African American abolitionists made an indelible mark on nineteenth-century Britain. Their lectures were held in famous meeting halls, taverns, the houses of wealthy patrons, theatres, and churches across the country; Britons inevitably and unknowably walk past sites with a rich history of black activism every day. In this talk, Hannah-Rose will outline some of the benefits digital humanities can give social historians, and how her PhD research - which focuses on African American abolitionists in Britain - has been enriched by digital mapping techniques.

As an example, Hannah-Rose will discuss her mapping project that highlights abolitionist speaking locations, the main focus of which was to make black American contributions to British society more visible. Recording and visualizing Frederick Douglass’ journey around Britain highlights both his exhausting lecturing schedule, and also the extensive abolitionist network he helped to forge. He travelled to Britain at a time of great industrial change and thus he was able to tap into new transport links that were slowly emerging in Britain. The rapidity of the railway boom was unprecedented and transformed British society: journeys were faster, time was standardized, ship-building increased, trade was made easier and quicker between towns and the countryside. Recognizing this, Douglass argued in Leeds in 1846, that “what is uttered this day in the Music Hall of Leeds, will, within fourteen days resound in Massachusetts.”

Bio

Dr. Hannah-Rose Murray received a Ph.D. from the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham and is a visiting Fellow at the Gilder Lehrman Centre at Yale University. Her research focuses on African American transatlantic visits to Britain between the 1830s and the 1890s. Murray has created a website dedicated to their experiences and has mapped their speaking locations across Britain, showing how black men and women travelled far and wide, from large towns to small fishing villages, to raise awareness of American slavery. Murray’s maps and research can be viewed on her website: Frederick Douglass Map