Defying “Death at the Wheel”

Abstract

Some obsessions stay with you for a reason. On its surface, Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl; or, Death at the Wheel, a ludicrously named melodrama peopled with exaggerated heroines and villains, offers an example of the noncanonical, everyday fare that audiences consumed in playhouses throughout the 19th century. But the deeper I dug, the more questions I uncovered.