"""Fair Montague"" or ""Ill-beseeming beast"": Breeches performance on the American stage, 1800-1869"
type: CreativeWork
description: Vigorous scholarly interest in gender studies, women's history and feminist theory in the 1980s and 1990s has generated a vast amount of recent material on cross-dressing. Yet, despite cross-dressing's present favor within academia, a paucity of historical analysis exists regarding perhaps the most celebrated of all theatrical transvestites: the nineteenth-century American breeches actress. Established as a popular convention during the English Restoration, the practice of breeches performance reached its peak in America during the first half of the nineteenth century as actresses donned doublets and hose, tunics and tights on a regular basis in theatres throughout the country. Regardless of the American breeches performer's ubiquitous appeal, however, many basic histories of the American theatre ignore this convention; the history that has been written about the cross-dressed actress consists largely of a discussion of her as a sexual object.
abstract: Vigorous scholarly interest in gender studies, women's history and feminist theory in the 1980s and 1990s has generated a vast amount of recent material on cross-dressing. Yet, despite cross-dressing's present favor within academia, a paucity of historical analysis exists regarding perhaps the most celebrated of all theatrical transvestites: the nineteenth-century American breeches actress. Established as a popular convention during the English Restoration, the practice of breeches performance reached its peak in America during the first half of the nineteenth century as actresses donned doublets and hose, tunics and tights on a regular basis in theatres throughout the country. Regardless of the American breeches performer's ubiquitous appeal, however, many basic histories of the American theatre ignore this convention; the history that has been written about the cross-dressed actress consists largely of a discussion of her as a sexual object.
author: Mullenix, Elizabeth Reitz
language: eng
keywords: History, United States, Women's Studies, Theater
date published: 2011-05-07T13:48:51Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:20Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/22709