{"product_id":"9780143116868","title":"Passing Strange","description":"\u003cb\u003eRead Martha A. Sandweiss's posts on the Penguin Blog\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e The secret double life of the man who mapped the American West, and the woman he loved \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Clarence King was a late nineteenth-century celebrity, a brilliant scientist and explorer once described by Secretary of State John Hay as \"the best and brightest of his generation.\" But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for thirteen years he lived a double life-the first as the prominent white geologist and writer Clarence King, and a second as the black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd. The fair, blue-eyed son of a wealthy China trader passed across the color line, revealing his secret to his black common-law wife, Ada Copeland, only on his deathbed. In \u003ci\u003ePassing Strange\u003c\/i\u003e, noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the dramatic, distinctively American tale of a family built along the fault lines of celebrity, class, and race- a story that spans the long century from Civil War to civil rights.","brand":"Martha A. Sandweiss","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":48438380101844,"sku":"9780143116868","price":37.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/9208\/files\/BNCImageAPI_866385d5-dde2-449c-a538-07ec19c2ccd8.jpg?v=1786147195","url":"https:\/\/penguinshop.ca\/products\/9780143116868","provider":"Penguin Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}