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From Siam To The South, A New Take on Conjoined Twins Chang And Eng Bunker

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published January 22, 2016 at 12:00 PM EST
A new book explores the racial and cultural dynamics of the life and work of conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker.
Creative Commons
/
Wikimedia Commons
A new book explores the racial and cultural dynamics of the life and work of conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker.
Credit Wikimedia Commons
/
Wikimedia Commons

Note: This is a rebroadcast from last year.  

Conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker toured the world in the mid 1800s, putting their bodies on exhibit for a wide array of audiences. They eventually settled in rural North Carolina, became slave owners, and fathered 21 children, but they were never able to escape the public eye. 

Author and professor Joe Orser talks about his new book 'The Lives of Chang and Eng: Siam’s Twins in Nineteenth-Century America.'

While many accounts of their lives focus on their disability and exhibitions, scholar Joe Orser wanted to explore what their story tells us about the changing racial and cultural landscape of19th-century America. 

Host Frank Stasio talks to Joe Orser, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, about his book "The Lives of Change and Eng: Siam's Twins in Nineteenth-Century America" (UNC Press/2014).

Copyright 2016 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio