study of the agency of a particular woman at a contentious, complex, and rapidly changing moment in American history. Sentilles has seized on an utterly compelling figure in American culture and shown us how the culture may be more fascinating than the notoriously sensational actress-poet herself." Legacy

This book was first published in 2003. Performing Menken uses the life experiences of controversial actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken to examine the culture of the Civil War period. Menken managed to portray herself as both respectable and daring, claiming for herself various (differing) racial and ethnic identities. Playing male roles on stage, she became the reigning femme fatale. Yet she was also known as an intellectual, publishing poetry and essays. She shared friendships with the greatest writers of her time, including Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Alexandre Dumas, père. Performing Menken also looks at what Menken's choices reveal about her period. It explores the roots of the cult of celebrity that emerged from the crucible of war. While discussing Menken's racial and ethnic claims and her performance of gender and sexuality, Performing Menken focuses on contemporary use of social categories to explain patterns in America's past and considers why such categories appear to remain important.

1. Playing Deborah
2. Playing the Pugilist's Wife
3. Performing Mazeppa
4. Performing Menken
5. Among the Bohemians
6. Becoming Mazeppa
7. Becoming the Menken
8. Finale
9. Remember and rewriting Menken.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK], Biography: historical, political & military [BGH], Individual actors & performers [APB]