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Racializing the Ancient World: Ancestry and Identity in the Early United States by Lyra D. Monteiro B.A., Anthropology and Classical Civilization, New York University, 2004 M.A., Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan, 2006 M.A., Classical Studies-Latin, University of Michigan, 2006 M.A., Public Humanities, Brown University, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World Brown University May 2012 Text copyright © 2012 by Lyra D. Monteiro All images are copyright their respective creators This dissertation by Lyra D. Monteiro is accepted in its present form by the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date_____________ _________________________________ Susan E. Alcock, Advisor Date_____________ _________________________________ Seth Rockman, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date_____________ _________________________________ Corey D. B. Walker, Reader Date_____________ _________________________________ Ömür Harmanşah, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date_____________ _________________________________ Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii VITA Lyra Diana Monteiro was born in Port Townsend, Washington, on December 29, 1981. She studied Anthropology and Classical Civilizations at New York University, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 2003, and graduated summa cum laude in 2004. Between 2004-2006, she studied at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and earned Masters degrees in Classical Art and Archaeology, and in Classical Studies-Latin. At Brown University, she earned a Masters degree in Public Humanities in 2009. Her doctoral studies were supported by the Mellon Fellowship for Humanistic Studies, the Rackham Merit Fellowship from the University of Michigan, the Joukowsky Presidential Fellowship from Brown University, a Graduate Teaching Fellowship from Brown University, the J.M. Stuart Fellowship from the John Carter Brown Library, and the Jay and Deborah Last Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society, as well as travel grants from the Rackham Graduate School of the University of Michigan and the Graduate School of Brown University. She is co-founder and co-director of the public art organization The Museum On Site, and has worked on numerous projects in the public humanities, for places including WaterFire Providence, the Smithsonian Institution‘s National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. She currently lives in New York City. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been completed without the support and mentorship of my committee, Susan E. Alcock, Seth Rockman, Corey D.B. Walker, and Ömür Harmanşah. Their help in navigating the complexities of this interdisciplinary project have been invaluable. I also owe them thanks for their patience and flexibility with the many stops and starts along the way. In particular, Seth Rockman‘s tireless support of my project—ever since I wrote my first, exploratory paper on this topic for his course on American Cultural History—has motivated me to keep working even when I was losing faith in my own ability to complete it. Seth has consistently modeled a level of rigor, inquisitiveness, and generosity as a historian and a mentor that I can only hope one day to achieve. Corey Walker helped me frame the initial questions behind this project—and never stopped pushing me to address the complexities of the topic—while also maintaining a healthy perspective on the academy and my place within it. The mentorship of both James T. Campbell (now at Stanford) and Steven Lubar have been essential my academic and public scholarship. Precisely because they were so supportive of my engagement with the public humanities and interest in museum work, their consistent encouragement of my dissertation work helped me stay the course, and not get distracted by too many outside projects. Four brilliant academics with whom I never had the opportunity study—Ralph Rodriguez, Sherine Hamdy, Ian Straughn, and Ian Russell—were all generous in offering advice and guidance. v The initial ideas for my dissertation project were greatly improved by comments from and discussion with professors and fellow students in the Mellon Graduate Workshop I co-organized with Corey Walker. My students from ―Dead White Guys: Greco-Roman Antiquity and American Identity‖ deserve thanks for helping me think through some of these concepts while I was writing my prospectus; I am particularly grateful to Leo Landrey and Marco McWilliams, whose enthusiasm for and dedication to a course for which they could not receive credit was inspirational. In addition to fellowship, conference, and research travel support from Brown University, I am indebted to the John Carter Brown Library, the American Antiquarian Society, and the American Numismatic Society for research support. The staff and fellows at each institution provided valuable guidance that shaped not only my dissertation project, but also my development as a scholar and a person—especially, Val Andrews, Karen Graubart, Diego Pirillo, Paul Erickson, Su Wolfe, Amy Hughes, and Peter van Alfen. The staff of the other archives and libraries in which I completed my research—including the Library Company of Philadelphia, Boston Athenaeum, Rhode Island Historical Society, Edenton Historical Society, Fluvanna County Historical Society, New York Public Library for Performing Arts, John Hay Library, Bobst Library at NYU, Lamont Library at Harvard, Providence Athenaeum, Fleet Library at the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Rockefeller Library at Brown University—were extremely helpful. I would also like to thank Cassandra Vivian for sharing her work on George Gliddon, and Susan Wood for allowing me to visit her home at Hayes Plantation. I owe more than I can express to my parents, Sharon and Clarence, who encouraged my curiosity and instilled in me an unflappable faith in my ability to achieve vi anything I set out to do. I have also been blessed with the support and encouragement of more friends and colleagues than I can mention here, but I must single out my sister Neah Monteiro, Jenna Rudo-Stern, and Natalie Hulsey, as well as Zac Bruner, Erin Curtis, Sarah Dawson, Sin Guanci, Nara Hernandez, Alicia Jiménez Díez, Kevin McGee, George Odafe, Jonathan Olly, Sara Hames, Victor Smith, Greg Stern & Naomi Rudo, and Julie Waters, for encouraging me, giving me sane advice, and keeping me entertained along the way. I also need to say hello to Jason Isaacs. For my last three months of dissertating, Jen Vincent and her son, Dex, offered me a beautiful place to stay in Providence, furnished with daily hugs and delightful company, as well as patience and critical support. Special thanks go to two extraordinary people who went far above and beyond the duties of friendship over the past three years as I took this project from start to finish: Cat Monroe and Michael Stewart. The fact that they are two of the most amazing people I have ever met makes me feel all the more privileged to have been able to take advantage of their wisdom and good humor. Lastly, my husband, best friend, and collaborator, Andrew Losowsky, deserves a good deal of the credit for this dissertation—from engaging me in repeated conversations about the early ideas, encouraging me to stay focused even through the tough times, making it possible financially for me to work on research and writing rather than bringing in a paycheck, reading and editing numerous drafts, and in the final stages, taking over basic tasks and putting up with my emotional, mental, and physical absence as I gave all my attention to wading through the minutiae of early United States culture. We met just after my second year of graduate school, and I cannot wait to start ―doing life‖ with him as a non-student. I lovingly dedicate this dissertation to him, to us, and to our future. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................. xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 Theoretical and Methodological Approaches ................................................................. 5 Race and Nation in the Early United States .................................................................. 18 American Histories of the Ancient Greece and Rome .................................................. 31 American Histories of Ancient Egypt ........................................................................... 53 Overview of Chapters.................................................................................................... 65 CHAPTER 2: EGYPTIAN MUMMIES AND GREEK GODS: RACIALIZING ANCIENT BODIES IN MEDICINE AND PUBLIC DISPLAYS ................................... 68 Science and the Ancient Body ....................................................................................... 74 Ancient Bodies on Public Display .............................................................................. 111 Unwrapping the Mummies .......................................................................................... 141 CHAPTER 3: FROM BLACK MARC ANTONYS TO WHITE