{"product_id":"passing-strange-a-gilded-age-tale-of-love-and-deception-across-the-color-line-9780143116868","title":"Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line","description":"\u003cb\u003eRead Martha A. Sandweiss's posts on the Penguin Blog\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e The secret double life of the man who mapped the American West, and the woman he loved \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Clarence King was a late nineteenth-century celebrity, a brilliant scientist and explorer once described by Secretary of State John Hay as \"the best and brightest of his generation.\" But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for thirteen years he lived a double life-the first as the prominent white geologist and writer Clarence King, and a second as the black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd. The fair, blue-eyed son of a wealthy China trader passed across the color line, revealing his secret to his black common-law wife, Ada Copeland, only on his deathbed. In \u003ci\u003ePassing Strange\u003c\/i\u003e, noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the dramatic, distinctively American tale of a family built along the fault lines of celebrity, class, and race- a story that spans the long century from Civil War to civil rights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMartha A. Sandweiss is Professor of History at Princeton University. She began her career as a museum curator and taught for twenty years at Amherst College. She is the author of numerous works on western American history and the history of photography, including \u003ci\u003ePrint the Legend: Photography and the American West\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the Organization of American Historians' Ray Allen Billington Award, and \u003ci\u003eLaura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace\u003c\/i\u003e, and is the co-editor of the \u003ci\u003eOxford History of the American West\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50526863098130,"sku":"9780143116868","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_827a379c-1769-4307-9800-ef2815c4dfd3.jpg?v=1731285408","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/passing-strange-a-gilded-age-tale-of-love-and-deception-across-the-color-line-9780143116868","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}