“Showing Up America”: Performing Race and Nation in Britain Before the First World War

This article examines American travel and performance in Britain in the decades prior to the First World War, arguing that the expression of nationality in this transatlantic context played a profound role in formulating both America’s dominant culture and a culture of opposition advanced by African...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe journal of the gilded age and progressive era Vol. 21; no. 4; pp. 319 - 341
Main Author Defrates, Lewis
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.10.2022
Subjects
19th century
African Americans
Audiences
Communication
Historians
Narratives
Race
Racism
Transnationalism
World War I
United Kingdom > UK
United States > US
transnational history
nationalism
race
popular culture
globalization
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Summary:This article examines American travel and performance in Britain in the decades prior to the First World War, arguing that the expression of nationality in this transatlantic context played a profound role in formulating both America’s dominant culture and a culture of opposition advanced by African American performers. It explores this “oppositional” culture in detail, focusing on the transatlantic work of Ida B. Wells and the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Both found a sympathetic audience across the Atlantic at a time of increased repression at home. British support opened new avenues for these activists, but also limited the rhetorical possibilities of their work. By bringing into conversation previously separate historiographies on early waves of “Americanization,” the transnational dimensions of various reform movements and the international formation of the Black Atlantic, it illustrates the economic, infrastructural, and racial inequalities that shaped the United States’ emerging national culture.
ISSN:1537-7814
1943-3557
DOI:10.1017/S1537781422000305