Connected at the chest by a band of flesh, conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker toured the United States and the world from the 1820s to the 1870s, exhibiting their extraordinary bodies as “freaks of nature” and “Oriental curiosities.” More famously known as “Siamese twins,” they were born in 1811, eventually settled in rural North Carolina, married two white sisters, became slave owners, and fathered twenty-one children between them before their deaths in 1874. The brothers constantly professed their normality—they spoke English, attended church, became American citizens, and backed the Confe ... More

Connected at the chest by a band of flesh, conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker toured the United States and the world from the 1820s to the 1870s, exhibiting their extraordinary bodies as “freaks of nature” and “Oriental curiosities.” More famously known as “Siamese twins,” they were born in 1811, eventually settled in rural North Carolina, married two white sisters, became slave owners, and fathered twenty-one children between them before their deaths in 1874. The brothers constantly professed their normality—they spoke English, attended church, became American citizens, and backed the Confederacy during the Civil War. Yet in life and death, Americans saw the brothers as “monstrosities,” an affront they were unable to escape. This book chronicles the twins' history, their sometimes raucous journey through antebellum America and their domestic lives in North Carolina, showing how their fame revealed the changing racial and cultural landscapes of the United States. More than a biography of the twins, the result is a study of nineteenth-century American culture and society through the prism of Chang and Eng that reveals how Americans projected onto the twins their own fears and monsters.