Embodied History The Lives of the Poor in Early Philadelphia Simon P.
Newman Winner of the 2004 American Studies Network Book Prize "Newman
has ably probed the limited representations of the bodies of the poor in
the public records--glimpses of lives otherwise unrecorded--and has
given us a useful and readable account of the ways in which the poor
were regulated by the emergent disciplinary power of the modern state,
even as some poorer individuals were able in limited ways to resist that
power."--William and Mary Quarterly "A well-researched, well-written,
and compelling study of citizens who have, until now, been overlooked by
historians. . . . Newman vividly recreates the experiences of the
impoverished men and women who found themselves in the city's almshouse,
prisons, or hospitals. He also uses primary sources to explore the lives
of the African Americans (many of them runaways) and sailors who, more
or less, made the city their home. The work concludes with an
exploration of the role death played in the lives of the urban poor. . .
. Provocative and intellectually satisfying."--Choice "Nobody can give
the long-dead poor a voice, but Newman has come very close
indeed."--Journal of the Early Republic "Brilliantly conceived and
executed. This fascinating, truly significant book is required reading
for anyone interested in the early Republic and is a natural for use in
both graduate and undergraduate courses."--Pennsylvania Magazine of
History and Biography "Embodied History's interpretations are bold
and imaginative. They ought to inspire additional investigations of the
poor, their coping strategies in the lives in which they found
themselves, and their own perspectives on those lives."--International
Journal of Maritime History Offering a new view into the lives and
experiences of plebeian men and women, and a provocative exploration of
the history of the body itself, Embodied History approaches the bodies
of the poor in early national Philadelphia as texts to be read and
interpreted. Through a close examination of accounts of the bodies that
appeared in runaway advertisements and in seafaring, almshouse, prison,
hospital, and burial records, Simon P. Newman uses physical details to
paint an entirely different portrait of the material circumstances of
the poor, examining the ways they became categorized in the emerging
social hierarchy, and how they sought to resist such categorization.
Simon P. Newman is Sir Denis Brogan Professor of American Studies,
University of Glasgow, and author of Parades and the Politics of the
Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic, also available
from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Early American Studies 2003
224 pages 6 x 9 14 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-3731-3 Cloth $65.00s £42.50
ISBN 978-0-8122-1848-0 Paper $24.95s £16.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-0292-2 Ebook
$24.95s £16.50 World Rights American History Short copy: "A useful and
readable account of the ways in which the poor were regulated by the
emergent disciplinary power of the modern state."--William and Mary
Quarterly
