Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Jumping Through Hoops: Performing Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Circus

by Betsy Golden Kellem
Save 26% Save 26%
Current price ₹1,400.00
Original price ₹1,897.00
Original price ₹1,897.00
Original price ₹1,897.00
(-26%)
₹1,400.00
Current price ₹1,400.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9781558613447
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Feminist Press
  • Publisher Imprint: Feminist Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 280
  • Original Price: GBP 14.99
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 422 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): United States / 19th Century

The fascinating story of how nineteenth-century circus women performed impossible feats and changed American culture.

Jumping Through Hoops reveals the hidden history of early female circus performers: boundary-breaking women like Lavinia Warren, known as The Queen of Beauty; Millie-Christine McKoy, the Two-Headed Nightingale; and Patty Astley, the mother of the modern circus. These astounding female and gender-nonconforming artists wrestled snakes, performed magic tricks with electricity, and walked across waterfalls on tightropes, shattering taboos by performing in public at a time when "respectable" women were mostly confined to their homes.

Betsy Golden Kellem deftly explores how major forces in the long nineteenth century combined to create the uniquely American spectacle of the traveling circus. During the transformation of the circus from scrappy "mud shows" to a major international business, these extraordinary circus women challenged contemporary ideas of femininity, creating new possibilities for women far beyond the big top.

Kellem, Betsy Golden: - Betsy Golden Kellem is a scholar of the unusual. Her writing on circus and entertainment history has appeared in venues including The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Public Domain Review, Smithsonian, Atlas Obscura, and Slate. A board member of the Barnum Museum and the Circus Historical Society, Betsy is an Emmy winner for her Showman's Shorts video series on P. T. Barnum. She is a columnist for JSTOR Daily and regularly teaches and speaks for academia and industry. If you ask nicely, she will juggle knives for you. She lives in North Haven, Connecticut.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us