{"product_id":"9781440686153","title":"Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line","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":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47154444927216,"sku":"9781440686153","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781440686153_p0.jpg?v=1763787303","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781440686153","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}