Dissertation: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS

Dissertation:

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS: RAILROADS, RACE, AND THE PERFORMANCE OF UNITY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT by Elissa Sartwell.

"This study examines the intersection of performance, history, and politics in the historical glorification of the railroad and the simultaneous erasure and degradation of the men who built it. Specifically, this dissertation examines dozens of nineteenth-century plays, songs, and cartoons, exploring the power of performance in cementing a history of the railroad and the complicity of performance in a political movement that aimed to devalue the contribution of Irish, Mormon, and Black laborers and to expel the Chinese from the United States. This study ultimately engages the larger question of how performance can be used to shape collective memory, history, and a national definition of what it means to be a part of the 'United' States of America."