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Full-Text Articles in Women's History
'Once Famous In An Odd Way': Curiosity And Queerness In Late 19th-Century American Male Impersonation, S.C. Lucier
'Once Famous In An Odd Way': Curiosity And Queerness In Late 19th-Century American Male Impersonation, S.C. Lucier
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This thesis depicts the emergence of one particular iteration of the popular female actor within 19th century performance, the male impersonator, and identifies the ways in which this theatrical expression was related to and affected by similar amusements of the period. Public amusements of this period include a diversity of experiential entertainment that was primarily geared toward working and lower-middle class males. Included in these types of illegitimate theater is the variety hall. Male impersonators were the height of theatrical fashion not only in New York City, which is the focused landscape of this paper, but this type of …