The “Hybrid Hero” in Western Dime Novels

Abstract

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore how dress - including cross-dressing and androgynous dress - was used within the Deadwood Dick series to construct meanings about gender and identity. The research was informed by the works of Judith Butler and Erving Goffman and by reflection theory. Data were collected by extracting references to dress within five Deadwood Dick novels featuring Calamity Jane. Analyses revealed overarching themes related to traditionally feminine dress, androgynous dress, and cross-dressing. Transitions in ideological views of 19^th century womanhood are reflected in the dime novels' alterations in appearance and gender performance that enabled female characters to act in expanded spheres. Androgyny allowed characters to adopt nontraditional gender identities, giving the freedom to participate in male-dominated contexts. Cross-dressing provided characters a means of navigating temporary changes in space and place. Findings provide a reflection of the evolving national character present in 19^th century American society.

Keywords

dime novel appearance androgyny cross-dressing gender identity dress

During the 19th century, as American society became more industrialized, cities along the east coast grew exponentially (Denning, 1998). As rapid urbanization and growth pushed families westward to seek new opportunities, men and women often found themselves sharing in domestic and work-related activities, particularly on the frontier. Men often took part in traditionally feminine duties such as cooking and cleaning, whereas women took on masculine duties such as farming, working outdoors, and tending livestock (Helvenston, 1986). In turn, changes in gender roles and norms incited by westward movement brought about changes in norms for gendered dress behaviors, particularly for women. Although many pioneer women continued to wear traditional feminine dress, they often had to adapt some of its more impractical components in order to perform their new roles with ease. Thus, androgynous dress and cross-dressing became common among frontier women for several reasons: to accommodate the physical lifestyle of the frontier, to negotiate the hegemonic power relationships between men and women on the frontier, to participate in male-dominated roles, and to assert a measure of independence from the rigid norms of 19th-century society (Helvenston, 1986).

One important window into the lives of 19th-century Americans—including shifts in norms for gendered behaviors such as dress—can be found in the American dime novel.

Dime novels have been said to “present a more accurate and vivid picture of the appearance, manner, speech, habits and methods of the pioneer western characters than do the more formal historians” (O’Brien, 1922, p. 3). Though dime novels provide an author’s imagined vision of western characters and their exploits, they are grounded in some reality and historical fact. Thus, this research was undertaken to gain an understanding of dime novels’ reflection of 19th-century American society, including women’s negotiation of frontier life through the manipulation of gender, dress, and appearance. Of particular interest was how dress—including cross-dressing and androgynous dress—was used within the Deadwood Dick dime novel series to construct meanings about gender and identity.

Literature Review

Constructions of 19th-Century American Womanhood

In the years spanning 1820 and the Civil War, America witnessed the rise of new industries, businesses, and professions that spawned the emergence of a new middle class and along with it, a new ideology about womanhood. Referred to by Welter (1966) as the Cult of True Womanhood, this ideology identified four virtues of ideal womanhood: piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity, all of which promised happiness and power if performed in woman’s “proper sphere”—the home. Although rhetoric promoting these virtues was rampant within popular literature, Welter has suggested that there also were “forces at work in the 19th century which impelled woman herself to change, to play a more active role in society” (p. 173). These forces included industrialism, social reform, the Civil War, and notably, westward migration. Indeed, owing to the intermingling of gender-specific chores on the frontier, some historians have questioned the influence of the Cult of True Womanhood on westering women. Although pioneer women made genuine efforts to maintain their image as proper ladies, they also modified the virtues of the Cult—which clashed with the daily necessities of life on the frontier—to suit their own needs (Cogan, 1989; Welter, 1966).

Thus, the lives of pioneer women may echo more closely themes identified with what Frances Cogan (1989) has referred to as the Ideal of Real Womanhood, which she offers as a critique of Welter’s work. The Ideal of Real Womanhood asserts that women’s spheres were broader than the private, domestic spheres dictated by the Cult of True Womanhood. According to the Ideal of Real Womanhood, the popular literature so notorious for advocating values associated with Cult of True Womanhood also can be interpreted as encouraging strength, independence, intelligence, and survival among women. The Ideal of Real Womanhood therefore may reflect more truly the daily lives and struggles of women who often worked both within the home and outside the home, whether out of economic, religious, or political necessity, or for the sake of westward movement (Cogan, 1989). The Ideal of Real Womanhood also closely mirrors the New Woman movement that emerged after the Civil War in response to women’s growing discontent with patriarchal systems in place (Matthews, 2003). Both a feminist ideal and a reference to the growing number of young, educated, professional women who were actively pursuing access to opportunities previously available only to men, the New Woman sought to create sexual, social, and political transformation by encouraging women to gain an education, to enter the workforce, to participate in social activities, and to join the Suffragette movement (Matthews, 2003; Patterson, 2005). As such, late 19th-century society saw many changes for women, including increased political access and voting rights (particularly in the West), expanded educational and professional opportunities, and new social activities (Myres, 1982).

Gender, Identity, and Dress on the Frontier

Pioneer women continuously shifted locations, which necessitated that they engage in a negotiation or reworking of identity as they moved through space and place (Blunt & Rose, 1994; Roberson, 1998). Roberson (1998) has referred to this process as the “politics of relocation” (p. 8). For women relocating to the West, this negotiation process was achieved in part through changes in gender roles and social duties as well as in alterations to appearance (Blunt & Rose, 1994). Not all pioneer women, however, managed their appearances in a similar manner; a multiplicity of dress behaviors coexisted on the frontier.

Despite the uncomfortable, impractical, and sometimes dangerous nature of proper female dress on the frontier, many women insisted on preserving their feminine dress and appearance—including hoop skirts, corsets, tight bodices, voluminous skirts, and excessive trimmings—as a means of upholding and asserting their femininity in male-dominated contexts (Helvenston, 1990; Walker, 1998). Diaries of early pioneering women suggest that wearing traditionally feminine clothing also afforded women a means by which to uphold their Eastern identities and roles (Davis, 1987; Schlissel, 1982). Additionally, for many pioneer women, the maintenance of traditional feminine dress was important because fashion often served a social function, useful in establishing groups in which women could interact, share fashion advice, and hold onto vestiges of their femininity. Thus, there is evidence that even small, isolated frontier communities acted as “microcosms” in which women created networks among themselves for discussing fashion and sustaining feminine ideals of appearance (Helvenston, 1990).

Although many women sought to maintain vestiges of traditional feminine dress on the frontier, others understood the impracticality of doing so, and so adopted a simplified and practical version of traditional feminine dress, such as the Mother Hubbard Dress or dresses with limited trims and/or added ease in the bodice (Babcock, 1950; Helvenston, 1986; Richards, Farr, & Gaitros, 1997). In still other cases, women seeking dress suited to the physical demands of frontier life adopted radical “utility” or “reform” fashions, such as Bloomer dress, which were promoted by women’s rights advocates (Helvenston, 1986; Kesselman, 1991). Although these utility fashions provided westering women comfort and freedom for their new roles, they would not have been considered socially acceptable in eastern society.

Some pioneering women violated gender role expectations for dress in an even more ostentatious manner than wearing utility dress by adopting men’s clothing and a male appearance (Helvenston, 1990; Walker, 1998) for reasons of physical comfort, social convenience, and personal safety as well as to participate in male-dominated roles. Thus, many women adopted androgynous dress (i.e., body modifications or body supplements that unite male and female qualities in a single appearance; Michelman, 2005) and cross-dressing (i.e., body modifications or supplements used to adopt a different gender; Arnold, 2001; Butler, 1990) as a means of negotiating changing gender roles and performing tasks necessary for survival on the frontier. For many women, not having to follow fashion provided a sense of relief and liberation (Helvenston, 1990). As women took on these new identities and learned different ways to consider themselves, they felt both more self-sufficient and empowered (Blunt & Rose, 1994; Roberson, 1998). Thus, androgynous dress and cross-dressing became forms of “hybridity”¹ for negotiating changes in geographic space, bodily place, identity, and hegemonic power relationships between men and women on the frontier (Blunt & Rose, 1994, p. 17).

Dime Novels as a Reflection of National Character

The term dime novel encompasses a wide range of commercial, mass-produced popular fiction narratives published between the 1840s and 1890s and sold from 5 to 25 cents (Denning, 1998). Although, as a body of literature, the dime novel often was regarded as cheap, sensationalist popular fiction, many scholars consider dime novels to be an important primary source of information about working-class culture, pioneer and western life, and 19th-century Americans (Denning, 1998; Jones, 1978; O’Brien, 1922). Of interest in the present work is the Western dime novel, and in particular, the Deadwood Dick series. It has been said that as mid-19th century-America was undergoing labor strife, economic worries, and increased industrialization, the Western dime novel “functioned increasingly as a vehicle for social criticism and spiritual reaffirmation” (Jones, 1978, p. 56). Western dime novelists often concentrated their stories on one protagonist, or “hybrid hero,” who participated in multiple plots by creating multiple identities, “simply by changing [her] clothes” (Jones, 1978, p. 42; Worden, 2007). Female protagonists often adopted androgynous dress and/or cross-dressing to pass as a male, perform traditionally masculine roles more effectively, and switch between various identities (Jones, 1978). In this way, female dime novel characters used androgynous dress and cross-dressing as a means of achieving “hybridity” (Blunt & Rose, 1994) in space and place and of creating the “hybrid hero” identity (Jones, 1978; Shields, 2008).

The Deadwood Dick series was penned by dime novelist Edward L. Wheeler between 1877 and 1885 and traces the adventures of Deadwood Dick, an outlaw road agent in the Black Hills of Deadwood, South Dakota. Calamity Jane, a major recurring female character in the series, is “the feminine counterpart of Deadwood Dick” (Smith, 1978, p. 117). Owing to a mysterious event in her past, Calamity Jane is transformed from a refined young woman to a ruthless, gun-slinging character who acts as an outlaw road agent and drinks whiskey, smokes cigars, plays cards, swears, fights, shoots, and dresses like a man (Jones, 1978; Smith, 1978). Within the series, her dress and appearance often are described in great detail, perhaps owing to the fact that, during the 19th century, it was unusual for women to adopt the dress of men.

Theoretical Groundings

Reflection Theory

Reflection theory proposes that “cultural products such as literature in some way mirror the social order” (Griswold, 1981, p. 740). As such, reflection theory is useful in understanding the complex relationships between society and literature. According to White (1980), literature provides unique access to the social structures and history of a given society and/or time period that other cultural or linguistic artifacts cannot. In particular, White notes that literature has the “power to transcend, criticize, or at least self-consciously comment on the structure of those social conditions under which literary works are produced” (White, 1980, p. 364). As Simonsen (1993) reminds us, however, works of literary fiction, in particular, reflect specific rhetorical aims (e.g., the need to tell a story), and, as such, do not necessarily reveal a literal reflection of the surrounding cultural conditions during which they were produced, but rather, a refracted reflection of that reality. Thus, although literary works such as dime novels do not represent an exact mirror of society, per se, they can provide insight into the “real hopes [and] … dreams of a society [and its] shameful fantasies” as well as to provide critique and comment on the social mores and conditions of the time (Simonsen, 1993, p. 128).

Performativity

Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical perspective proposes that, in everyday life, people stage (role) performances of the self as they behave and appear before others. Key to the notion of performance is the personal front, which includes expressive equipment (e.g., dress, gender, speech) that the performer utilizes in order for the audience to identify him or her. Overall, the goal of the actor’s various presentations of self is to gain acceptance from the audience through the manipulation of fronts, manners, and settings (Goffman, 1959). During social transactions and performances, reviews (evaluations about the wearer by the audience) and programs (evaluations about the wearer by the wearer) can coincide or clash, leading to either the validation of the self or to the modification and redefinition of self (Stone, 1995).

Judith Butler’s (1990) work on the performative nature of gender is relevant to the present work in that it proposes that gender performances serve to create and shape rather than to reflect individuals’ identities. Thus, according to Butler (1990), men and women may create and maintain gendered performances that society deems socially acceptable and appropriate through the “stylization of the body” (p. 191). On the other hand, they may choose to go against society’s gender norms by taking part in subversive bodily acts such as drag, cross-dressing, and androgynous dress, which allow for experimentation with a variety of gender identities and create “expand[ed] possibilities” of what it means to be a man or woman (Butler, 1990, p. 3; Halberstram, 1998). In this vein, Butler proposes that gender is unstable and can be manipulated in various ways to create different performative identities, such as androgyny and cross-dressing, through the manipulation of acts, gestures, appearance, and dress.

Justification and Purpose

Dime novels have been recognized as a valuable reflection of 19th-century working-class mores (Denning, 1998) and contain a rich sample of 19th-century American dress norms from which to examine the uses and effects of androgynous dress and cross-dressing (Worden, 2007). In particular, dime novels provide insight into how androgynous dress and cross-dressing were important in assisting “hybrid hero” characters in creating various identities in order to participate in multiple plots (Jones, 1978). To date, however, very little scholarly attention has been dedicated to examining how the female characters of this literary genre are portrayed and/or the role of dress in shaping these portrayals. As such, the purpose of the present narrative inquiry was to address these gaps in the literature by exploring the role of dress—and, in particular, androgynous dress and cross-dressing—among female characters within a dime novel series, the Deadwood Dick series, in constructing meanings about gender and identity. Of particular interest were the ways in which androgynous dress and cross-dressing were used by female characters in the Deadwood Dick series to perform gender as well as the extent to which dime novels from the series reflect 19th-century American mores, values, and social concerns as related to women’s gender roles and dress.

Method

Narrative inquiry—the examination of spoken, written, and/or visual materials (Mishler, 1995)—was used to analyze the manipulation of gender, dress, and appearance of female characters in the Deadwood Dick series. This qualitative method is useful for analyzing long accounts and is different from other qualitative approaches, such as grounded theory, in that accounts are kept intact and “treated analytically as units” rather than theorizing across multiple cases by using categories (Riessman, 2008, p. 12). That is not to say that narrative inquiry does not generate general categories through close reading of individual cases; in the case of narrative inquiry, categories can emerge, but more attention is paid to details such as “how and why incidents are storied … .For whom was this story constructed, and for what purpose” (Riessman, 2008, p. 11). For this study, thematic analysis was the most fitting form of narrative analysis because it is commonly used to analyze written materials (Mishler, 1995; Riessman, 2008).

Sample and Data Collection

Five western dime novels from the Deadwood Dick series were selected for analysis. The Deadwood Dick series was selected for analysis because its female protagonist, Calamity Jane, is “one of the most famous cross-dressers in the Western” (Modleski, 1997, p. 528; Russell, 1994). Given the focus of this work upon the dime novel as a window into the lives of frontier women, only Deadwood Dick novels featuring Calamity Jane were chosen for the sample: Deadwood Dick, the Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills (Wheeler, 1877); Deadwood Dick on Deck; or, Calamity Jane, the Heroine of Whoop-Up (Wheeler, 1878); Deadwood Dick’s Doom; or, Calamity Jane’s Last Adventure (Wheeler, 1881); Deadwood Dick’s Big Deal; or, The Gold Brick of Oregon (Wheeler, 1883); and Deadwood Dick’s Diamonds; or, The Mystery of Joan Porter (Wheeler, 1885).

Data were collected by extracting all references to women’s appearance included within the texts of the selected novels. Appearance includes dress and the situated body and its attributes (Lillethun, 2007). Using Roach-Higgins and Eicher’s (1992) definition of dress, references to body modifications (e.g., hair, skin, nails, muscular/skeletal system, teeth, breath) and body supplements (e.g., enclosures, attachments, and handheld objects/accessories) were identified for analysis. Additionally, references to the situated body and its attributes (e.g., age, health, skin, color, stature, and mood) and manner (i.e., those stimuli that convey the role a performer will assume in an upcoming interaction; Goffman, 1959) were extracted for analysis.

Data Analysis

In keeping with the conventions of thematic analysis, the primary researcher read the data multiple times to identify key words and phrases that represented core meanings within the data. These core meanings were grouped into an initial set of general content categories. Through the process of rereading and moving back and forth among the data, the literature, and the researchers’ interpretations, overarching and minor themes emerged and were further clarified. Redundant themes were eliminated or combined, resulting in the development of a coding guide that was applied to the data through a coding process, such that excerpts representing various themes were grouped and organized. The emergent overarching and minor themes revealed connections and conclusions about appearance, dress, and gender among female characters in the Deadwood Dick series as well as the relationships between dime novel literature and 19th-century American society by situating the findings within the historical context (Riessman, 2008).

To ensure the trustworthiness and dependability of the data analysis process, an audit coder also worked with the primary researcher to check her (a) identification of text for inclusion within the sample and (b) application of the coding guide to the data. In both cases, an interrater reliability coefficient was calculated by dividing the total number of agreements by the total number of decisions made. All disagreements in decision making were negotiated between the researcher and the audit coder. The interrater reliability coefficients for inclusion of text within the sample and for the application of the coding guide were both 91%.

Results

Analysis revealed the importance of dress and gender performance as a means of situating female characters in their geographic and bodily spaces and places on the frontier. Three overarching themes were identified within the data and focused upon the use of traditionally feminine dress, androgynous dress, and cross-dressing by female characters in the series to perform gender and to advance the plot of the novels.

Traditionally Feminine Dress/Gender Performances as Buttressing Constructions of 19th-Century American Womanhood

The majority of female characters in the Deadwood Dick series wore and used traditional, feminine dress, with some consideration for social context apparent. Dresses, skirts, jewelry, parasols, and hand bags constituted the backbone of the traditional, feminine appearances in the series, with characters donning more elaborate dress for outings and meetings with male characters and simpler dress for physically demanding tasks. Wheeler’s descriptions of Virgie Verner’s dress in Deadwood Dick’s Doom (1881) provide a representative account of the traditional, feminine dress commonly worn by female characters in the series:

The young lady … was the possessor of a fine figure, and prettily chiseled features, set off by starry black eyes, and wavy brown hair. She was attired with a long ulster duster over her dress, a silk scarf about her throat, and a vailed [sic] hat upon her head … . (p. 2)

The dress described in the excerpt above reveals that Virgie sought to maintain vestiges of her femininity on the western frontier by dressing in the latest fashions of the era. This commitment to maintenance of fashion on the frontier was a trend that cut across the entire series and the majority of its female characters. That is, the components of traditional, feminine dress described—silk and lace garments, two-piece dresses, the Ulster, veiled hats, scarves, and diamonds—remained constant throughout the series and reflected the latest trends (Tortora & Eubank, 2005).

In addition to adopting traditionally gendered dress, the majority of female characters in the Deadwood Dick series performed in conventional ways, conducting themselves as “proper” ladies and embodying the virtues of True Womanhood—including piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity—in their performances (Welter, 1966). In keeping with society’s ideas of virtuous feminine behavior as espoused in 19th-century women’s magazines (Welter, 1966), female characters’ gender performances included emotional reactions to danger, gestures of weakness and distress, dependence on and deference to male protectors, and engagement in domestic activities. Words used to characterize female gender performances—such as pretty, pure, sweet, proper, emotional, and helpless—supported traditional gender binaries and constructed women as something to be “looked at” and as delicate, sensitive, and at the mercy of their bodies. The following excerpts demonstrate well such constructions of womanhood:

A light falling upon her fair head and features and bared white shoulders—for she was in a magnificent costume—had an additional effect of increasing her wondrous beauty: she knew it perhaps full as well as the man before her and put on one of the most fascinating smiles she knew so well how to manage. (Wheeler, 1878, p. 21)

There was a scream of agony, just here, and a heavy fall. Anita had fainted! Redburn sprung from his seat, ran over to her side, and raised her tenderly in his arms. ‘Poor thing!’ he murmured, gazing into her pale, still face, ‘the shock was too much for her. No wonder she fainted.’ (Wheeler, 1877, p. 11)

The notion of gender conformity is supported here in that there is accordance between social expectations of femininity and the appearances and behaviors of female characters. These idealized performances of women as pretty, passive participants in the private sphere support Goffman’s (1959) proposition that generally speaking, performances “exemplify the officially accredited values of the society” (p. 35). In the novel, Madame Minnie and Anita provided idealized performances of femininity by adopting values deemed socially acceptable by 19th-century society, thereby reaffirming their geographic and bodily locations or identities.

Within the context of the Deadwood Dick series, however, the portrayal of female characters was not limited to gender performances defined by the virtues of the Cult of True Womanhood; the adventures of these fictitious, westering women—like those of real pioneers—sometimes necessitated modified gender performances that challenged these virtues and that were more reminiscent of Cogan’s (1989) conceptualization of Real Womanhood and the New Woman movement. Throughout the series, there were instances in which female characters were forced to act outside the private sphere and to alter their dress and gender performances accordingly, most often for purposes of survival. Here, then, female characters such as Virgie Verner and Madame Minnie donned subdued, practical dresses that lent themselves well to the physical tasks at hand and/or added handheld objects such as revolvers or knives to their personal fronts, juxtaposing these weapons against a backdrop of traditionally feminine dress. Although these characters’ performances did not follow the expectations of society in every regard, their appearances remained feminine, albeit altered, in order to better situate themselves in their new expanded spheres and locations.

The Role of Androgynous Dress in Creating Nontraditional Gender Identity

In contrast to the majority of female characters who adopted traditional, feminine appearances, Calamity Jane, the series’ recurring female protagonist, utilized androgynous dress and appearance to create a nontraditional gender identity that she felt best embodied and reflected her sense of self. Viewing Calamity’s gender performance through the lens of Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical perspective and Butler’s (1990) work on the performative nature of gender reveals the importance of appearance and manners in creating believable androgynous gender performances and identities. In addition, Stone’s (1995) work on appearance is helpful in understanding the influences and outcomes of judgments on characters’ presentations of the self and identity management/formation.

Appearance

Although the younger, more feminine Calamity Jane was featured in the Deadwood Dick series only as part of the character’s “backstory,” the author invokes her past life to demonstrate the effects of westward movement and the “politics of relocation” on her adult gender identity (Roberson, 1998). That is, by detailing the metamorphosis of Calamity from a demure and femininely dressed 16-year-old to an androgynously dressed and behaving adult woman, the author effectively demonstrates the ways in which the demands of frontier life and a growing disconnect with her feminized identity necessitated that Calamity reconfigure her gender performances. The author sets her transformation into motion with an undisclosed, mysterious event that prompts Calamity to move westward, where she abandons the trappings of the feminized version of the self. This change in her appearance is incited, in part, by the sheer practicality and utility of an androgynous appearance for life on the frontier. Calamity, herself, recognizes as much: “I don’t allow ye ken beat men’s togs much for handy locomotion an’ so forth” (Wheeler, 1878, p. 24). Wearing “men’s togs” affords Calamity more mobility and comfort in her role as a frontier woman than does wearing traditionally feminine dress. Further, while Calamity is always understood to be a woman when she is androgynously dressed—albeit a nontraditional one—the wearing of men’s attire does allow her to blend in more readily with male groups, and thus minimizes the risks of her living and traveling alone on the frontier, as Colonel Joe Tubbs and other characters observe throughout the series.

Beyond these practical considerations, Calamity’s abandonment of her feminized self and her subsequent adoption of an androgynous appearance seemingly reflect a felt disconnect between her embodied physicality and the mandates of her culture, which had previously pressured her to conform to cultural expectations of womanhood and domesticity:

But, excuse me, please, you’re a woman, are you not?’ ‘Well, yes, I reckon I am in flesh, but not in spirit o’ late years. Ye see, they kind o’ got matters discomfuddled w’en I was created, an’ I turned out to be a gal instead of a man, which I ought to hev been [sic]. (Wheeler, 1878, p. 23)

She justifies her gender performance and appearance by suggesting that it accurately represents her true sense of self, which does not wholly efface her female sex, but instead incorporates components of both feminine and masculine appearance and performance. Thus, consistent with androgyny’s attempt to bring together male and female in one body, the author’s descriptions of Calamity Jane provide a glimpse into both the feminine and the masculine aspects of her appearance:

She was the possessor of a form both graceful and womanly, and a face that was peculiarly handsome and attractive, though upon it were lines drawn by the unmistakable hand of dissipation and hard usage … .The lips and eyes still retained … their girlish beauty … the face … wreathed partially as it was in a semi-framework of long, raven hair that reached below a faultless waist. Her dress was buckskin trowsers [sic], met at the knee by fancifully beaded leggings, with slippers of dainty pattern upon the feet; a velvet vest, and one of those luxuries of the mines, a boiled shirt, open at the throat, partially revealing a breast of alabaster purity; a short, velvet jacket, and Spanish broad-brimmed hat, slouched one side of a regally beautiful head. There were diamond rings upon her hands, a diamond pin in her shirt-bosom, a massive gold chain strung across her vest-front … A belt around her waist contained a solitary revolver of large caliber … along with a rifle strapped to her back comprised her outfit. (Wheeler, 1878, p. 4)

Insomuch as the above description juxtaposes traditionally feminine with traditionally masculine characteristics—such as hard-living and dainty, girlish, and stern—along with components of appearance—such as faultless waist and buckskin trousers, breast of alabaster purity and boiled shirt of the mines, and diamond rings and weapons—it highlights well the androgyny and hybridity of Calamity’s character. Also implicit here is Butler’s (1990) assertion that “various acts of gender create the idea of gender,” although, in Calamity’s case, the presentation of that gender is clearly a nontraditional, amalgamated one (p. 190).

Although Calamity Jane’s character and appearance initially come off as “reckless” and haphazard, the preceding passage and others like it also reveal that Calamity may, in fact, engage in some “thoughtful, behind-the-scenes planning,” in which she purposefully selects various components of masculinity and femininity for her various audiences to review and evaluate (Jacob & Cerny, 2004, p. 125). As Stone (1995) reminds us, reviews are the appraisals that others make of our appearances. According to Stone, the principal response of others to dress is the “assignment of value words [to] the wearer” (1995, p. 23). In the Deadwood Dick series, such reviews provide further insight into the hybridity that characterizes Calamity’s appearance, and in particular, into the changing norms and gendered dress behaviors of mid- to late-19th-century American society, particularly on the Western frontier. For instance, throughout the series, there were over 40 instances in which characters in the novel invoked value words—or evaluations and appraisals that impart social value or worth (or lack thereof; Stone, 1995)—to describe Calamity’s subversively gendered appearance, including: girl-in-breeches, girl dare-devil, boss gal, mountain knight, eccentric girl/creature, and reckless bucchario of the hills. Although many of these value words further substantiate the androgyny of Calamity’s character by incorporating masculine and feminine characteristics, some of them demonstrate the negative responses of some characters to Calamity’s nontraditional gender performance. The first two books of the series, in particular, included several negative reviews of Calamity’s appearance by both female and male characters. Typically, these reviews were made in response to her use of men’s pants rather than traditionally feminine dress and included reactions of incredulity and confusion:

I don’t suppose because a woman wears male attire that she is necessarily a fool; though why a female must lower her sex by appearing in men’s garb, I see not. She must be an eccentric creature—rather a hard case, is she not? (Wheeler, 1878, p. 2)

Interestingly, in the last three books, Calamity’s appearance was not described to the same extent as in earlier novels, and the use of value words in the descriptions significantly decreased. The reactions and responses to Calamity’s appearance also became more accepting, particularly among male characters. The decrease in attention paid to her appearance and in characters’ acceptance of her gender performance may be attributed to the audience’s and characters’ familiarity with Calamity’s character throughout the series. However, it also may reflect changes in gender norms and gendered dress behaviors brought on by the New Woman movement occurring in the final years of the 19th century (Heilmann, 2000). Much of the discourse on the New Woman movement was created in popular literature such as dime novels, featuring heroines like Calamity Jane who appeared and behaved in resistance to socially constructed ideals of masculinity and femininity (Heilmann, 2000).

Manners

Goffman (1959) refers to manners as “those stimuli which function at the time to warn us of the interaction role the performer will expect to play in the oncoming situation” and notes that the audience expects consistency between appearance and manner in performances (p. 24). Along with appearance cues, Calamity’s actions and gestures give further clues as to the intention of her performances. Calamity, outfitted in buckskin trousers, vest, shirt, boots, and guns, further reinforces her androgynous gender performance by taking part in traditionally masculine acts and by adopting certain gestures more commonly invoked by male characters. In Deadwood Dick on Deck, a male character describes Calamity Jane’s manners as such:

She’s a dare-devil … .She ar’ the most reckless buchario in ther Hills, kin drink whisky, shute, play keerds, or sw’ar, ef et comes ter et; but, ‘twixt you an’ me, I reckon ther gal’s got honor left wi’ her grit out o’ ther wreck o’ a young life [sic]. (Wheeler, 1878, p. 2)

Throughout the male character’s description, he hints at his conflicting feelings of admiration and incredulity at the masculinity and femininity embodied in Calamity’s character. These conflicting reviews are rich with value words and value-laden responses—such as the comparison of her honor and grit versus her wreck of a life—and echo those of other characters.

The consistency between Calamity’s appearance and manners was an important aspect of creating and maintaining a convincing gender performance and identity. There were over 50 instances in which the use of traditionally masculine aspects of dress was central in making her actions and gestures more believable. In particular, the use of weapons and cigars/cigarettes gave Calamity a measure of credibility among male characters that allowed unprejudiced participation in gun fights, defending others, and gaining admission into saloons:

As she entered the High Jack saloon … she … ordered a glass of wine … .Leaving the bar, she sauntered over to a poker table, where Fen Franklin and Halsey were playing poker … ‘Howdy, gents. How’s luck running, tonight?’ she said, taking a cigarette from her pocket, and lighting it … ‘D’ye think you can make a run on it?’ the girl sport said, with a smile, as she drew a chair to the table … . (Wheeler, 1885, p. 4)

Whereas weapons gave Calamity power over male characters and assisted in asserting her independence, the use of other handheld objects and accessories such as cigars, cards, canes, and hats provided important finishing touches to her appearance that lent her an air of authenticity and respect, allowing her to participate in several traditionally masculine activities such as gambling, drinking, and socializing at saloons. The authenticity and congruency between these two aspects of performance aided Calamity in moving successfully and easily throughout the western male-dominated public sphere and in being a “hybrid hero,” which enabled her to participate in multiple plots through changes in appearance (Jones, 1978; Russell, 1994).

The consistency between her androgynous appearance and manners, particularly the masculine components, created a genuine and straightforward gender performance for her audience. Although not all characters fully understood Calamity’s character, they did accept her gender performance as a compulsory part of her role as a frontier woman, road agent, and detective. The accordance between programs and reviews of Calamity’s appearance, as Stone (1995) put it, resulted in the long-term adoption of an androgynous gender identity. The responses of male characters to her nontraditional gender performance became more accepting and respectful over the course of the series. These validating responses coupled with her character’s sense of self created conditions in which Calamity did not appear to feel pressured to make changes to her appearance, which often was the case with female characters who attempted to cross-dress. Further, it allowed her the freedom to move about the public and private spheres with ease. Thus, the ability to move freely about society and the generally validating reviews from the audience resulted in an androgynous gender identity that Calamity Jane maintained for much of the series.

Cross-Dressing as a Means of Navigating Temporary Changes in Space and Place

Female characters in the Deadwood Dick series utilized cross-dressing as a means of navigating temporary changes in space and place, such as westward movement, and for participating in the public and private spheres. As the New Woman movement was taking hold in the late 19th century, women were asserting their independence by entering the workforce and going to school, as well as by challenging traditional dress norms. The ideals of the New Woman also were demonstrated by female characters featured in popular fiction; Heilmann (2000) notes that “female cross-dressing developed as a theme in fin-de-siècle feminist fiction,” which conceptualized “concerns of the first women’s movement in the metaphor of masquerade” (p. 85). Two specific uses of cross-dressing were discovered throughout the series: cross-dressing for disguise and cross-dressing for survival, both of which fostered characters’ empowerment.

Cross-Dressing for Disguise

Although androgyny was Calamity’s preferred gender identity, various plot developments necessitated that she frequently adopt alternative “hybrid hero” identities and modes of dress and appearance in order to disguise her unmistakable “girl-in-breeches” appearance (Jones, 1978; Russell, 1994). This was done in order to lend assistance to and rescue male characters in trouble and to solve mysteries and wrongdoings. In Deadwood Dick’s Diamonds, Calamity disguised herself in order to rescue Deadwood Dick, her husband and “pard” at the time, by infiltrating the gang of men who kidnapped him:

Dick uttered an ejaculation of surprise as his gaze rested upon Calamity Jane, the same as he had seen her in Goldburg [wearing a buckskin suit, short curly hair, and a black mustache], except that she was covered in dirt. ‘How in the world did you get in here!’ he cried, in an undertone. She smiled, oddly. ‘Why … .I managed to make myself one of the pursuing party, without any one but myself being the wiser for it.’ (Wheeler, 1885, p. 10)

Most often Calamity disguised herself as a rough miner or an older man. The adoption of male dress and appearance, including facial hair, allowed her to move with even more ease in public places such as saloons, banks, and mining camps because she was not recognized as being a woman in male attire; rather, she blended in as just another male character.

Although Calamity’s androgynous appearance received mixed reviews, her cross-dressing performances received more positive reviews consistent with those made of male characters. Value words—including youth, pleasant, and beardless—used in descriptions of and responses to her disguises indicate characters’ acceptance of Calamity as a male character:

Seated at a table … were two persons engaged at cards. One was a beardless youth attired in buck-skin and armed with knife and pistols … a smile resting on his pleasant features, a twinkle in his coal-black eye. The youth, dear reader, you have met before. He is not he, but instead—Calamity Jane! (Wheeler, 1877, p. 7)

The temporary nature of Calamity’s adoption of cross-dressing for disguise may in fact explain the lack of attention paid to her nontraditional gender performance. Because the use of disguise promises the audience and the reader that it is a temporary adoption of a nontraditional gender performance, the reactions and descriptions vary from those of her androgynous performance. The author offers a somewhat nonchalant presentation of the character, in that the descriptions of dress and appearance are more succinct and are treated with less distinction than are those of androgynous dress or cross-dressing for survival.

Cross-Dressing for Survival

Cross-dressing for survival was enacted for purposes of westward movement, especially to escape and hide from male characters. In the 19th century, it was not customary for women to travel alone, especially not cross-country into the largely unsettled West. The most prominent cross-dressing female in the dime novels analyzed here, Dusty Dick, first took on a masculine appearance in the East when she was escaping from her abusive husband. She relied on her masculine appearance to safely move westward in search of a new beginning until one day she was discovered sleeping by one of the male protagonists, Sandy, who originally thought her to be a young boy but quickly questioned this initial assessment:

A plump, graceful form was lying—that of a boy of eighteen, with a pretty, beardless face … with curling chestnut hair which reached down upon the finely-shaped shoulders. A boy; was it a boy? The form was clad in male habiliments, and there was a boyish look to the finely-chiseled features, which defied the suspicion of femininity in the sleeper. A plain frontier costume of coarse cloth, neatly fitting the graceful form of only medium hight [sic]; the feet incased in knee-boots of a fine leather, and a Spanish wide-rim felt hat … were items of the beautiful sleeper’s outfit … . (Wheeler, 1878, p. 7)

The components of dress and appearance that alert Sandy as to the ambiguity of Dusty’s gender were the lack of facial hair and weapons and the presence of long curling hair. Alternatively, the frontier costume, boots, and wide-rim hat signaled the possible masculinity of the character. Upon Dusty’s awakening, she was startled and reacted in a traditionally feminine way, trembling with fright. This lapse in masculine performance by Dusty confirmed Sandy’s suspicions, causing his reaction toward her to be that of a protector rather than that of an equal.

After agreeing to help Dusty maintain her cross-dressing performance and to take her in as his “pard,” Sandy considers how to improve her disguise: “I reckon a false mustache would make more of a man of you, and you would then pass muster. You can turn a hand at cooking, and … to avoid suspicion, can peck away in the mines” (Wheeler, 1878, p. 7). Sandy is willing to assist Dusty in creating an authentic masculine performance for the public’s view (e.g., by affixing the mustache and encouraging her to work in the mines) but is unwilling to allow her masculine performance in the private sphere (e.g., in the home), perhaps because it would require him (and readers) to accept such a blatant violation of social and gender norms. The ability/inability of his character to accept Dusty’s masculine performance reflects the social realities and tensions in flux on the western frontier in the 19th century.

Once Dusty’s cross-dressing disguise was finalized, the novel’s focus turned to ensuring that the other aspects of her performance, manners, and settings were consistent with her appearance. That is, Sandy did not deem Dusty’s performance sincere or believable until she fully adopted masculine manners and participated in male-dominated settings. Sandy advised Dusty to “forget you are a woman, and all will go well” (Wheeler, 1878, p. 8). Initially, Dusty found this advice difficult to heed, with her masculine performances frequently featuring slips of the personal front that revealed her feminine identity (e.g., femininely “coded” emotions and reactions). Thus, although the male characters in the novel were taken in by Dusty’s masculine performance, the female characters saw through these performances, with Madame Minnie proclaiming her to be “no more of a man than I am” (Wheeler, 1878, p. 8). After the women’s declarations of Dusty’s femininity, Sandy encouraged Dusty to play her part and reaffirm her masculine gender performance in a male-dominated setting. Dusty demonstrated her mastery “of the vernacular and bravado of the mines” (Wheeler, 1878, p. 13) when she visited a saloon:

Let out ther sherry wine for me, ye galoot!’ Dusty Dick replied, ranging himself along the bar, and addressing the barkeeper. ‘Hurry up yer stumps, or I’ll get over ther an’ grab a hold o’ ther ribbons myself. (Wheeler, 1878, p. 13)

This convincing performance—in which Dusty adopts the dress, language, and manner of a hard-working, uneducated, and tough man—represents a turning point in the novel, after which both Dusty as well as her audiences embrace her masculine gender performances, particularly within public spheres. For much of the first half of the dime novel, Dusty appears masculine but behaves femininely; however, upon realizing the believability of her masculine performance, she appears and more often behaves masculine within the private sphere. That is, the confidence experienced by Dusty while socializing in public, coupled with male characters’ acceptance of her as a male miner, influenced her private sphere self. Despite Dusty’s success at presenting a masculine gender performance, she does eventually give up cross-dressing and marries Sandy. As is the case with Dusty, Heilmann (2000) notes that it is common for cross-dressing heroines to return to traditionally feminine appearances and “occupations” once their agendas and goals have been met, thereby reembracing culturally sanctioned definitions of womanhood as espoused by the Cult of True Womanhood (Welter, 1966). Cross-dressing served its purpose as a tool of concealment from her husband and as a tool of survival in the male-dominated western frontier. Further, cross-dressing allowed Dusty to negotiate temporary changes in geographic space—as she was relocating and living on the frontier—and bodily place during the negotiation of her social place and identity as a single woman in male-dominated contexts (Roberson, 1998).

Conclusions

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore how dress—including cross-dressing and androgynous dress—was used within the Deadwood Dick series to construct meanings about gender and identity. Although the majority of female characters in the series adopted traditionally feminine dress to maintain vestiges of their femininity on the western frontier, there were some characters who, out of necessity, altered their dress and gender performances to better situate themselves in their surroundings. Androgyny allowed characters to adopt nontraditional gender identities, giving the freedom to participate in male-dominated contexts. Whereas androgyny afforded characters a more permanent gender identity, cross-dressing provided characters a means of navigating temporary changes in space and place.

Theoretically, it is interesting to explore the possible meanings of the nontraditional gender-performances of the female characters in the Deadwood Dick series, and in particular, the extent to which those performances reflect 19th-century American values, ideals, and/or anxieties. It is instructive to consider how, as literary constructions, the appearances of the female characters in the series may have acted to illuminate emerging American ideals related to shifting gender roles of the time and the transition from the Cult of True Womanhood to the Ideal of Real Womanhood and the New Woman movement. For instance, although the lived realities of pioneer women who adopted traditionally masculine dress to ease their performance of physically demanding roles likely did not accommodate extensive appearance management routines (Helvenston, 1990; Worden, 2007), the androgynous and cross-dressing female characters in the Deadwood Dick series frequently were presented as physically attractive. That is, even when they were dressed in androgynous or masculine dress, these characters often were described as retaining their “girlish beauty” (Wheeler, 1878, p. 4). In keeping with Butler’s (1990) notion that gender is not what one is, but rather, is what one does, and Goffman’s (1959) argument that sometimes actors offer audiences idealized performances of themselves, it seems possible that these more idealized (i.e., palatable) presentations of androgyny and cross-dressing could have helped to expand definitions of femininity among working-class American readers of the 19th century, moving them to appreciate or to further embrace alternative notions of femininity, such as those espoused by the New Woman movement. Conversely, these idealized gender-crossings may have reflected, in some way, the author’s and perhaps society’s ambivalence toward or concern about the expansion of women’s roles to include New Woman hybridities. Although both interpretations are speculative, they underscore the notion that the Deadwood Dick series, in its own way, may provide a reflection—of some sort—of the evolving national character present in 19th-century American society.

The present work demonstrates the usefulness of applying narrative inquiry to popular literature to glean understanding about the role of dress and appearance in the social construction of gender and the possibilities that existed for women to transgress dominant models of representation at the end of the nineteenth century. In the future, this work could be expanded by addressing deeper connections between fictional female characters and historical women who dressed similarly, such as comparing the fictional Calamity Jane with the historical Calamity Jane, Martha Canary (Russell, 1994). Additionally, it would be valuable to examine masculine appearance and gender performance, including cross-dressing in western dime novels, to gain a richer understanding of gender performativity on the western frontier. Finally, it would be useful to apply the use of narrative inquiry to a larger sample of dime novels, as the present work was limited by a rather small selection based on format, genre, and series.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Note

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