The Clamorgans: One Family's History of Race in America

by Julie Winch

The Damning, Absurd, and Revelatory History of Race in America Told through the History of a Single Family Historian Julie Winch uses her sweeping, multigenerational history of the unforgettable Clamorgans to chronicle how one family navigated race in America from the 1780s through the 1950s. What she discovers overturns decades of received academic wisdom. Far from an impermeable wall fixed by whites, race opened up a moral gray zone that enterprising blacks manipulated to whatever advantage they could obtain. The Clamorgan clan traces to the family patriarch Jacques Clamorgan, a French adventurer of questionable ethics who bought up, or at least claimed to have bought up, huge tracts of land around St. Louis. On his death, he bequeathed his holdings to his mixed-race, illegitimate heirs, setting off nearly two centuries of litigation. The result is a window on a remarkable family that by the early twentieth century variously claimed to be black, Creole, French, Spanish, Brazilian, Jewish, and white. The Clamorgans is a remarkable counterpoint to the central claim of whiteness studies, namely that race as a social construct was manipulated by whites to justify discrimination. Winch finds in the Clamorgans generations upon generations of men and women who studiously negotiated the very fluid notion of race to further their own interests. Winch's remarkable achievement is to capture in the vivid lives of this unforgettable family the degree to which race was open to manipulation by Americans on both sides of the racial divide.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

432 pages, Hardcover

First published May 24, 2011

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julie Winch once again complicates narratives of early America. Too often historians fall into meta narratives that leave little room for nuance. Winch does not do that in this book. Tracking the lives of members of the Clamorgan clan, Winch provides a narrative of race, empire, and borderlands. Written for both academics and those outside the field, this book is well worth the read (or listen)!

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's quite a chore to take dry legal documents, land grants of old lineage, and complex genealogies and make it into a readable tale. Good work, Julie Winch!

[Quiqui · Rating 3 out of 5]

maybe it's cause I'm from st Louis or maybe it's because I'm black. but I found everything extremely interesting. the back stabbing, the loyalty, and the sad ending to all of it. it was all for nothing.

[W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here is a link to my review in the Washington Independent:

http://www.washingtonindependentrevie...

[MaureenMcBooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull. Couldn't finish it.