Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:41:00 +0000

When I first read the jacket for Martha A Sandweiss’s Passing Strange, I did a literal double take. I read those introductory paragraphs over and over again, the words slipping and sliding over my brain without sinking in. Passing Strange covers the true story of Clarence King, a much-lauded White geologist and man about town who secretly married Ada Copeland, a Black nursemaid, in 1888.

I have read works before that covered the subject of passing: books on light-skinned Blacks who clandestinely crossed the color line, accounts of multiracial families that split apart because of skin color, tales on Whites who pretend to be Black and slip into the Black community. Yet the love story of King and Copeland was something altogether different.

According to Sandweiss’ compelling narrative, King led a double life for thirteen years. In one life he was a swaggering frontiersman, director of the United States Geological Survey; and in his later years a popular scamp in elite Manhattan social circles. In his second life King lived as James Todd, a quiet family man in Brooklyn. His closest friends never knew he married, and until his death his wife never knew his true name or even his true race.

As a public figure and notable character, King is a rich figure for Sandweiss to mine. In his day, King was well known for mapping the West after the Civil War, and for his thrilling tales of exploration. Much of the book is spent analyzing King’s possible motives for crossing the color line and attempting to understand his passionate nature and mercurial personality.

Since so little was known about the life of Ada Copeland Todd, it was much harder for Sandweiss to glean Todd’s dreams, expectations, and feelings. From what Sandweiss does uncover about Todd’s life, she seemed both ordinary and remarkable. Reading feverishly, I wished I could have learned even more about this woman who eventually torn off the screen of secrecy that her late husband, and later his wealthy, powerful friends had placed over her family.

Passing Strange is a fascinating read. Out of the dry facts of King’s life, Sandweiss creates a flesh and blood character. King was a romantic, constantly searching for fame and security. I could picture a man who was always chasing hapless financial schemes, who was always desperately trying to provide for his mother and his younger siblings, as well as his wife and their growing family, who was always the most charming storyteller at the dining table.

A true page turner, Sandweiss’ work keeps the reader in suspense as we follow first Clarence King’s frantic struggle to keep all of his plates spinning, and later as we follow Ada Copeland Todd’s slow and steady fight to seek her family’s rightful inheritance. Sandweiss’ exhaustive research into this relationship focuses on personal details and larger issues from snippets of King’s love letters to glimpses of the Gilded Age social set and the fledgling turn-of-the-century black middle class community in New York City. By the book’s end, I was left with more questions than I had when I first perused the book’s jacket. Did Clarence truly love Ada? How could he maintain his double life for so many years? How much did Ada know? And most importantly, how much of the lies that we tell others reveal the truth of what we are?

Written by: Regina Raiford Babcock, April 21st 2009

Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the King and I Governess

admin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:50:00 +0000

By Susan Morgan

University of California Press

Almost everyone in America has heard of Anna, the famous upper class English lady who held her own with the King of Siam. What most people haven’t heard is the real story behind the better-known, fictionalized character. Susan Morgan has devoted over a decade to fleshing out the life of Anna Leonowens in Bombay Anna. This was not an easy job given the lengths Anna went to alter her past, even writing a false biography for her grandchildren.

Contrary to Anna’s claims of an upper class English upbringing, she was actually a mixed-race child born in India to a mixed-race mother and a low-ranking English soldier. She grew up in tented barracks and among the local children. Her intellect and facility with language set her apart. When her husband, the love of her life, died, Anna faced limited prospects as a widow. For the sake of her children, she moved to Singapore, where no one knew her, and cleverly recreated her past.

Morgan shows the readers how successful Anna was at reinvention. Not only did her story hold, but her children moved freely among the upper classes, and her grandchildren attended prestigious universities. Morgan’s painstaking research is clear, and her devotion to this topic comes through in the book. She describes the stages of Anna’s life with precise detail, sometimes more than a general reader may need, but Bombay Anna serves the dual purpose of bringing the real Anna to life for pleasure readers and providing a treasure trove of facts for historians and scholars. Morgan even provides a brief biography of Margaret Landon, whose book (Anna and the King of Siam) catapulted Anna Leonowens to fame.

Often times, such fact-laden books can be cumbersome to read - not this one. Morgan writes skillfully, and Bombay Anna often reads like a novel. By the end, the reader holds an intimate knowledge of Anna and may even regret not having been able to meet her.

Anna was a woman ahead of her time. She refused to live her life subject to racial discrimination and social constraints, and adapted in order to overcome a system designed to hold her back. Anna rejected proselytizing in favor of respect for world religions, she had a strong social conscience, and she valued education more than anything else. She could make herself comfortable among a wide variety of people – from Russian peasants to residents of the king’s harem and Siamese nobility to American literary intellectuals.

See the movie with Jodie Foster. Enjoy the musical. But if you want to know the real story, pick up Bombay Anna and be prepared to find an inspiring story of an incredible woman.

Written by: Jessica Jacobson, October 10th 2008