A White Slave in America: Hiram Powers's Greek Slave and the Cultural Construction of Race
type: CreativeWork
description: This study examines the creation, exhibition and cultural influence of Hiram Powers's Greek Slave (first version, c. 1843), a marble sculpture that depicts a white female figure with shackled wrists. During the mid-nineteenth century, the statue appeared in exhibitions throughout Europe and America. In antebellum America, where the work was seen by more than one hundred thousand viewers, the Greek Slave tapped into an increasingly complex set of discourses surrounding issues of slavery and race. Through close formal analysis and a careful examination of the social and cultural contexts in which the work was created and displayed, I demonstrate how the Greek Slave variously contested and reified American ideologies of race.
abstract: This study examines the creation, exhibition and cultural influence of Hiram Powers's Greek Slave (first version, c. 1843), a marble sculpture that depicts a white female figure with shackled wrists. During the mid-nineteenth century, the statue appeared in exhibitions throughout Europe and America. In antebellum America, where the work was seen by more than one hundred thousand viewers, the Greek Slave tapped into an increasingly complex set of discourses surrounding issues of slavery and race. Through close formal analysis and a careful examination of the social and cultural contexts in which the work was created and displayed, I demonstrate how the Greek Slave variously contested and reified American ideologies of race.
author: Fadeley, Beth
keywords: Arts and Humanities, Classical Archaeology and Art History, Classics, American Art, Antebellum Culture, Neoclassical Sculpture, Race, Slavery
date published: 2010-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:36:56Z
provider: University of South Carolina
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of South Carolina