Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

Johnson, Paul E.

doi:10.1162/TNEQ_a_00530

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June 01 2016

Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

Paul E. Johnson

Paul E. Johnson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of South Carolina, is the author of, among others, The Early American Republic, 1789–1829 (Oxford, 2006), Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper (Hill and Wang, 2003), and A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (Hill and Wang, 25^th Anniversary edition, 2004). He thanks James W. Cook, Peter P. Hinks, Robert A. Olson, and Jonathan Chu for helpful readings of this essay.

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Paul E. Johnson

Paul E. Johnson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of South Carolina, is the author of, among others, The Early American Republic, 1789–1829 (Oxford, 2006), Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper (Hill and Wang, 2003), and A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (Hill and Wang, 25^th Anniversary edition, 2004). He thanks James W. Cook, Peter P. Hinks, Robert A. Olson, and Jonathan Chu for helpful readings of this essay.

Online ISSN: 1937-2213

Print ISSN: 0028-4866

2016

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The New England Quarterly (2016) 89 (2): 257–285.

https://doi.org/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00530

Abstract

The first American-born stage magician and ventriloquist was an African American named Richard Potter. Potter's stage career (1811–1835) coincided with the transition from an entertainment culture grounded in a metropolitan Atlantic world to an American show business that was nationalist and racist. This essay traces Potter's strategies and experiences within that transformation.

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2016

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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