In this second instalment of our Americas e-resources blog series we will focus on US newspapers, both historic and contemporary. All of the databases referred to here are full-text and many of them can be consulted remotely once you have a British Library Reader’s Pass.

Published by Readex, Early American Newspapers (Series 1, 1690-1876 & Series 2 1758-1900) is one of our absolute favourites. With facsimile coverage beginning in the late 17th century, when newspapers were often published by small-town printers reflecting the interests and values of the communities they served, its hundreds of titles chronicle the evolution of American society and culture through eyewitness reporting, editorials, obituaries, letters to the editor, advertisements, and much, much more. Search options include material type, date, keywords, name of publication, place of publication and language. The content is printable, downloadable and accessible remotely. Included among its riches is the first multipage colonial newspaper, Publick Occurences Both Forreign and Domestick; published in Boston on 25 September 1690, it was immediately suppressed.

Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, 25 September 1690. This was the first multipage newspaper published in the American colonies; it can be found on the full-text, remotely-accessible e-resource ‘Early American Newspapers.’

Also published by Readex and remotely accessible is African American Newspapers (Series 1, 1827-1998 & Series 2, 1835-1956). This extraordinary resource offers facsimile copies of more than 350 newspapers published by or for African Americans in more than 35 states. Coverage spans life in the Antebellum South; abolitionism; the growth of the Black church; the Jim Crow Era; the Great Migration to northern cities, the West and Midwest; the rise of the NAACP; the Harlem Renaissance; the civil rights movement; political and economic empowerment; and more. Many of the titles are rare and historically significant, including Freedom’s Journal, the first Black owned and operated newspaper in the United States, which was founded on 16 March 1827 in New York City by John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish.

Freedom’s Journal, 16 March 1827. This was the first Black owned and operated newspaper published in the US; it can be found on the full-text, remotely accessible e-resource ‘African American Newspapers.’

American Indian Newspapers was made possible by the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned and is published by Adam Matthew. It includes over 170,000 pages from 9,000 editions of Indigenous US and Canadian national periodicals, local community newspapers, and student papers and magazines. Coverage runs from 1828 to 2016, although the bulk of its 45 titles were founded during the 1970s and document the proliferation of Indigenous journalism that grew out of the occupation of Wounded Knee. There are numerous bi-lingual and Indigenous-language editions, and many titles – including Ak-Chin O’Odham Runner, the Cherokee Phoenix and the Navajo Times – are digitised in runs of more than 500 issues. Unlike Early American Newspapers and African American Newspapers, it has to be consulted at the Library.

Navajo Times, November 1959; this can be found in the e-resource 'Native American Newspapers.'

Service Newspapers of World War Two contains over 300 publications for soldiers serving in all of the major theatres of that conflict. More than 60 of these were published for US military forces, including the Stars and Stripes, which was printed in dozens of editions in numerous locations. In addition to maintaining the troops’ morale and helping to create an atmosphere of solidarity, these newspapers played a vital role in keeping servicemen informed about events in their unit and immediate locality, as well as delivering news from home and about the war at large. A large number were written by the servicemen themselves, although some were sanctioned by senior staff and had a more official agenda. Most contained a mix of articles, news reports, op-ed pieces, letters, military facts, trivia, cartoons and photographs. Like American Indian Newspapers, it is published by Adam Matthew and needs to be consulted at the Library.

The Stars and Stripes, London edition, 5 July 1944; this can be found on the full-text e-resource 'Service Newspapers of World War Two.'

Currently, the British Library subscribes to three of Proquest’s Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2017), The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988) and the Communist Historical Newspaper Collection. All offer full-text facsimile copies, but they are not accessible remotely. The New York Times probably needs no further discussion. The Baltimore Afro-American was founded in 1892. Five years later, its printing presses were purchased at auction by John H. Murphy, Sr.  Murphy had been born into slavery in Baltimore in 1840 and in 1868 married Martha Howard, the daughter of a well-to-do free black farmer. Although the Library's digital coverage of the Afro-American ends in 1988, this weekly publication is still in print and is the longest running African American family-owned newspaper in the United States. At its peak, regional editions were being printed in 13 major US cities; it has campaigned with the NAACP on a huge range of civil rights cases; and noteworthy contributors include writer Langston Hughes and artist Romare Bearden.

Poem by Langston Hughes in honour of A'Lelia Walker, daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and president of the C.J. Walker Company; from the Baltimore Afro-American, 19 August 1931, digitised by Proquest.

The Communist Historical Newspaper Collection offers the full-text editions of nine Communist newspapers published in the US, including The Daily Worker (1924-1958), Daily World (1968-1986), and the Ohio Socialist (1917-1919).

Daily Worker, 3 July 1940. It is available in the full-text e-resource 'Communist Historical Newspaper Collection, 1919-2013.'

Last but by no means least, we want to flag up the remotely accessible Newsbank Access World News. Despite its rather understated interface, it is an absolute goldmine if you are doing contemporary US research. It currently offers up-to-the minute full-text (non-facsimile) access to over 1300 US dailies, including Boston Herald (1991 – ); the New York Daily News (NY) (1995 – ); Los Angeles Times (1985 – ); Miami Herald (1982 – ); New York Post (1999 – ) and San Francisco Chronicle (1985 – ). It also offers access to more than 20 news magazines, including The New Yorker, The Nation and The Atlantic; the transcripts of more than 200 major TV news and radio programmes, including 60 Minutes (CBS; 2004 – ) ; CBS Evening News (2005 – ); CNN (2004 – ); Face the Nation (CBS; 2010 – ); Fox News’s various channels (2003 – ); Meet the Press (NBC; 2012 – ); MSNBC (2003 – ); NPR (1990 – ); and PBS NewsHour (2006 – ). On top of this it includes more than 300 web-only news sources and more than 80 newswires, including Associated Press (1997 – ); AP State Wires (from all states, 2010/2011 – ); CNN Wire (2009 – ); and UPI NewsTrack, (2005 – ). It is a truly unique and remarkable resource and we cannot recommend it enough.

Next month we will be having a look at some of our broad-brush ‘bibliographic e-resources’. This type of database offers you lists of sources (books, journal articles etc) that you will then need to track down elsewhere. These e-resources are particularly useful at the beginning of a project when you are trying to get a sense of the research landscape, but are equally valuable at the end, when you need to make sure you have caught everything that has been published in the previous few months.

 

 

 

The British Library’s Caribbean Collections recently acquired a beautifully compact volume of poetry by the writer John Agard.

Shoot Me with Flowers was the writer’s first collection of poetry which he self-published in his birth home Guyana.

Jon Purday, a retired British Library staff member who volunteers with Oxfam in Boroughbridge, Harrogate spotted Shoot Me with Flowers in October and contacted the Library. Once catalogued, the book will be available for enjoyment and research.

While surprisingly inexpensive, the little book is a big treasure for the British Library. It is also a personal highlight for a couple of reasons: my appointment as Curator of the Caribbean Collections began in September and John Agard is someone I have known for some years! We saw each other some days after the Oxfam find and I told him that the BL would be acquiring Shoot Me with Flowers to which his proud response was “Self-published you know!”

Earlier this month within a day of the Harrogate Advertiser running an article on the discovery and subsequent acquisition of Shoot Me with Flowers, John Agard became the first poet to win the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award. An apt turn up for the books!

Nicole-Rachelle Moore is the British Library's Curator for its Caribbean Collections

 

 

Images by Nicole-Rachelle Moore 2021

The Eccles Centre for American Studies was formally opened in November 1991. In this blog its newest member of staff – Polly Russell, Head – and its most long-standing – Jean Petrovic, Bibliographical Editor – reflect on the Centre’s development over the past three decades.

Polly Russell, Head

Last month, in a meeting at the British Library, Catherine Eccles gave me a few papers she had discovered relating to the early years of the Eccles Centre. These included this copy of the speech given by David Eccles at the Centre’s official opening in November 1991:

Notes for the speech by Viscount Eccles at the formal opening of the Eccles Centre on 4 November 1991; page 1.

Notes for the speech by Viscount Eccles at the formal opening of the Eccles Centre on 4 November 1991; page 2.

The speech is a heartening reminder of the principles and ambitions which have underscored the three decades of the Centre’s existence. Although the Centre’s team and activities have expanded significantly, David and Mary Eccles’ commitment to partnership, exchange, scholarship and research remain at the heart of the work we do. Since Lord Eccles officially opened the Centre, surrounded by the scaffolding and building materials of the yet unfinished British Library, the scope of the Eccles Centre has expanded beyond the USA, but fostering better understanding of the Americas through the British Library’s unique collections remains at the heart of what we do. Indeed, it is arguably more urgent than ever. From the environmental crisis and the challenge to liberal democracy, to new historical understandings of race, colonialism, migration and global trade, the Americas play a key role. As the newest member of the Eccles Team – I started this time last year – I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Eccles family, colleagues past and present and our many friends, partners and stakeholders for building on the generous vision set out by David and Mary Eccles and for helping to keep the conversation about the Americas very much alive, vibrant and relevant at the British Library.

Jean Petrovic, Bibliographical Editor

I love how David’s short but powerful speech so brilliantly captures the energy and vitality of David and Mary themselves. Both were well-advanced in years when I first met them in 1992, but their youthfulness of spirit – and their determination to make the most of every day – was inspirational. I quickly learned that David had proposed to Mary on his 80th birthday. And Mary’s ‘diary’ – which was in fact more like a wall-calendar – was enough to show anyone that life is for living. I initially caught a glimpse of it while we were planning what became the Bryant Lecture. Every day was divided into morning, afternoon and evening and each of these time-slots was packed with functions, meetings and activities. I was 27 at the time and such scheduling put my own life to shame!

I’m also struck by David’s comments about friendship and the need to work with others if we are to achieve anything of lasting value. From its inception, the Centre has reached out to other organisations and other people. Initially this outreach was limited to a couple of scholarly societies, the US Embassy and Canadian High Commission, the American Studies Library Group and our immediate curatorial colleagues. Slowly but surely, however, this network has grown deeper, broader and richer. It is not an exaggeration to say that almost all of the Centre’s work today is, in one way or another, the result of dialogues and exchanges, both with our generous and insightful internal colleagues – from Maps to Manuscripts, and Learning to Events and Research Engagement – and with our inspirational external partners, our Writers and Fellows, and a huge array of scholarly associations, research groups and interested individuals.

The formal opening of the Eccles Centre on 4 November 1991: from left, David Eccles, Mary Eccles, Bob Burchell (the Centre's first Head), Michael Saunders-Watson (Chair, British Library), Raymond Seitz (US Ambassador)

All of these collaborations would have delighted David and Mary, as would the Centre’s dedication both to its “main business” of scholarship and research as well as to sharing insights about “all things American” with the general public, including with school teachers and pupils. While Bob Burchell, the first Head, solidly committed the Centre to the former, it was Phil Davies, his successor, who ensured that non-academics – “men and women, with every kind of interest in America” – could benefit from Eccles activities. During Phil’s tenure, the Centre hosted hundreds of events on every aspect of American history, life and culture. And the Centre’s Congress to Campus programme – which Phil created and which is now in its 19th year – has brought around 20,000 A Level politics students into conversation with nearly 40 former Members of Congress.

Regarding the Library’s truly extraordinary Americas collections, David was absolutely correct to note in 1991 that these had been underutilised. Thankfully, this is no longer the case: partly due to the exceptional work of our Americas curatorial colleagues and the Centre’s bibliographic guides and research training sessions, but also to the ever-evolving programme of Eccles Fellowships and Awards. Under Phil Hatfield, the Centre’s third Head, not only did the Visiting Fellowships expand to include creative practitioners as well as scholars, but the Eccles Writer’s Award gained an amazing partner in Hay, thereby expanding its remit to include Latin America. Each of these steps has widened the network of those who know about – and can therefore benefit from – the Library’s holdings.

The formal opening of the Eccles Centre on 4 November 1991; the Library did not move into this building at St Pancras for another six years, so enormous heaters were hired in order to keep guests warm in the unfinished building!

As a slight aside to the work of the Centre – but still connected to David’s message – it is interesting, if somewhat depressing, to note that conversations about gender and sexual harassment – which in 1991 were prompted by the case of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas – are still on-going, on both sides of the Atlantic. Likewise, Britain’s relationship with the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world is ever-changing and worthy of attention.

Finally, and on behalf of everyone connected with the Centre – past and present – I would like to pay tribute once again to the incredible energy and open-heartedness of David and Mary Eccles. We are truly grateful for their passion and generosity and for their determination to create something “special” that would bear fruit after their “disappearance.” We hope – and trust – we are making them proud.

With COP26 now over in Glasgow, I have looked to the Library’s Oceania collections for examples of book artists tackling some of the themes under discussion by world leaders during this crucial conference. The items selected use creative responses to recollect, witness, and foretell the impact of climate change in the Oceania region and beyond.  

Carbon Empire by Allan McDonald 

A primary goal of COP26 was to secure global net zero emissions by the middle of this century and keep the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. Getting anywhere near to achieving this aim will require radical change and commitments from countries around the world to limit deforestation, phase out coal for renewable energy, and switch from petrol and diesel to electric cars. Allan McDonald’s 2017 photobook, Carbon Empire (YD.2020.b.233), documents petrol stations across New Zealand in different stages of transition. The photographs capture the effect of a change in petroleum laws which forced many independent stations out of business - weeds flourish where petrol pumps once stood, for sale signs replace advertising logos, and a full car park is more reminiscent of a graveyard than a sign of prosperity. And so, the images also offer a vision of a world where petrol stations have fallen out of use and lie abandoned to become rusting monuments of the past. 

   

 

Witness by Clyde McGill

Our reliance on fossil fuels and its impact on Indigenous cultural heritage is explored in Clyde McGill’s monumental book, Witness (HS.74/2407). The Australian artist travelled to Murujuga (Burrup Peninsula), northern Western Australia to see the petroglyphs, or rock art, first created by the Aboriginal people of Murujuga over forty thousand years ago and added to continuously until the nineteenth century when this community of artists was eradicated through European colonisation. There are between 1-2 million petroglyphs depicting thylacines, megafauna, ceremonies, human faces, and geometrics on this site which is considered the largest continuous rock art gallery of its kind. Yet this part of northwest Australia is also home to massive iron ore, oil, coal, mineral and gas reserves, and when McGill visited prior to creating the book in 2016, this highly significant cultural heritage site was at risk of destruction from large-scale mining operations. Witness doesn’t attempt to document the petroglyphs, but rather records the artist’s experience of his visit to the sacred site through a collection of visceral and confronting paintings, handwritten notes, and performance. 

  

Stolen Waters by Marian Crawford and Peter Lyssiotis

The damage wreaked by the extraction of fossil fuels is similarly interrogated in Stolen Waters (RF.2018.a.87), a collaboration between Australian book artists Marian Crawford and Peter Lyssiotis. This compact 2013 artists’ book examines the environmental damage to our waterways from mining. The names of major disasters are emblazoned on the pages including the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and the OK Tedi Mine disaster during the 1990s in Papua New Guinea. This accusatory typography is in stark contrast to the black and white images of a jellyfish suspended in a dark sea (or is it an oil slick?). 

    

Picturing the Island by Marian Crawford

A further goal of COP26 was to protect the communities and ecosystems most affected by climate change, including the Pacific Island region; an early and increasingly visible victim of the climate crisis with much at stake in the outcome of COP26. Rising sea levels here are already contaminating fresh water supplies and agriculture, and threatening to engulf many of these small island nations, including Kiribati; a set of low-lying islands in the central Pacific Ocean. Artist Marion Crawford spent her childhood on the island of Banaba (previously Ocean Island), part of the nation of Kiribati where her parents worked for the British Phosphate Commission (BPC). The BPC managed the mining of the island’s phosphate resources until these were exhausted in 1979. The environmental impact of extensive mining has left the Banaba Islanders without fresh water sources and reliant on a desalination plant for clean water. Crawford’s 2016 photobook, Picturing the Island (RF.2017.b.99), uses colonial archival material, including text in Gilbertese and English and photopolymer prints, in juxtaposition with her own memories to reflect on the changes, including environmental damage, undergone by her childhood home. 

 

 

Miami Underwater by Bronwyn Rees

The topic of global warming and rising sea levels is similarly interrogated in Bronwyn Rees’ Miami Underwater. Rees is an Australian printmaker whose richly textured work explores landscape and wilderness, often depicting nature as an unforgiving force. Although her work is primarily focused on Australian landscapes, in 2014 she turned a city in the USA at the mercy of the encroaching sea to create Miami Underwater. This small handmade book has a strong environmental message and incorporates text extracts from Tony Davis’ Underwater Cities (2011). The varying sizes and texture of the pages require careful handling of this item by the reader, lending a feeling of vulnerability. The overall effect is of a portent; the book feels as if you have just retrieved it from floodwater.  

   

Lucy Rowland, Oceania Curator

 

References

Crawford, Marian and Lyssiotis, Peter (2013) Stolen Waters. Victoria, Australia: Carbon, Masterthief. Shelfmark RF.2018.a.87

Davis, Tony (2011) 'Underwater Cities: Climate change begins to reshape the urban landscape' [Online] October 27, 2011. In Grist.org  Available at: https://grist.org/cities/2011-10-26-underwater-cities-climate-change-begins-reshape-urban-landscape/ 

Crawford, Marian (2016) Picturing the Island. Melbourne, Australia: Marian Crawford. Shelfmark RF.2017.b.99

McDonald, Allan (2017) Carbon Empire. Auckland, New Zealand: Rim Books. Shelfmark YD.2020.b.233

McGill, Clyde (2016) Witness. Fremantle, Australia: Clyde McGill. Shelfmark HS.74/2407

Rees, Bronwyn (2014) Miami Underwater. Melbourne, Australia: Bronwyn Rees. Shelfmark (awaiting shelfmark)

This week the Eccles Centre is relaunching its Fellowship programme, which has been running in various versions and iterations since 2007. The programme has expanded considerably since its inception. First, the Centre’s geographical remit has expanded over the thirty years since it started, spreading from the USA to include Canada, then the Caribbean and now Central and South America. Second, we have attempted to embrace a more capacious notion of who a researcher is, what they do and what they make with their research. These changes reflect, we hope, both the rapidly changing landscape of higher education (including increasing precarity in the sector) and to acknowledge that meaningful reading, listening and thinking about the Americas can take place within and beyond academic institutions. Because the geographical scope and eligibility criteria have expanded, for this next round of Fellowships we wanted to offer some shape and coherence to the programme by introducing four research themes that applicants are invited to apply to. This new structure aims to bring researchers working across scholarly and creative disciplines into fruitful conversation with one another, building a cohort of Eccles-supported research coalescing around some of the most pressing questions in Americas studies.

Frank Vincent, Around and about South America ... With maps ... Second edition (New York, 1890). Digital Store 10481.ee.29

But what are these four themes and how did we come up with them? For the past few months we've been asking far and wide, canvassing opinion from colleagues throughout the Library and having a series of conversations with Eccles Centre networks across academia and the creative industries. As a result of this process we have landed on four topics which we hope will encourage use of often underused but rich British Library collections, and which are exciting areas of current social and cultural enquiry.

Although none of the themes specifically invite explorations of ethnicity and race, gender, sex and sexuality, or dis/abilities in Americas studies, we consider such perspectives to be foundational approaches to the study of the Americas and anticipate that they will be a central focus of many Fellowship projects. We look forward to receiving applications that explore the experiences and identities of the Americas in all their diversity and complexity.

Below are the four themes for the Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowships, 2022-24.

Sound and Music of the Americas
This theme centres on sound and music as both subjects and sources in studying the Americas. In particular, we encourage use of the sound archive and the collections of printed and manuscript music. The Library’s music collections are among the finest in the world, and have many resources for the study of the Americas. Recent or ongoing Eccles-supported projects include musical performance in eighteenth-century Jamaica, the folk songs of Henry Clay Work, and the politics of nineteenth century US sheet music.

Edw. M. Zimmerman and Marie Zimmerman, Votes for Women (Philadelphia, 1915). Music Collections H.3992.r.(18.)

The sound archive is also an untapped trove for studying the Americas. Home to over 6.5 million recordings including speech, music, and wildlife and the environment recordings, there is still much to be discovered about the Americas through this material. Current or ongoing Eccles-supported projects include the creole music recordings of Jamaican ethnomusicologist M G Smith, and recordings of James Baldwin from British broadcasters and cultural organisations. As mentioned above, this theme encourages investigations into the sonic and musical aspects of the cultures of the Americas, and methodological innovations that use sound and music.

Americans Beyond the Americas
This theme seeks to flip the script on prevailing narratives which define the Americas by inbound migration – of invading armies, of free settlers, of bonded and enslaved workers. Not only can such narratives end up erasing the vitality of Indigenous presences before, during and after such waves of migration, but they can also encourage insular perspectives on the Americas which ignore the significance of Americans’ movement and action in the world (we use the word ‘Americans’ very much in the hemispheric sense here!). This theme invites researchers to consider how various American experiences and identities have been forged through military and colonial enterprise, travel and tourism, emigration and exile, to lands beyond the Americas.

A selection of archival material; typescript of ‘Jamaica’ poem by Andrew Salkey, manuscript of ‘Joey Tyson’ by Andrew Salkey and correspondence from the Andrew Salkey Archive, Deposit 10310. Reproduced with the kind permission of Jason Salkey.

The Eccles Centre has supported a number of projects in this vein over the past few years including the experience of Native American and First Nations travellers to England during the eighteenth century; Black American loyalists and the settlement of Sierra Leone; African American abolitionist activism in the British Isles during the nineteenth century; the making of Caribbean community and identity in Britain during the twentieth century; and Latin American political exiles in London. These are just a few of the ways this theme could be approached and supported by the British Library’s collections, and we would be very excited to hear from researchers working on similar projects.

American Environments
This theme seeks to support researchers exploring the role of the environment and the natural world in the making of the Americas, and their futures. Environmental humanities has been one of the most dynamic intellectual fields to emerge over the past generation, and we are excited to support researchers asking new questions of the British Library’s collections from an eco-perspective . The Centre has recently supported researchers investigating ecological change in eighteenth-century Barbuda; the colonial origins of climate change in Canada through King George III’s topographical drawings; and an artist exploring the relationships between pigments and dyes and Jamaican identity. We also very much welcome projects that will apply eco-critical methodologies and insights to the Library’s literary print and manuscript collections, and which use collections such as the Library’s newspaper and government document collections to trace the development of environmental thought and policies in the Americas.

1979 Arion Press edition of Moby-Dick with illustrations of Melville’s 'folio' of whales in which he arranges them by folio, quarto, octavo, and so on, a playful homage to the 19th century works of natural science that influenced the writing of the book. Illustrations and copyright Barry Moser. Shelfmark C.105.k.4.

As well as artists, creatives and academics working with environmental humanities and associated perspectives, the Eccles Centre is keen to support social scientists, policy makers and natural scientists who feel they could productively develop their work on the Americas through a month at the British Library. As well as the historic collections for which the British Library is famous, the Library’s social science and science collections offer world-class resources to complement researchers’ field work or lab work, and we’d be excited to support that library work by anyone working on the environment in the Americas.

Religion and Spirituality in the Americas
The British Library has an outstanding collection of sacred texts and objects which bear witness to religious encounters and experiences in the Americas. Many of these items - the Library’s collections of Bibles and Psalters in Indigenous American languages, for instance - are not only of historic importance but are also highly contested items. This theme invites researchers to interrogate the British Library’s collections and ask often difficult questions about the role of religion and spirituality in the making of the Americas. The Centre has supported a number of projects in American religious studies, including studies of enslaved Africans’ spirituality in North America; Muslim identity and the Nation of Islam in twentieth-century Jamaica; and Indigenous spirituality at the Guyana-Venezuela borderlands.

The Whole Book of Psalmes, faithfully translated into English metre: whereunto is prefixed a discourse, etc. (Boston, 1647). C.36.a.17.

Religion in the Americas is of course not only a question of historic significance, but remains an issue of ongoing social, cultural and political concern. We are therefore also keen to hear from researchers interrogating recent and future religious trends in the development of the Americas, including (but of course not limited to) such issues as the rise of white evangelicalism in the USA and Latin America; religion and Indigenous activism; or the character of American secularisms and atheisms.

Finally, for those whose projects fall outside the scope of these four themes, don’t worry – you can still apply to fifth strand of the programme, an ‘open call’ for any project that demands the unique research materials or context of the British Library. But we particularly encourage potential Fellows to apply to one of the four themes, as Fellows will be appointed in equal number to each of the five strands.

Seynabou Thiam-Pereira was a 2020 Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library.

As an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library in September 2021, I was interested in material from late eighteenth-century British North America relating to American Loyalists and race issues in Atlantic Canada. The economic, political, military and social consequences of the American War of Independence had been major for the British empire. However, my focus was on the exiles from America and the relocation of thousands of Loyalists and disbanded soldiers within the empire.

After the outbreak of the war in 1776, 'Tories' - Loyalist inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies - together with their slaves, Black and Native Loyalists, as well as disbanded soldiers, migrated to Atlantic Canada, the British West Indies, Great Britain and Botany Bay to seek refuge. The first evacuation took place in 1776 when Loyalists from Boston chose to settle in Nova Scotia. Formerly called Acadia, it had been a British territory since the end of French and Indian War when many New Englanders migrated there after the expulsion of the French Acadians. The largest evacuations occurred years later from Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, in 1782, from New York City in 1783 and from St-Augustine, in East Florida until 1785.

Propaganda promoting the reception of Loyalists within the empire spread rapidly in pamphlets and newspapers. The image below, for example - 'The reception of the American Loyalists by Great Britain, in the year 1783' by H. Moses - details the variety of social status and ethnicities of the Loyalists. We can see Britannia opening her arms to American loyal subjects, to Natives and to Blacks.

John Eardley Wilmot, Historical View of the Commission for enquiring into the losses, services, and claims of the American Loyalists... London, 1815. British Library shelfmark: 279.k.3

A wide range of documents illuminating these massive departures still exist, including petitions, muster rolls, letters, handbills, maps, and official registers either written by British officials or civilians. At the British Library, the Clarkson Papers and the miscellaneous letters and papers relating to American affairs, contain several petitions from disbanded soldiers and Loyalists to obtain land in order to settle in British American colonies.

Unsurprisingly, the question of land seems to have preoccupied the British government and the settlers throughout the War; not owning property meant being excluded from the shareholder status and its ensuing political rights. In 1782 a strong push began in Britain to offer land in Jamaica, Bermuda, St-Lucie, Barbados and the Bahamas islands to Loyalist planters from the southern colonies. The main arguments used were the possibility of bringing the slaves to the British West Indies which offered the accustomed warm climate and agricultural system. The opportunity to bring thousands of new planters or white settlers with slaves to the British Caribbean was essential in order to maintain the slave societies on these islands. But how could Free Black and Native Loyalists be integrated into this slaveholding system with their liberated, manumitted or free-born status? 

Miscellaneous letters and papers relating to American Affairs, 1718-1796, Add MS 24322, f. 100-103

In order to accommodate this massive arrival of Loyalist settlers, towns were founded or extended and provisioned. Land had to be quickly divided into lots in order to be distributed to about 10,000 people in Jamaica, 5,000 in the Bahamas and hundreds in St-Lucie, Bermuda and Barbados. In some cases these Loyalists doubled or tripled the black and white population of the territories. One must bear in mind the challenge of rapidly organising the evacuation and resettlement of so many refugees while dealing with the peace treaty and trade regulations between Great Britain, France and the United States of America. If we take the example of Canada, muster rolls indicate the large number of disbanded troops, Loyalists and slaves who arrived in Upper/Lower Canada, and Nova Scotia. In 1784, while the province of Quebec was receiving more than 5,500 new settlers, Nova Scotia had more than 28,000 Loyalists including about a thousand slaves and 3,000 Black Loyalists (Native Loyalists were excluded from general musters).

A general description of the Province of Nova Scotia, and a Report of the present state of the Defences ...by Lieut.-Col. [Robert] Morse, Chief Engineer in America', drawn up by direction of Gen. Sir Guy Carleton, Commander-in-Chief of H.M. Forces in N. America; 1783-1784, MS 208, f.23

Beyond the British empire, land acquisition was also a huge issue in the settlement of the Black Loyalists and the Black Poor out of Britain and Atlantic Canada to Sierra Leone, Africa, in 1787 and 1792. Promises of land - between five and twenty acres - were given by the Sierra Leone Company to the 1,190 coloured men, women and children from the Black Loyalists community in Canada willing to participate in the British project 'Back to Africa'.

Clarkson papers, vol. I, Add MS 41262 A, f. 49.

Land was also very much linked to economic concerns, since each Loyalist and their descendants were allowed to request financial compensation from the British government for any loss in the Thirteen Colonies. In the 1784 Land Claim Commission register extending to 1815, 47 Black Loyalists out of thousands of claimants gave lists of their lost properties in America. Consequently, the massive arrivals of new settlers shaped a Loyalist mosaic and participated in creating multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-linguistic societies in the late eighteenth-century British empire.

These documents unquestionably permit a more detailed research of the Loyalist diaspora and the under-studied question of land distribution. Social studies of Loyalists can also encompass these records in order to examine a broader cultural outcome in modern British societies.

 

 

Death is one of the most difficult topics to accept and understand as humans, maybe knowing how other communities and societies deal with this will give us a new understanding of the many ways we can see loss and even our own death.

It is important to be able to talk and think about this topic especially with the Covid-19 crisis and the sudden loss of family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. We should be able to have the chance to think a bit more about death and what it means to us.

This is why I wanted to share with you my experience with the present concept of death in my life. I am from Milpa Alta, a small Nahua village located in the southeast of Mexico City and like many Mexicans, every November 1st and 2nd we get ready for the Micailhuitl known as the Day of the Dead.

The celebration could sound creepy and the whole idea of having a celebration and being festive about death may not let you appreciate the healing effect that this event has on the people who grieve and how this helps the members of a community to deal with the loss of a loved one.

Imagine a safe space where you can talk about this difficult subject with others, a place where everyone relates with your feelings, a place that is even going to push your creativity to build an altar decorated with flowers, sugar skulls, papel picado (perforated tissue paper), candles, and food.

The Day of the Dead celebration is that kind of safe and creative space where memories, grief and the chance to connect and share with your community become real. This celebration provides a healthy, festive, and therapeutic space to cope with the pain and suffering.

The British Library holds collections from many parts of the world written in different languages providing the readers the chance to enjoy the diversity of the world we live in. So, in addition, it is not surprising that I found a couple of books in these collections from my hometown.

I choose three of these publications that are particularly important and this is because the books were written in the native Nahuatl language and because they had the memories of a Nahua woman from my village named Luz Jiménez, a remarkable storyteller who is also known as the most painted woman in Mexico.

She was depicted in countless works by some of the most renowned artists working in Mexico in the first half of the 20th century such as Diego Rivera, Jean Charlot, Tina Modotti, Fernando Leal and Edward Weston.

Her collaboration with anthropologists and linguists made possible the publication of her texts as literary and historical works that she authored and translated, but she was always billed as an informant who in her lifetime never got recognition as an author.

Jiménez’s memories of the times of the Mexican Revolution were published in a bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish edition as De Porfirio Díaz a Zapata: memoria náhuatl de Milpa Alta, 1968 (BL shelfmark: X.709/29934).

 

Title page of the bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish edition of Luz Jiménez. De Porfirio Díaz a Zapata: memoria náhuatl de Milpa Alta, 1968 (BL shelfmark: X.709/29934)

 

In 1972, a bilingual Nahuatl-English edition was published as Life and Death in Milpa Alta. A Nahuatl Chronicle of Díaz and Zapata edited by Fernando Horcasitas, from the Nahuatl recollections of Doña Luz Jiménez (BL shelfmark 74/26082). The following description of the Day of the Dead in Milpa Alta comes from this edition. 

 

Title page of the bilingual edition Life and Death in Milpa Alta. A Nahuatl Chronicle of Díaz and Zapata, edited by Fernando Horcasitas

 

During the night between November 1 and 2, the head of the household of Milpa Alta is proud of his ofrenda a table set up with stews, candles, bread, liquor, glasses of water, candles, and cigarettes for the Faithful Departed. All night the members of the family accompany the "little dead ones," the beloved ancestors who have come to spend this one night of the year among the living. (Horcasitas, 1972:75)

 

Jimenez’s stories appear, again in a Nahuatl-Spanish edition, as Los cuentos en Náhuatl de Doña Luz Jiménez, 1979, collected by Fernando Horcasitas and Sarah O. Ford (BL shelfmark X.950/12883).

 

Front cover of the Nahuatl-Spanish edition Los cuentos en Náhuatl de Doña Luz Jiménez, 1979, collected by Fernando Horcasitas and Sarah O. Ford (BL shelfmark X.950/12883)

 

The book contains, among many others, the story of a young man who didn’t believe in the Day of the Dead and how he learned a lesson when he saw the dead coming to his town.

These books were published more than fifty years ago but the events described in them are not very different from the ones I experienced in my own time. Let me tell you how the Day of the Dead is nowadays in Milpa Alta.

 

A Day of the Dead Altar in Milpa Alta. Picture by Isela Xospa

 

Everybody in my home town knows that a big and special Momoxtle or Ofrenda (altar) will be set up for the people who no longer live with us, but especially at the house of a person that recently passed away. Tamales (a traditional corn dish) and homemade bread will be made at the family house and neighbours will come to help with the preparations.

During the days of October 30^th and 31^st a table will be set up in the main room of the house to be decorated with flowers, candles, fruit, candy, liquor, water, and photographs of the people to whose the offering is dedicated. Some space will be reserved to put the bread and tamales that are going to be made, while the table is being decorated.

The preparation of tamales are usually in the hands of the elder women of the house: this is because they are considered the best cooks and the ones who hold the family recipes. The younger women, men and children will help with la batida (mixing of the dough) and la envoltura (the wrapping and making of tamales).

 

Detail of a Day of the Dead Altar in Milpa Alta showing the homemade bread. Picture by Isela Xospa

 

Bread is made on October the 30^th and is usually in the hand of the men: this is because they have to deal with the fire and heat of the oven but it is common to see men, women, and children working together in the preparation.

These activities provide a very special space where everybody feels free to talk about the people who have died. They even talk about how much the dead are going to enjoy their favourite tamales and all the drinks, food, and candy they will find in their altars. Here you can hear all kinds of stories and memories of the lost ones, and of course, tears will come out of the eyes of many.

This is a multidimensional event; too many things happen at the same time and miraculously everybody knows what to do. While some are in the kitchen making tamales, others are at the oven cooking the bread, others are decorating the altar and others are cleaning the house and bringing wood sticks to get ready for the velada a fire that every family in the town will set up outside of their houses to illuminate the path for their loved ones to their Ofrenda.

This festivity is related to the milpa cycle: it is the end of the harvest and the cornfields have lots of carrizo, a type of dried cane stick that children and adults collect to make star shape decorations covered with tissue paper and also to make paper balloons or Amatecolotl (the name these paper balloons used to have because they had the shape of an owl, while nowadays they are star-shaped). The balloons guide the loved ones to their homes.

Kids will also carve skeleton faces in chilacayotes, a kind of wild pumpkin squash that grows in the fields, and put a candle inside to decorate and illuminate the path to the Ofrendas.

Another way to guide the dead ones to their altars is to make a line path out of marigold flower petals that goes from the street to the inside of the house where the altar is located, so the dead ones won’t get confused or lost.

The entire town will also go to the cemetery on November the 2^nd, where the families will clean the tombs and some will make reparations if they are essential. The shrine will also be decorated with Cempasuchitl (marigold flower), here it is essential to burn candles.

The visit to the cemetery is a moment where the entire community will share with the dead food, drinks, live music, and even street food merchants will join. In some places, this visit to the cemetery will continue all night long and people will wait for their loved ones there instead of waiting for them in the private house altar.

The night of October 31^st is when the dead children come to visit their altars, special presents and gifts for them will be put in the Ofrenda. On November 1^st, the church bells of the town will start to ring at 3pm announcing that the children are leaving and that the grownups are arriving to town, later at 6pm a fire will be set up outside the house and everybody will spend the night surrounding the fire. The next day, November 2^nd, at 3 pm, the church bells will ring again to announce that the dead ones are leaving town.

In this celebration, we welcome our loved ones to their altars, some will have incense burning at the bottom of the table, others will pray to the souls and all of us will have the chance to greet them and tell them that we missed them and maybe talk about how life has been without them around. Then, of course, we will watch with pride our display of love: the food and decorations we made to remember them.

The British Library will host a Day of the Dead celebration with an altar that will be built at the main entrance. We hope this will be a good opportunity to bring the memory of your loved ones, maybe by putting a small photograph in the Ofrenda. Many of us will have the chance to experience this tradition and have the opportunity to grieve and celebrate in a safe and communal environment the lives of the ones that no longer are with us.

Blog post by Isela Xospa.

 

In miqui yoli. El muerto vivo, 2019. Image by Isela Xospa. Tells the story of Pedro, a dead man who kept himself alive in his tomb saving the food and candles that people left for him in his Day of the Dead Altar. Currently being catalogued by the BL.

 

 

Isela Xospa is an illustrator, indigenous language activist and publisher from Milpa Alta, in the Nahua region in southeast Mexico City. She manages Ediciones XospaTronik, an independent publishing project promoting the revitalisation of the Nahuatl language. She works with publishing illustrated children’s books in indigenous languages, and finding ways to make these publications accessible. She is currently a British Library Chevening Fellow working on Latin American Indigenous Languages in early printed books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We are delighted to let you know that the Eccles Centre has just published a new Americas-focused bibliographic guide: US Fine Presses Established after 1945: A Guide to the British Library's Holdings (just scroll down a little to find it!)

This guide grew out of a conversation in late 2019 with then-Head of the Centre, Phil Hatfield, who had recently pledged financial support towards the cataloguing of a backlog of US fine press publications. A large number of these works – produced on old-fashioned hand-presses by contemporary printers – had been acquired by our curatorial colleagues in the previous 15 years. Phil rightly noted that without some kind of check-list or guide, it would be almost impossible for Library Readers, now or in the future, to appreciate the depth and richness of these holdings.

Borderbus. [Poem by Juan Filipe Herrera; prints by Felicia Rice.] Santa Cruz, CA: Moving Parts Press, 2019. British Library shelfmark: RF.2019.b.144

Initially, the guide was just going to list the works that were then being catalogued. This suited me perfectly since at that point I honestly didn’t understand the time, money and effort that my colleagues had devoted to obtaining these items! Thankfully, as I immersed myself in this world, my appreciation grew – both for the beauty, originality and boundary-pushing nature of the items themselves, and for the imagination and skill of their printers. And as my appreciation increased, so too did the scope of this project. After discovering P.A.H. Brown’s Modern British and American Private Presses (1850-1965): [catalogue of the] holdings of the British Library (London, 1976) it seemed sensible to push our own guide’s start date back to 1965.¹ And as it became apparent that several post-war presses had been omitted from Brown, so we pushed that date back even further, to 1945.

Kenneth Rexroth, Between Two Wars: Selected Poems Written Prior to the Second World War. Illustrations by Daniel Goldstein. Athens, OH: Labyrinth Editions; San Francisco, CA: Iris Press, 1982. British Library shelfmark: Cup.408.rr.9

The first step in tracking down these presses was to search the Library’s catalogue. Covid-19 related Library closures, combined with often-minimal cataloguing data, made it difficult to verify many of the items’ fine press credentials in person. Thankfully, however, online access to rare bookseller and auction websites made it possible, slowly but surely, to determine whether an item was hand-printed and whether a press had been founded after World War II.

About Sylvia. Poems by Diane Ackerman; lithographs by Enid Mark. Wallingford, PA: ELM Press, 1996. British Library shelfmark: Cup.512.d.9

In total, items by more than 180 such presses were found in the Library’s collection. More than 160 of these presses started after 1965 and – incredibly – more than 90 were established between 1965-1980. This fifteen-year period truly was a golden era for hand-press printing in the United States – a cultural phenomenon which seems entirely in-tune with that counter-cultural moment. Crucially, too, this was the point at which graduates from the recently established university book arts programmes began founding fine presses of their own.

Tom Killion, The Coast of California: Point Reyes to Point Sur. Santa Cruz & Mill Valley, CA: The Quail Press, 1979. British Library shelfmark: C.180.k.1

Researching the emergence and development of these presses was absolutely fascinating. Time and again it showed me the profound impact that great teachers can have not only on individuals, but on an entire creative landscape. For this reason, in addition to listing the names of these presses and some of their works, the guide offers a short ‘biography’ of each of press, including, where possible: the name of the press’s founder(s); the founder’s training and/or education and mentor; how long the press was in operation; how it developed over time; any speciality in subject matter or genre; any change in location; the type of equipment used; and whether it made its own paper. After this ‘biography’, the full details of up to ten works are listed for every press. And at the end of the guide there is a geographic index to the presses, arranged by US state.

Trading Eights: The Faces of Jazz. Essay by Ted Gioia; engravings by James G. Todd, Jr.; poem by Dana Gioia. California: Mixolydian Editions, 2016. British Library shelfmark: RF.2016.b.69

I hope this guide will prove useful to all those working in this field. And for those who are not, I hope it will offer an insight into a lesser-known aspect of the Library’s Americas holdings.

Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven. Etchings and wood engravings by Alan James Robinson. Easthampton, MA: Cheloniidae Press, 1980. British Library shelfmark: C.136.g.42

Jean Petrovic

References

1. Philip A.H. Brown, Modern British and American Private Presses (1850-1965): [catalogue of the] holdings of the British Library. London: British Museum Publications Ltd for the Library, 1976. Shelfmark: Open Access Rare Books and Music 094.4016 ENG; General Reference Collection 2708.aa.36; Document Supply 78/9820.