“The Menken,” the original Divine Miss M, performed inventive gender identities that made her the first superstar of American theatre. Her celebrity transcended national boundaries just as her performative, bodily acts transgressed gender normatives of the nineteenth century. And yet, she is remembered only for these outrageous acts. By examining archival photographs, specifically carte de visites, as well as her personal and published writing, while interpreting multi-disciplinary theories applied to cultural contexts using Menken’s rhetorics as an exemplar, I hope I have opened possibilities and given insights into Menken’s importance as an early feminist rhetor. She may have obscured her personal biography, but she paraded her public personae before spectators in gender-bending performances of visual rhetoric and in several
pieces of creative non-fiction writing that attempted a move towards serious authorship of women’s issues. But still I wonder…
What would Menken think of feminist performative theory and my placement of her within the realm of first wave feminism? Would she consider herself a pathfinder for feminist discourse and for code-breaking? As is the case with her rhetorics and her life experiences, we can only bring together the consistencies and the ambiguities to speculate about what appears to be. Primary sources attest to how successfully she employed extravagant methods that brought her visual performances and personal writings into conflict with nineteenth century social norms regarding womanhood. Through this two-year dissertation research journey, I have found both primary and secondary sources that purport to speak for Menken. I have even recovered and re- interpreted Menken’s own personal and public writing. Through my extensive research, I have used hundreds of sources to argue for Menken’s importance as a feminist rhetor, indeed a pathfinder, who, through her visual and written performances, called for the disruption of Victorian social codes. I have concluded, through a wealth of evidence, that Menken deserves a place in the genre of first wave feminist rhetoric. I conclude that she employed her writing and visual performances as rhetorical vehicles through which she voiced both current plights of women in 19th-century society and solutions for re-visioning the societal codes that made women’s life experiences plights in the first place. I have shown that Menken was more than a spectacular actress, that her performances transcend mere entertainment and, instead, make her a valuable voice in terms of feminist discourse for both study and appreciation.
I continue to make re-discovering Adah Menken and her diverse rhetorics a scholarly priority, particularly in examining primary sources that might describe her contemporaneous relationships with other feminist writers. It is only through sustained, primary research that we
will ever truly know with a degree of certainty what she, herself, thought about the women around her who were fighting against these same social codes. We can never know for certain whether or not she would have gone on to publish publicly-accepted treatises on women’s rights had she lived beyond her short thirty-three years. We can, however, analyze the writings she left behind, reading closely for clues as to her feminist intentions. While we can apply her rhetorics regarding the intersections of her gendered performances and her gender performativity, the “t”ruths remain ambiguous and speculative.
The very nature of archival research belies conclusions with a capital “C.” Archival research is a continuing process of findings, of serendipity, of revisions, and re-envisionings. During the past two years, I have unearthed duplicitous accounts, conflicting sources, and
outright falsehoods in secondary and primary Adah Menken sources. During this process, I have found that I have become comfortable with the chaos and delighted by both the unexpected finds and the dead-ends. I intend to take the conclusions I have found thus far as well as the
erroneous accounts and expand the recovery project to include specific foci on Menken’s Western performances, her writings for the New York Mercury, and her public portrayal of her scandalous personal relationships. Further research would also include a site visit to Paris to verify aspects of Menken’s life during her lengthy stay in the city. Another avenue of
investigation for literary scholars could include analyses of Menken’s relationships with literati such as Alergernon Swineburne, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, and Georges Sands, and how those relationships influenced the rhetorics of any or all of them. Historians may be interested to further study why Adah Menken was a favorite ghost for early 20th century Spiritualists to call upon during séances. Admittedly, my in-depth research truly just scratches the surface of the complex life experiences and legacies of this feminist rhetor. My findings led
me to a variety of relevant and interesting rhetorical experiences that would make excellent fodder for further analysis. I think it most appropriate to end my dissertation with a statement of purpose using Menken’s same words from Chapter One, this time not as a rationale for my dissertation but as a call for further research on Adah Menken. She wrote these lines as part of her Infelicia, published weeks after her death:
“The man or woman whom excessive caution holds back from striking the anvil with earnest endeavor is poor and cowardly of purpose.” Adah Isaacs Menken, 1868. !!!
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Rowan & Littlefield, 2005. Print. Archives Visited for this Publication
American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, OH. Harvard Theatre Collection (HTC), Harvard Library.
New Orleans Public Library Special Collections
The Vault at Pfaff’s: An Archive of Art and Literature by New York City’s 19th-Century Bohemians. Lehigh University Digital Library, http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/pfaffs/p22/ The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. http://www.sfmuseum.org/bio/adah.html
Carte de Visites, Playbills, and Personal Letter Permissions
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“Personal Letter of Adah Isaacs Menken,” undated. (Ms.q.Am.8). Rare Manuscript Division, Boston Public Library.
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Thick Description of the Vault at Pfaff’s Digital Archive
Introduction and Background
In its December 3, 1859 edition, the Boston Saturday Express called Pfaff’s pub, "the trysting-place of the most careless, witty, and jovial spirits of New York,—journalists, artists, and poets." (2). The Vault at Pfaff’s is a digital archive documenting biographies and works of artists from the 19th-century New York Bohemian movement. The archive takes its name from an underground pub run by German immigrant Charles Pfaff. The pub was known as The Vault