Feb 14th

In response to our Valentine's Day discussion on Julia Pastrana, I found that Julia's "deviancy" was very creative on the part of her producer in order to make money.  I think that it was a very intelligent idea that was bound to make him money because of the appeal at many aspects.  For example, you have a fan base because they are patriotic and want to see George Washington's nurse, because she is extremely old, and because she is mythical in some sense.  The fact that some believed she was mythical because of her age played into how intelligent Julia's producer was because it made it more believable that she could have been Washington's nurse.  In addition, according to slave customs, older slaves would have been given the job as the plantations nurse so that implies that she was already older when she was caring for George Washington.