mrvm's review against another edition
4.0
This was an interesting look at race relations, society, and marriage during this time. I found it fascinating and the pictures of both of King's lives to remarkable. My only is, at least as a historian was that the story didn't seem to be as focused, and dragged out. To me some things seemed to be repeated to make the book longer. I would recommended this book to others
jesscad's review against another edition
3.0
Passing Strange is the fascinating story of Clarence King. In post-civil war America, Clarence King lived two lives. One as a prominent American leader in the realm of geology, literature and science. Born into a family of wealth and privilege that could trace its roots back to the Mayflower and the Magna Carter. The other as James Todd, a black man born in the south who claimed to work as a Pullman Porter and was husband to Ada Todd and father to four children.
While the story of a man who passed back and forth across the color line throughout his life, and unbelievable arbitrariness with which Americans have set a race line which determines so much in American life, is absorbing, King himself if annoying and selfish. Self absorbed, shiftless and unbelieveably arrogant, King is irritating. The reality of life in post Civil War America leaves us with a bevy of information about the unsympathetic and undirected King and nearly nothing about Ada Todd.
Ada Todd nee Copeland was almost certainly born into slavery, survived the Civil War and reconstruction. Got herself out of the south and into New York where she worked as a nursemaid and at some point met James Todd. Married to Todd, she rose through the ranks and established a comfortable middle class life, uncommon to black Americans. But much of the information of Ada;s life was guessed at and pieced together through suppositions about African American life.
Ultimately a fascinating story about American views about race, both before and after the Civil War, and up to the present day, the book itself is far too heavy with details about King, and his life and work, and sparse when it comes to Ada. King, is ultimately a difficult character to spend 400 + pages with.
While the story of a man who passed back and forth across the color line throughout his life, and unbelievable arbitrariness with which Americans have set a race line which determines so much in American life, is absorbing, King himself if annoying and selfish. Self absorbed, shiftless and unbelieveably arrogant, King is irritating. The reality of life in post Civil War America leaves us with a bevy of information about the unsympathetic and undirected King and nearly nothing about Ada Todd.
Ada Todd nee Copeland was almost certainly born into slavery, survived the Civil War and reconstruction. Got herself out of the south and into New York where she worked as a nursemaid and at some point met James Todd. Married to Todd, she rose through the ranks and established a comfortable middle class life, uncommon to black Americans. But much of the information of Ada;s life was guessed at and pieced together through suppositions about African American life.
Ultimately a fascinating story about American views about race, both before and after the Civil War, and up to the present day, the book itself is far too heavy with details about King, and his life and work, and sparse when it comes to Ada. King, is ultimately a difficult character to spend 400 + pages with.
msstewart's review against another edition
4.0
Read for my Gilder-Lehrmam seminar this summer. Seems especially timely given the controversy about Rachel Dolezal.
librarianonparade's review against another edition
5.0
Clarence King was a man who moved in elite social circles, an internationally-renowned explorer and geologist, friend to men such as President Theodore Roosevelt, Secretary of State John Hay, writer Henry James, historian Henry Adams. He was considered by his friends to be the brightest and best of his generation and great things were expected of him. And yet King had a secret life that no-one, not his family, friends, colleagues or admirers, knew about. King, to all the world a confirmed bachelor, was secretly married to a black woman named Ada Copeland, born a slave in rural Georgia during the Civil War. And more than that, King himself passed as a black man.
King lived his double life for years, passing back and forth between his society life in New York, Washington and Newport, explaining his time away from Ada as due to his job as a Pullman porter, returning every so often to his long-suffering wife and five children, before disappearing again. The strain of maintaining such a charade must have been immense, and at one point King was confined to a mental asylum. He only confessed the truth to his wife when he was dying, confessing to her by letter.
That the blonde-haired, blue-eyed King could pass as black goes to the heart of this fantastic story and exposes the utter madness of the racial codes and social mores of the time. Much as Hitler would compute it decades later with the Jews, just one drop of 'black blood' was considered enough, just one great-great-grandparent was enough for a man or woman to be considered 'black', 'negro' or 'African', regardless of their actual appearance. It wasn't unusual for light-skinned African-Americans to pass as white; it was far from common for whites to cross the colour line the other way.
I could hardly put this book down. It was such a riveting tale, the kind of story one could hardly believe to be true. That King successfully maintained his double life, that no-one from either of his families ever suspected the truth, that not one friend had suspicions, is hard to imagine in today's world, when modern communications and the internet mean nothing stays hidden for long. But King was a product of his life, and his duplicity is understandable, if not commendable. There was no way a man like King could love and wed Ada Copeland and maintain his position and standing in society. If nothing else, the story of Clarence King and Ada Copeland shines a real light on the shifting sands of racial identity and social mores in Gilded Age America.
King lived his double life for years, passing back and forth between his society life in New York, Washington and Newport, explaining his time away from Ada as due to his job as a Pullman porter, returning every so often to his long-suffering wife and five children, before disappearing again. The strain of maintaining such a charade must have been immense, and at one point King was confined to a mental asylum. He only confessed the truth to his wife when he was dying, confessing to her by letter.
That the blonde-haired, blue-eyed King could pass as black goes to the heart of this fantastic story and exposes the utter madness of the racial codes and social mores of the time. Much as Hitler would compute it decades later with the Jews, just one drop of 'black blood' was considered enough, just one great-great-grandparent was enough for a man or woman to be considered 'black', 'negro' or 'African', regardless of their actual appearance. It wasn't unusual for light-skinned African-Americans to pass as white; it was far from common for whites to cross the colour line the other way.
I could hardly put this book down. It was such a riveting tale, the kind of story one could hardly believe to be true. That King successfully maintained his double life, that no-one from either of his families ever suspected the truth, that not one friend had suspicions, is hard to imagine in today's world, when modern communications and the internet mean nothing stays hidden for long. But King was a product of his life, and his duplicity is understandable, if not commendable. There was no way a man like King could love and wed Ada Copeland and maintain his position and standing in society. If nothing else, the story of Clarence King and Ada Copeland shines a real light on the shifting sands of racial identity and social mores in Gilded Age America.
queendbw's review
adventurous
emotional
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Book #32.
This is a biography of Clarence King, who was the first Director of the USGS.
He lost his father at an early age, but was able to get a great education and had many close friends and adventures. He was a geologist by trade. He explored the great west, including the Sierras and much of California. He travelled extensively around the US and abroad. And he had a secret life!
He maintained a separate life as James Todd, a black Pullman Porter. He married a black woman and fathered five children. He confessed to his wife on his death bed.
His life story is fascinating on several fronts and the author does an awesome job bringing him to life. Highly recommend this one!
#readingisfundamental #readsof2021 #bookworm
This is a biography of Clarence King, who was the first Director of the USGS.
He lost his father at an early age, but was able to get a great education and had many close friends and adventures. He was a geologist by trade. He explored the great west, including the Sierras and much of California. He travelled extensively around the US and abroad. And he had a secret life!
He maintained a separate life as James Todd, a black Pullman Porter. He married a black woman and fathered five children. He confessed to his wife on his death bed.
His life story is fascinating on several fronts and the author does an awesome job bringing him to life. Highly recommend this one!
#readingisfundamental #readsof2021 #bookworm
komet2020's review against another edition
4.0
Clarence King (1842-1901) is a man known to few Americans today. Yet when he lived, he had enjoyed a high regard and reputation as a geologist, explorer, first director of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and writer of "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada." King also had friends in high places (such as Henry Adams and John Hay, who, in his early 20s, had served as a social secretary to President Lincoln and later served as Secretary of State under President McKinley) and was much loved for his bomhomie, wit, and kindness towards all people he met on his various travels and in his everyday life.
What was not known, however, was that, from the late 1880s until his death, King had lived a double life. He had assumed the identity of a fair-skinned black man ("Negro") and married a black woman with whom he had 5 children. This book gives the reader entree into, not only King's life, but also the life of his wife, and the subtle and virulent racism common in late 19th and early 20th century America.
In reading this book, there was one paragraph that resonated deeply with me. It is, as follows:
"King had been as well equipped as any man to seize the opportunities afforded by American expansion into the West in the decade after the Civil War. He helped engineer that expansion, harnessing federal resources to map the region's contours, catalog its natural wealth, and imagine how it could fuel the growth of American enterprise. But with the West mapped, its vast stretches of sparse settlement crisscrossed by railroads, its natural resources increasingly in the hands of large corporations, imagination and bravery were no longer enough. Nor was intellect. Scientific knowledge and personal bravado now mattered less than capital and corporate know-how."
All in all, this is a VERY EYE-OPENING book which helps to shed light on why a white man who enjoyed high privilege and status in 19th century America would choose to pass (in secret) as a Black man in a society that openly mocked, derided, and despised Black people.
What was not known, however, was that, from the late 1880s until his death, King had lived a double life. He had assumed the identity of a fair-skinned black man ("Negro") and married a black woman with whom he had 5 children. This book gives the reader entree into, not only King's life, but also the life of his wife, and the subtle and virulent racism common in late 19th and early 20th century America.
In reading this book, there was one paragraph that resonated deeply with me. It is, as follows:
"King had been as well equipped as any man to seize the opportunities afforded by American expansion into the West in the decade after the Civil War. He helped engineer that expansion, harnessing federal resources to map the region's contours, catalog its natural wealth, and imagine how it could fuel the growth of American enterprise. But with the West mapped, its vast stretches of sparse settlement crisscrossed by railroads, its natural resources increasingly in the hands of large corporations, imagination and bravery were no longer enough. Nor was intellect. Scientific knowledge and personal bravado now mattered less than capital and corporate know-how."
All in all, this is a VERY EYE-OPENING book which helps to shed light on why a white man who enjoyed high privilege and status in 19th century America would choose to pass (in secret) as a Black man in a society that openly mocked, derided, and despised Black people.
lorigentile's review
1.0
I just found the book really hard to read. To be honest, I didn't finish it. I rarely put a book down without finishing it, but this one never captured me.