This essay looks at a variety of antebellum cultural productions and, utilizing Mikhail Bakhtin's notion of the grotesque body, identifies the ubiquitous use of the tropes of carnival as a principal discourse in the construction of bourgeois subjectivity and the staging of its “low Others.” The essay examines the visual arts, popular literature, minstrelsy, and the freak show, demonstrating that as the grotesque body of the social and racial low Other is rejected and excluded socially, it returns constantly and repeatedly in narrative form. Appearing as it does across the broad spread of antebellum cultural domains, the grotesque body emerges as an object not only of disgust but also of deep and profound desire.

The interventions of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock into 1870s popular illustrations created some surprising – and largely unintended – consequences. Not only did the man who defined modern American censorship goad into existence the radical free speech movement, but his manipulations of 1870s visual culture also heightened racial stereotyping in public print. His behind-the-scenes negotiations led illustrated newspaper editors to erase white sexuality, which they replaced with stories of interracial rape of white women by black men. In fostering both the rise of the free press movement and the selective racialization of visual culture, Comstock left an indelible mark on modern representation.