A Worthy Substitute for Nature: Prosthetics and the Problem of Authenticity in the Civil War Era

In 1865, Boston inventor Marvin Lincoln published a twenty-page pamphlet advertising his “Patent Artificial Arm” as “practically available in the ‘rough and tumble’ of every-day life” while at the same time “artistic and beautiful in its shapes and appearances.” Such a felicitous combination, according to Lincoln, afforded the wearer “the consciousness that what he uses to conceal his loss, and to assist him in his labors and pleasures, is no disgusting appendage, but, on the contrary, is entirely worthy to fill the ‘vacant sleeve.’” Prosthetic arms and legs produced during the Civil War were useful tools that enabled veteran amputees to rejoin the work force, engage in leisure activities, and continue to fulfill their social obligations. They were also, as Lincoln notes, devices that concealed the loss of the limb and gave the wearer a “consciousness” of himself as a whole man whose empty sleeve was filled by a “worthy” substitute for nature. The desire for prosthetics on the part of Civil War soldiers and the ways that prosthetics manufacturers advertised their products and appealed to their potential customers reveal the ways that the ruined bodies of men continued to be central to discussions of American manhood even as their empty sleeves were “filled.” Prosthetics inventions, designs, and distribution—and the men who wore artificial limbs— were seen as emblematic of the nation’s technological prowess. But they also called attention to the costs of such achievements, provoking anxieties about what was “real” what was “counterfeit” in American society.