The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum

Ingenious automatons which appeared to think on their own. Dubious mermaids and wild men who resisted classification. Elegant sleight-of-hand artists who routinely exposed the secrets of their trade. These were some of the playful forms of fraud which astonished, titillated, and even outraged nineteenth-century America's new middle class, producing some of the most remarkable urban spectacles of the century. In The Arts of Deception, James W. Cook explores this distinctly modern mode of trickery designed to puzzle the eye and challenge the brain. Championed by the "Prince of Humbug," P. T. Barnum, these cultural puzzles confused the line between reality and illusion. Upsetting the normally strict boundaries of value, race, class, and truth, the spectacles offer a revealing look at the tastes, concerns, and prejudices of America's very first mass audiences. We are brought into the exhibition halls, theaters, galleries, and museums where imposture flourished, and into the minds of the curiosity-seekers who eagerly debated the wonders before their eyes. Cook creates an original portrait of a culture in which ambiguous objects, images, and acts on display helped define a new value system for the expanding middle class, as it confronted a complex and confusing world.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Thinking with Tricks 1. The Death and Rebirth of the Automaton Chess-Player 2. The Feejee Mermaid and the Market Revolution 3. Describing the Nondescript 4. Modern Magic 5. Queer Art Illusions Epilogue: Barnum's Ghosts Notes Index

About the Author :
James W. Cook is Assistant Professor of History and American Culture at the University of Michigan.

Review :
The Arts of Deception is a delight. James Cook's study combines fascinating stories and characters, thorough scholarship, and profound insights into nineteenth-century popular culture. An eloquent, wide-ranging, and above all honest cultural study of the American hunger for fraud. The Arts of Deception is a gracefully written and intriguing book. James Cook's well-told stories reveal a new and exciting way of looking at the culture of this dynamically expanding society. Anyone interested in the history of nineteenth-century America will read this book with pleasure and considerable profit. James Cook's The Arts of Deception is an exceptionally fine achievement in cultural history, characterized throughout by artful use of narrative detail and sophisticated, supple interpretation. It is a delight to read and ponder, full of fascinating stories and fresh insights into American market society--one of the most illuminating accounts I have ever seen of the confidence games at the core of our culture. [Cook] is an imaginative cultural historian who excels at teasing complex significance from apparently straightforward artifacts, practices, and events...[He] provides fresh insight into the impact of commerce on consciousness. The Arts of Deception is a subtle and illuminating work of cultural history. Cook explores the 19th-century Americans' fascination with fraud and deception as entertainment, and suggests that the popularity of what P. T. Barnum referred to as "humbugs" is intimately related to the birth of popular and mass culture in the 19th century and to other important features of a 19th-century, middle-class, market-driven society. Cook considers a wide and eclectic range of specific "curiosities"...This is a fun, intelligent, sophisticated, imaginative book. Although readers may very well wonder whether there is anything more to be said about P. T. Barnum and 'humbuggery' in nineteenth-century America, this superb book provides a resounding affirmation. The research is impressive, the presentation is engaging and flows smoothly...[A] compelling book. James W. Cook's book on 'artful deceptions' in nineteenth-century American popular culture is not merely fascinating, fluently written, and engaging to read. It sheds light on a number of different subjects and helps us to appreciate the thoroughly interconnected nature of cultural phenomena in what he calls, quite appropriately, the 'age of Barnum.' Indeed, it is a stellar example of cultural history, providing the reader with both a vivid picture of the specific social milieu that encouraged this new mode of exhibition and an understanding of the more amorphous intellectual climate that influenced exhibitors and audiences alike. Making shrewd use of the available evidence, Cook has written a book filled with compelling stories and anecdotal details. Yet what stands out in the end is the rigor and incisiveness of his analysis--the provocative conclusions he derives from his vignettes and the remarkable way that he is able to make us see their larger significance...The Arts of Deception is an important work in the new historiography of popular culture.