Discerning Characters: The Culture of Appearance in Early America

Introduction

Introduction O visage of man! Mirror more true, more expressive, than his gesture, his speech, or even his accent, thou canst not extinguish the rapid lightning emitted by the soul! She has an involuntary course; she even shines in the eyes of the impostor. —Pennsylvania Herald and General Advertiser (1787), from Louis-Sébastien Mercier, The Night Cap Who is not in fact to himself, a physiognomist by habit? Who does not pass a mental verdict on the appearance of a stranger? We are all such. —Analectic Magazine (1818) The Deity, in kindness to our race, Hath set a stamp on every human face, By which, together with the shape and air, A shrewd observer may at once declare, From characters of no ambiguous kind, What are the leading lineaments of mind. (ll. 1–6) —Thomas Green Fessenden, “Physiognomy” (1825) It is difficult to imagine a more memorable and self-conscious description of public visibility in early American culture than the one given by Benjamin Franklin in his Autobiography (1771–88) when he enters Philadelphia for the first time in 1723. It is, as one historian puts it, “one of the most familiar episodes in American history” (Wright 29). Seemingly oblivious to the image he presents before the eyes of strangers, he struts down Market Street with his 2 Introduction pockets brimming with dirty laundry and his youthful body adorned with “three great Puffy Rolls,” one under each arm and a third rapidly disappearing into his mouth.1 The puffy rolls intensify the image of Franklin’s poverty at this moment since their reference to his immediate hunger indicates a proximity to the urgent necessities of life that might have been satisfied with less vulgarity and visibility at some inn or private residence.2 As this nineteenthcentury illustration of the episode makes clear (Figure 1), Franklin’s puffy rolls are imagined to offend the refined sensibilities of his future wife, Deborah Read, as much as they whet the appetite of a wandering stray dog. The point of the Puffy Roll spectacle, Franklin explains, is to enable the reader to mentally “compare such unlikely beginnings with the Figure I have since made” (F 27) so that the image of this ravenous runaway can be contrasted with the exemplary public gentleman that he would later become. Even though at this narrative moment Franklin actually is an impoverished runaway, his description attributes his appearance as such to a variety of noncorporeal visual signifiers such as his “Working Dress,” “dirty” hygiene, and, of course, those “three great Puffy Rolls” eaten on the street (F 27). Thus, the effect of Franklin’s “most awkward ridiculous Appearance” is the result of impermanent causes whose signifiers he understands as socially defined, yet ultimately subject to his own volition, rational discipline, and, at times, healthy appetite. Like the misplaced letters of compositor’s type, Franklin recognizes the errata of his public appearance, as he does elsewhere with the errata of his life, and he recomposes himself to communicate a message more consistent with both his intentions and social norms (Warner Letters 74). After establishing himself as a printer, for instance, Franklin returns home to display “a genteel new Suit from Head to foot” (F 33) and a new watch to his family, while those pockets that “were stuff’d out with Shirts and Stockings” (F 27) when he first entered Philadelphia are now “lin’d with near Five Pounds Sterling in Silver” (F 33). Part of the great appeal of Franklin’s Autobiography for his readers then and now is that he presents the relationship between the visibility of a person and the legibility of that person’s public character in terms of performance. As such, that relationship is articulated as voluntary, revisable, and—as we can see from this early twentieth-century gathering of The Poor Richard’s Club in Philadelphia (Figure 2)—seemingly universally available. By decorporealizing his person and explaining his success in the generalized terms of pure genteel performance, Franklin allows the acquisition of his social mobility to seem as available as the acquisition of his conduct. If one wants to obtain Figure 1. “Franklin’s First Entrance Into Philadelphia.” From Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ed. John Bigelow. 4 vols., illustrated by Joseph M. P. and Emily Price (1868; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1887). Image courtesy...