Martha Sandweiss' PASSING STRANGE reviewed in the Providence Journal

‘Passing Strange’: A Victorian love that crossed the color line


By MARK DUNKELMAN
Sunday, March 8, 2009; Providence Journal

Clarence King (1842-1901) was a distinguished geologist, famous as the leader of an exploration of the 40th parallel, “the man who mapped the West,” the first director of the U. S. Geological Survey. A son of Newport society (he is buried in Island Cemetery), he returned from his frequent rambles around the continent to lodgings in private clubs and residential hotels in New York City, where he charmed a wide circle of admirers and led the high life of a celebrity. With his intimate friends, John Hay and Henry Adams and their spouses, he bonded to form the Five of Hearts, and he wrote a classic account of mountaineering in California that earned him a reputation as a man of letters.

Ada Copeland (1860-1964), born a slave in western Georgia, emigrated to New York circa 1884 and took a job as a nursemaid in the downtown home of a white family. At some point, under unknown circumstances, the black domestic worker and the celebrated white scientist met and fell in love.

King had long lauded the attraction of dark-skinned women to his friends. But he knew that his relationship with Copeland would destroy his career and alienate his family if it became known. So he adopted an alternate persona. Presenting himself as James Todd, a black Pullman porter from Baltimore, he wed Ada in 1888. Todd installed his wife in a succession of homes in Brooklyn and Queens, far from King’s Manhattan haunts, and the couple had five children, four of whom lived to adulthood.

For the full review, click here.