UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Blood of a Nation: Politics, Medicine, and Race in U.S. Literature, 1848-1900 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Sören Fröhlich Committee in charge: Professor Michael Davidson, Co-Chair Professor Nicole Tonkovich, Co-Chair Professor Lisa Cartwright Professor Lisa Lampert-Weissig Professor Shelley Streeby 2016 © Copyright Sören Fröhlich, 2016 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Sören Fröhlich is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically. Co-Chair Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2016 iii Dedication This dissertation would not exist if not for my family. I dedicate this study to my parents, my wife, our children, and my sisters and brothers. Thank you for your love and support all these years. Thanks also to all my teachers, the good and the bad, who showed me what a joy it is to learn and grow and what a great force teaching can be. iv Epigraph Like the pharmikon, the blood is both the antidote and the poison. Hortense J. Spillers v Table of Contents Signature Page . ................................................................................................................. iii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv Epigraph ...............................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................ vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. ix Vita ..................................................................................................................................... xi Abstract of the Dissertation .............................................................................................. xii Introduction: Why Blood? ...................................................................................................1 Chapter One — Whose Blood? National Imaginaries, Invisible History, and Revolution in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables and Ludwig von Reizenstein’s Die Geheimnisse von New Orleans....................................................................................61 Chapter Two — Defiant Blood: The Civil War, the Textbook, and Emily Dickinson’s “The name – of it – is ‘Autumn’” ....................................................................................123 Chapter Three — The Smell of Blood and Grass: The Civil War Hospital and the Politics of Absorption in Walt Whitman’s 1865 Drum-Taps .......................................................169 Chapter Four — Occult Blood: Medical Narratives, and the Medical Performance in William Wells Brown and Edward H. Dixon ..................................................................213 Chapter Five — Blood in Time: Racist Science, Biblical Time, and the Inscription of Identities in Samuel A. Cartwright’s “Report” and William Wells Brown’s The Rising Son....................................................................................................................................284 Chapter Six — Mama’s Baby, Daddy’s Blood: Paternal Violence, the Uncanny Nation, and the Maternal Narrative in Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson and Pauline E. Hopkins’ Of One Blood ...................................................................................................................326 Conclusion: Blood of One Nation....................................................................................378 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................389 vi List of Abbreviations Fr Emily Dickinson. The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Ralph William Franklin. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1998. Print. JP Emily Dickinson. The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1955. Print. MB Emily Dickinson. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Ralph William Franklin. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1981. Print. Fascicle Emily Dickinson. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Ralph William Franklin. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1981. Print. TYC The Youth’s Companion (1827-1929, Boston: Perry Mason.) Geheimnisse Ludwig von Reizenstein. Die Geheimnisse von New Orleans. 1855. Ed. Steve Rowan. Shreveport: Tintamarre, 2004. Print. Wilson Mark Twain. Puddn’head Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins. Ed. Sidney E. Berger. New York: Norton, 2005. Print. Mysteries Edward H. Dixon. The Terrible Mysteries of the Ku- Klux Klan. New York: n.p., 1868. Print. House Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables. 1851. Ed. Robert S. Levine. New York: Norton, 2006. Print. LG Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. Ed. Michael Moon. New York: Norton, 2002. Print. Blood Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins. Of One Blood. Ed. Hazel V. Carby. The Magazine Novels of Pauline Hopkins. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. 439-623. Print. MHS Joseph K. Barnes, Joseph J. Woodward, Charles Smart, George A. Otis, and D L. Huntington. The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1861-65). Washington: G.P.O, 1870. Print. “Report” Samuel Adolphus Cartwrigth. “Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race.” New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal 7 (1851): 691-715. Print. Son ---. The Rising Son; or, The Antecedents and Advancement of The Colored Race. 1874. Miami: Mnemosyne, 1969. Print. vii List of Figures Figure 1: Facsimile of “The name – of it – is ‘Autumn’” manuscript. …….…………130 Figure 2: “The name – of it – is ‘Autumn’” as printed in The Youth’s Companion 8 Sep. 1892, 448. ……………………………………………………………………163 Figure 3: Rote questions accompanying “The name – of it – is ‘Autumn’” as printed in The Youth’s Companion 8 Sep. 1892, 448. ……………….…………………165 Figure 4: “Enclosure: Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on Breeding Merino Sheep, [ca. 13 May 1810].” …………………………………………………………….…………344 viii Acknowledgments I owe gratitude and more to the many people who helped me turn a vague question I had fourteen years ago—what about blood?—into scholarship. I thank my teachers at UCSD, whose constant patience and professionalism in the face of daunting work loads still made room for the unusual inquiry and the new. I want to thank Michael Davidson, whose work is so invaluable and who has been part of this research for a decade now. I also want to thank Nicole Tonkovich for modeling the highest standards of excellence in teaching, writing, and research and whose grace under pressure will always be an example. I want to thank Shelley Streeby for always challenging my work and pushing me to new insights, often with one single word. I thank Lisa Cartwright and Lisa Lampert-Weissig for hours of patient reading and critical responses, for open ears and doors, and for their expert eye. I also want to thank my reading group colleagues, especially Satoko Kakihara, Clare Rolens, Violeta Sanchez, and Juliana Choi. I thank everyone at the Revelle Humanities Writing Program for years of training, expertise, generosity, and the good feeling that my labor is respected and my teaching taken seriously. A number of other colleagues and scholars have influenced my thinking about blood and helped me think through some of the twists and turns this topic takes. I will miss the friendship and constant curiosity of my mentor in Eichstätt, Prof. Dr. Hermann Josef Schnackertz. Alfred Bammesberger, Claudia Neudecker, Christine Strobl, Joachim Grzega, and Günther Blaicher showed what collegial scholarship can be and gave me the room to grow and the guidance not to stray. Beyond the wonderful people in my institutions I am grateful for all those ix scholars and colleagues who make this work more than just a personal obsession. Especially the Dickinson scholars family has been a constant source of support and encouragement, and so I thank Martha Nell Smith, Ben Friedlander, Eliza Richards, and Faith Barrett. I thank Joe Fruscione, Josh Lukin, Sarah Chinn, Ellen Samuels, and Martin Japtok for their kindness and steady friendship. Beyond the classroom I have been fortunate to spend many days in the enriching company and wise counsel of Sabrina Starnamann, Kate Slater, John Higgins, Kedar A. Kulkarni, Michael James Lundell, Alberto Garcia, Chien-ting Lin, Alexander Ezekiel Chang, and Ben Chapin. Finally, I want to thank all the many, many staff and non-permanent employees of the institutions for their hard work and sometimes absolutely heroic struggle to keep our departments, programs, and schools running. x Vita 2002-5 Research Assistant, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany 2005-6 Teaching Assistant, Boston College 2006-7 Research Assistant, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany 2007 Magister Artium, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany 2008-13 Teaching Assistant, Humanities Writing Program, University of California, San Diego 2011 Research Assistant, University of California, San Diego 2011 Candidate in Philosophy, University of California,