Launching on Tuesday 24 September 2024, “America Now!” is a new series of live events exploring the current state of the USA and its place in the world. Book your free tickets and see the full programme on See Tickets.  

Times Square, New York, showing US flag

 

In a world of hot takes these discussions will offer some much-needed deep dives, giving expert insight into some of the most pressing or peculiar aspects of modern American life - from the Supreme Court to Cowboy Carter. 
 
Organised by the British Association for American Studies and the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania, “America Now!" takes place every other month in the British Library Knowledge Centre. 

Ahead of the first event, we took to the collections to share some suggestions of what can be found in the Americas holdings at the British Library which speak to the first topic we’ll be discussing: The Supreme Court.  

Courting controversy: What’s the Deal with the US Supreme Court? 

Tuesday 24 September 2024 | 18.30-19.30 

Book your tickets

From reversing the constitutional right to have an abortion to boosting the power of the President, the US Supreme Court has been making some headline-grabbing decisions over the past few years. With its judgments also potentially reshaping other major issues including gun control, environmental protections, and Indigenous tribal sovereignty, it seems we need to talk about the conservatism of the Supreme Court. How have we got here, and how will the court’s impact be felt on the ground for everyday Americans?   

Who sits on the Supreme Court? What are their backgrounds and specialisms that shape their interests and priorities in making decisions that impact a superpower like the USA? Consult this online resource, via US Federal Government Documents: The nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, to find out more about the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. While Being Brown: Sonia Sotomayor and the Latino Question (YC.2021.a.45) tells the story of the country’s first Latina Supreme Court Associate Justice’s rise to the pinnacle of American public life at a moment of profound demographic and political transformation. 

Official photograph of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson taken by Supreme Court Photographer Fred Schilling, 2022 and Being Brown picture from: https://impactolatino.com/la-jueza-latina-de-la-corte-suprema-sonia-sotomayor-inspira-un-libro-puntual/

Primary source ephemera documenting historical movements in America relating to gun control, abortion laws and environmental protections are also available in the collections to unpack these very relevant and ongoing topics. For example:  

• a broadsheet by the People to Abolish Abortion Laws demonstrating against New York State Abortion Laws (YD.2014.b.915). This campaign poster, including the name of Betty Friedan, called for the repeal of all laws restricting abortion in the 1970s 
• an interesting and illustrated 70s women's guide on self-defense can be seen in The woman's gun pamphlet: a primer on handguns, 1975 (RF.2018.a.2015).

Demonstrate Against n.y. state Abortion Laws broadsheet and The Women’s Gun Pamphlet by and for women, photo courtesy of Ulysses Books/Michael L. Muilenberg, Bookseller

And here are the event speakers’ ‘must read’ books, articles, and resources for anyone who's appetite for further exploration of the topic is whetted by the talk.  

Dr. Ilaria Di Gioia, an academic with expertise in the American Constitution, American federalism and intergovernmental relations at Birmingham City University, recommends:  

• Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Doubleday, 1st Ed., c2007), BL shelfmark: m07/.33898 

• Stephen Breyer, The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics (Harvard University Press, 2021)

• Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (Simon and Schuster, c1979), BL shelfmark: 80/11640

Dr. Emma Long, Associate Professor in American History and Politics at UEA, recommends:  

• SCOTUSBlog - arguably the single best online resource for studying the Court - largely written for those with some knowledge of the Court and its work, it's the best resource for keeping up with what the Court is doing and what people are saying about it 

• National Constitution Center - not just about the Court, but about the broader role of the Constitution in American politics and society - runs an incredible programme of events, podcasts, and discussions (almost all available online) that are designed from all levels from primary school to professorial 

• Linda Greenhouse, The US Supreme Court: A Very Short History (Oxford University Press, 2nd Ed., 2020) - a good, short introduction to how the Court works from the former New York Times' Court reporter 

• David O'Brien, Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics (W.W. Norton & Co., 2020) - available in multiple editions, one of the best academic introductions to the Court (previous editions in BL holdings available)

Dr. Mitch Robertson, Lecturer in US History at UCL, recommends:    

• Geoffrey Stone and David Strauss, Democracy and Equality: The Enduring Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court (Oxford University Press, 2020), BL shelfmark: YC.2022.a.1168

• Mary Ziegler, Roe: The History of a National Obsession (Yale University Press, 2023)

• J. W. Peltason, Fifty-eight Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation (University of Illinois Press, 1971), BL shelfmarks: X6/2646, W55/6339

• Anthony Lewis, Gideon's Trumpet (Random House, 1964), BL shelfmark: W28/9549

• Slow Burn: Roe v. Wade (podcast series) 

Some of these titles haven't hit the British Library's shelves yet but they should be available in other major libraries. Find items in libraries near you via WorldCat. 

Please note: we're continuing to experience a major technology outage as a result of a cyber-attack. Our Reading Rooms in London and Yorkshire are open, but access to our collection and online resources is limited. Visit our website for full details of what is currently accessible. 

Stay tuned for further blogs with reading lists related to “America Now!”, and book your tickets for Why Country Music Conquered the World in 2024 on Thursday 28 November and The Inauguration of a New President: Where Will American Politics Go From Here? on Tuesday 23 January 2025. Details of events for the rest of 2025 will be announced later this year. If you have any suggestions of topics that you’d like to see discussed, please email [email protected] with ‘America Now!’ in the subject line. 

Weiao Xing (PhD in History, University of Cambridge, 2023, @WeiaoX) is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Global Encounters Platform and Institute of Modern History, University of Tübingen in Germany. He works on cultural and literary history in early modern English-Indigenous and French-Indigenous encounters and was a 2022 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow at the British Library.

Among the items I consulted at the British Library as an Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow was a 215-folio manuscript entitled ‘State papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of State, 1650–1658’ (Add MS4156).¹ Its compiler, John Thurloe, made use of his intelligence network across Europe, playing a pivotal role in domestic politics and foreign affairs during the Interregnum (1649–1660).² Within the manuscript, on its second folio, rests a copy of a letter that has traversed the Atlantic. Dated 2 October 1651, the original letter was sent from Oliver Cromwell to John Cotton, the esteemed pastor of the Boston church in New England. ‘I receaued yours a few days sithence’ [sic], as Cromwell commenced his letter in a continuing dialogue, the circulation of texts intertwined political and religious circumstances in England and New England.

This letter concisely conveyed the prevailing political situation in England. Just one month prior to its writing, the Battle of Worcester, a major event at the end of the English Civil War (1642–1651), witnessed the Parliamentarians defeating a predominantly Scottish Royalist force led by Charles II. In his letter, Cromwell celebrated this victory with Cotton – when Charles II and his ‘malignant party’ invaded England, ‘the Lord rained upon them such snares’.³ Moreover, Cromwell earnestly sought religious support from Cotton, emphasising the need for prayers ‘as much as ever’ given the recent successes, or ‘such mercies’ in his own words. This letter affirms Cotton’s interest in English politics and his significance among Puritans in England during the Interregnum.⁴

The transatlantic movement of texts and individuals unveils intricate connections within the political and religious realms of England and New England. In the summer of 1651, five Massachusetts ministers, including John Cotton, corresponded with their fellow ministers in England.⁵ They defended the embargo placed by the colony’s General Court on a theological book entitled The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption […], authored by William Pynchon, one of the founding figures of the colony.⁶ Pynchon had managed to publish and sell his book in London in 1650 while residing in the colony. At the British Library, a copy of this work, annotated with ‘June 2d’, is under the shelf-marked E.606.(3.). It was acquired from ‘Thomason Tracts’, a collection of imprints dated from 1640 to 1661, curated by the London-based bookseller George Thomason (c. 1602–1666). The provenance of this copy suggests that Pynchon’s work, albeit heretical in New England, entered the intellectual spheres amid the political upheaval in England. Facing religious tensions and sanctions, Pynchon relocated to England in 1652 and continued publishing books that reflected his theological views. Pynchon to some extent maintained his ‘New England’ identity; he identified himself as ‘late of New England’ in his The Meritorious Price reprinted in 1655.⁷

Between the 1640s and the 1660s, a convergence of political, religious, and economic motives prompted numerous English settlers in New England to return home. While this statement articulated by William Sachse in 1948 holds merit, it does not fully alter the prevalent presumption of seventeenth-century transatlantic migrations as one-way journeys from Europe to the Americas.⁸ Many returnees from New England embarked on careers in England while maintaining their transatlantic connections. Sir George Downing exemplifies this pattern. As an ambassador in the Hague from 1657 to 1665, he facilitated England’s acquisition of New Amsterdam from Dutch settlers – in 1642, he had previously graduated from Harvard College in its inaugural graduate cohort.⁹  The tapestry of transatlantic migration is also woven from ordinary lives. In the prologue of her monograph Pilgrims, Susan Moore zooms in on Susanna Bell (d. 1672), an English merchant’s wife who crossed the Atlantic twice. Bell’s testimony, published in London upon her death, encapsulates her experiences, rhetoric, and mentalities.¹⁰

Fig. 1: Egerton MS 2519, folios 10 and 11.

Within the British Library’s holdings, a myriad of manuscripts unfolds stories of texts and individuals crossing the Atlantic. Egerton MS 2519, for instance, encompasses correspondence and papers of Samuel Desborough (or Disbrowe), who assumed the role of the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland from 1657 onwards.¹¹ Desborough, after setting off for New England in 1639 and settling in Guilford, New Haven, returned to England in 1650 amid the Civil War before relocating to Scotland.¹² In this manuscript, on folios 10 and 11, a letter dated 1654 from Guilford by William Leete appears (see Fig. 1).¹³ Leete, who would later become the governor of New Haven and Connecticut colonies, shared recent affairs in New England with Desborough, particularly his operation of Desborough’s colonial estate and several settlers who returned to England. This letter epitomises multiple connections between New England and England, ranging from personal careers and businesses to colonial affairs. As Moore suggests, it underscores the ‘delicate relation’ between those who remained in the settlements and those who returned to England.¹⁴ Additionally, as the letter tells, Desborough had addressed Cromwell, expressing his concern about potential threats from the Dutch on the settlement. Therefore, such transatlantic movements of texts and individuals repositioned overseas affairs of New England within the scope of domestic and European politics.

For the New Englanders who made the voyage back to England during the mid-seventeenth century, their ‘American’ identities were ill-defined as they ‘returned’ to their careers and lives in England, but many maintained connections with the settlements. Their experiences, in both New England and England, contribute to our comprehension of their engagement in and perceptions of transatlantic travels, mobility, Puritanism, colonisation, and English politics.

Notes

1. John Thurloe, ‘State Papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of State, 1650–1658 (Especially 1654–1655)’ (1658), Add MS 4156, British Library, https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_4156.
2. Timothy Venning, ‘Thurloe, John (Bap. 1616, d. 1668)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27405.
3. In his letter, Cromwell enclosed a short narrative (possibly available on 26 September), see C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., ‘Table of Acts: 1651’, in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911), British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/lxxxii-lxxxvii.
4. John Cotton, The Correspondence of John Cotton, ed. Sargent Bush (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 458–61.
5. Cotton, 454–58.
6. William Pynchon, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, Iustification, &c. Cleering It from Some Common Errors (London: Printed by J.M. for George Whittington, and James Moxon, and are to be sold at the blue Anchor in Corn-hill neer the Royall Exchange, 1650); Michael P. Winship, ‘Contesting Control of Orthodoxy among the Godly: William Pynchon Reexamined’, The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 4 (1997): 795–822.
7. William Pynchon, A Farther Discussion of That Great Point in Divinity the Sufferings of Christ (The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption [...]) (London: Printed for the Author, and are to bee sold at the Signe of the three Lyons in Corn-hill, over against the Conduit, 1655).
8. William L. Sachse, ‘The Migration of New Englanders to England, 1640–1660’, The American Historical Review 53, no. 2 (1948): 1640–1660.
9. Jonathan Scott, ‘Downing, Sir George, First Baronet (1623–1684)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7981.
10. Susan Hardman Moore, Pilgrims: New World Settlers & the Call of Home (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 1–15; Susanna Bell, The Legacy of a Dying Mother to Her Mourning Children Being the Experiences of Mrs. Susanna Bell, Who Died March 13, 1672 (London: Printed and are to be sold by John Hancock, Senior and Junior at the three Bibles in Popes-Head Alley in Cornhill, 1673).
11. Samuel Desborough, ‘Correspondence and Papers of Samuel Disbrowe, or Desborough, of Elsworth, Co. Cambridge, Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, 1651/2–1660’ (1660), Egerton MS 2519, British Library, http://searcharchives.bl.uk/permalink/f/1r5koim/IAMS032-001983482.
12. Susan Hardman Moore, Abandoning America: Life-Stories from Early New England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2013), 90–91.
13. Bruce P. Stark, ‘Leete, Williamunlocked (1613–16 April 1683)’, in American National Biography, 2000, https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0100511.
14. Hardman Moore, Abandoning America, 91.

 

 Join two former Members of the US Congress and leading academics in a lively and bipartisan discussion of major themes in contemporary American politics. 

President Joe Biden, joined by First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and their children Ashley Biden and Hunter Biden, takes the oath of office as President of the United States Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

 

What is ‘US Politics Today’ 

This is an exciting opportunity for Year 12 and 13 students of A-level Politics to hear some of the critical questions and issues in US politics come alive and leap out of the textbook, as two former Members of the US House of Representatives – one Democrat, one Republican – share reflections from their direct experience at the heart of Washington D.C. 

Discussing the latest trends and events with leading academics, this day-long conference supports classroom work on key topics in A-level US Politics courses, including sessions on The Presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and Elections and Democracy. 

When is it? 

Monday 18 November | 10.30-15.30 (In-person only) 

Friday 22 November | 10.30-15.30 (In-person and Online) 

How can my school take part? 

Schools can attend either In Person at the British Library Knowledge Centre in St Pancras (£15 per attendee, to cover the cost of refreshments) or Online (free). 

To register your interest in bringing a class In Person: Please email [email protected] with the subject ‘US Politics Today: In Person’, specifying which date you would like to come (Monday 18 November or Friday 22 November) and how many people (students and teachers) would like to come. Applications close at 5pm on Friday 4 October and schools will be notified on Tuesday 8 October. School places will be allocated by ballot. 

To register your interest in participating Online: Schools can watch the session on Friday 22 November live online, and ask questions to the Former Members of Congress either in advance or through the viewing platform. Please email [email protected] with the subject ‘US Politics Today: Online’, and you will be sent a link nearer the time.  

There are also events with the Former Members of Congress in Norwich and Leicester during the week of 18 November. If you would like more information about these, please email [email protected] with the subject ‘US Politics Today: Norwich/Leicester’ (as appropriate). 

Marina Delfos Harris is a native Jamaican and community historian; she was a 2023 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow at the British Library. 

Jamaica’s Jewish heritage has intrigued me for over 20 years and was the focus of my Master’s Thesis at the London Metropolitan University back in 2005. Over the last 12 years, I have become more involved in researching and preserving this rich heritage, particularly through Jewish cemeteries. However, this work has been mainly voluntary and not as consistent as I would have liked. Two years ago, I made a commitment to myself to find a way to dedicate the rest of my working life to what I consider a vital, albeit forgotten aspect of Jamaican history and culture. 

Lifelong learning is a thing, a thing so powerful that we underestimate its importance when it comes to mature students and researchers who can contribute to world knowledge in powerful ways. The Eccles Institute for the Americas supports this concept of lifelong learning. Their Visiting Fellowships offer a brilliant opportunity for independent researchers such as me to engage in original research at a world-class institution. They are especially beneficial to those of us who need that jumpstart to further our research.   

In applying for the Fellowship my goal was and is still to expand our knowledge of Jamaica’s Jewish history so that the overall historical narrative of Jamaica can be more inclusive and accurate. One of the ways I wanted to pursue this goal was to start filling in the gaps in original community records that have been destroyed by fire, hurricanes and earthquakes on the island over the last three and a half centuries. The collection of Jewish cemetery archives that remain in Jamaica has, like many other historic cemeteries around the world, been compromised by vandalism and neglect. Yet, what I discovered while in London, was that Jamaica’s oldest Jewish cemetery, the 17th century Hunts Bay burial ground, has a much larger percentage of legible tombstones than the oldest Jewish cemetery in the UK, the 17th-century Velho ‘Old Cemetery’ established by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in London’s East End. What this realization reinforced for me was that the work that my colleagues and I do through the Jamaican Jewish Cemeteries Preservation Fund (JJCPF), has value and that the documentation we are creating is significant. My research findings at the British Library will supplement this work and contribute to a repository that other researchers and genealogists can access. 

Initially my research plan was focused on searching for maps confirming the locations of Jewish cemeteries in Jamaica, plus scanning for death announcements in newspapers and other publications. I spent my first week in Maps Reading Room and and had assumed there must be detailed plans of the key port towns like Port Royal and the old Capital of St. Jago de La Vega (Spanish Town) as Jamaica was a former British colony, and a significant one at that in the 18th century. Frustratingly this was not the case. I found maps of interest but not that “aha!” moment I had expected. But this is research, as one of the other Fellows commiserated with the rest of us at one of our bi-monthly Researchers Packed Lunch.  

C.E. Goad, Insurance Plan of Kingston, 1894. British Library shelfmark: 145.b.3(5.)

From there I moved on to the Newsroom where I could have spent my entire four weeks! The data was rich and broad and my plan to scan only for obituaries quickly went out the window. I was giddy with excitement when I found numerous references to the Jewish population: business ads, court cases, gaol lists, juror lists, lists of passengers departing and arriving, and committee memberships. One page of ads from the 19 February 1840 edition of The St. Jago De La Vega Gazette, for example, mentions the following Jamaican Jews: Depass, Dias, Spyers and Sanguinetti - Liquor Licenses; Deleon and Lyon - Tavern Licenses; Lyon, Fuertado and Sanguinetti – Goods for Sale; De LaMotta – Deputy Marshall’s Office; Court Cases – Moss vs Lazarus and Levison vs Lyon. 

St. Jago De La Vega Gazette, 19 February 1840. British Library shelfmark: MFM.MMisc1070 

Scanning microfilm was tedious but rewarding. One of the bits of helpful advice I received before I embarked on my Fellowship, was to gather as much information as possible while I was there and save the analyzing for later. The ability to scan and email a newspaper page from microfilm allowed me this luxury and is one of the best tools offered by the British Library. 

The final two weeks of my research were dedicated to the Manuscripts and Rare Books Reading Rooms. This is when I started to hone my research skills and build confidence with my approach to the materials. I became more adept at sifting through documents to determine what information was valuable and what wasn’t. It was essential to get a feel of what else was held within the various collections at the British Library, as undoubtedly there are treasures to be discovered in the most obscure of manuscripts. It could be a telling entry in meticulously kept government records, or a sentence that gives pause, challenging what you thought you understood. My research also benefited from access to online journals during my Fellowship.  Jstor is an incredible resource that connected me with multiple articles and references to Jamaica’s Jewish community.  

One of my finds The Natural, Moral and Political History of Jamaica... by James Knight, included commentary on Jamaica’s Jews; some of which was derogatory. The ‘List of Landowners in Jamaica etc. about 1750’ was a gem of a record, however, and I was surprised to see the number of Jews who owned land, many of them occupying over 500 acres.  It will be constructive comparing it to the ‘List of Jewish Persons Endenizened and Naturalized 1609-1799' compiled by Samuel, Barnett & Diamond that I viewed on Jstor, as 141 Jews were naturalized in Jamaica during the period 1741-1751. 

All in all, I collected a significant amount of information, although at the time I thought I hadn’t, and it has taken me several weeks to compile and label 48 pages of typed notes and tables, 94 pages of newspaper scans, 43 images of maps and 69 images of manuscripts and books.  There were many maps and documents that didn’t reveal anything useful, but for me the absence of information is just as telling as the presence of information.   

My role now, as I see it, is to analyze, write and present my findings, add to the knowledge base and continue research. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity that the Eccles Institute Fellowship offered me and the sense of purpose it gave me to continue with my goal of learning and sharing research about Jamaican Jewish history. 

As I reflect on my Fellowship and the data I collected, I am encouraged by Heidi Kaufman’s “Strangers in the Archive,” where she asserts that archives have the power to shape and produce meaning, and in turn, I believe, to reframe marginalized narratives like that of Jamaica’s Jewish community. 

  

 

Jean Renel Pierre Louis (aka Prensnelo) is a Haitian-Grenadian artist and was a 2023 Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library. 

I came to the British Library as an Eccles Visiting Fellow in July 2023 to research and unravel Haitian stories within the Library’s collection. My objective was to find inspiration for a new series of artworks, drawing strength from both my own recollections of the 2010 earthquake and the profound spirituality that defines Haitian existence and resilience. 

Hispaniola – named in 1492 by Christopher Columbus and split between French and Spanish control – over time became the distinct entities of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Opening and unrolling maps created between 1564 and 1794 revealed the evolving contours of this shared landmass and was very emotional for me. The many changes to the border separating the two nations shows a history of changing plot lines and its impact on the Haitian psyche. Varying spellings of Haiti and other place names which still exist, including those that were new to me, also caught my attention.  

Isle of San Domingo or Hispaniola. London: Printed for William Faden, 1794. British Library shelfmark: Maps K.Top.123.36.2. 

The Library’s Philatelic collection holds what could be described as a Haitian history in miniature. From stamps honouring revolutionary heroes and commemorating the bicentennial of Port au Prince – showing George Washington, Jean Jacques Dessalines and Simon Bolivar – to a 1979 stamp portraying a rural Haitian mother breastfeeding and marking the 50th Anniversary of the Interamerican Children Organisation, these stamps are a mosaic of Haiti’s triumphs and tribulations. I had not thought of stamps as holders of history before this and finally appreciated the value of my father’s cherished collection, held in two red and brown suitcases and including a stamp of François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, Haiti’s 40th President.  

British Library Philatelic Collections, UPU Collection, Haiti.

I did not find much information on Faustin Elie-Soulouque, a politician and military commander from Petit-Goave (my maternal hometown) who was president and later Emperor of Haiti. However, documents on Henry Christophe, a key leader in the Haitian Revolution and the only monarch of the Kingdom of Haiti, included a peculiar typewritten addition to the Library’s copy of Lithographic Sketches of the Public Characters of Calcutta (Calcutta: W. Thacker and Co., 1850; British Library shelfmark W.4769): an image of ‘Christophe, or Henry the First, King of Haiti.’ This addition reminded me that history, like ink on paper, can be amended and expanded. 

'Christophe, or Henry the First, King of Haiti', in Colesworthey Grant, Lithographic Sketches of the Public Characters of Calcutta. Calcutta: W. Thacker and Co., 1850. British Library shelfmark: W.4769. 

Photographs of Haiti in its glory days made me a little sad, given the many buildings that are still unfixed more than a decade after the earthquake. However, those images, as well as video and recordings of ceremonial songs and festivals, were good references for future projects.  

Between July and November my days at the British Library helped me to think more broadly about how I, as a visual artist, can pay my respects to the resilience of a nation and of a people that have endured such highs and lows. The Eccles Fellowship provided me with a wellspring of inspiration for canvases yet to come. 

 

The Americas and Oceania team is delighted to connect with you for the first time since the cyber-attack on the British Library at the end of October 2023. Together with the rest of our colleagues, we are so grateful to our Readers for your incredible support during the last few months. 

As you may be aware, the Reading Rooms in London and Yorkshire are open for personal study. Access to collection items and online resources is limited but steadily expanding, so please visit the British Library website for the most up-to-date information. The website includes information about renewing or obtaining your Reader Pass. It also includes a recently released searchable online version of the Main Catalogue which contains records of the majority of the Library’s printed collections along with extensive ‘FAQs’ and a video to assist you in ordering and accessing collection items. 

Although most of the Library’s digital collection and online resources are currently unavailable, the following freely available online resources include British Library items:  

• search the Hathi Trust or Archive.org for older and out-of-copyright digitised material 
• use Google Books to search a huge range of digitised content from our collection 
• access one million images of items from our collections on Flickr 
• search millions of newspaper articles via the British Newspaper Archives  
• explore Artstor’s digital library  

 Other available resources include: 

• the Eccles Centre’s Americas focused Bibliographic Guides which are held in the British Library Research Repository alongside other staff output, open access data sets and content from other heritage organisations 
• freely available e-resources listed by the Open University  

Within the Library’s Reading Rooms there is an extraordinarily rich collection of Americas reference materials. In Rare Books and Music, for example, there are guides to American sheet music and jazz, and histories of the book in the Caribbean. Humanities 1 has a wealth of reference works and encyclopedic works in history and literature while Humanities 2 has books and journals on entertainment, film and popular music studies. The Newsroom also has extremely useful histories and guides to the press and media landscapes of the Americas and Oceania, and there are also plenty of relevant and inspiring titles available in Social Sciences and Manuscripts. All these books are on the Main Catalogue or you can browse in person with a Reader Pass.

The 'Enciclopedia de Mexico' (HLR 972.003) in Humanities 1.

A selection of American music titles in Rare Books and Music

 

A selection of popular music books in Humanities 2

 

A selection of media studies books in the Newsroom

 Finally, the Reference Services team is on hand to answer research queries and advise on collection availability at [email protected]; they are receiving a high volume of enquiries but will get back to you as soon as possible. If you have an Americas-focused collection query you can also email [email protected]  

Thank you so much again for keeping in touch and for your ongoing support! 

 

Halloween’s origins remain obscure, yet it is the calendar event where humanity’s fascination with the supernatural is openly celebrated. Millions of individuals commemorate Halloween every year by attending fancy-dress parties, going trick or treating, watching horror movies, visiting ‘haunted’ sites or narrating ghost stories. Whether a believer or sceptic, the supernatural is in reality an economically significant cultural phenomenon generating millions of pounds each year for the tourist, publishing, merchandising and entertainment sectors. As central component of humanity’s visual, material and print cultures, postage stamps are unsurprisingly replete with depictions of ghosts, creatures, myths and legends. Canada Post leads the way having issued several visually striking, innovative stamp sets as mini-sheets chronicling the nation’s rich heritage of hauntings and ghostly sightings (Figure 1). Not released for Halloween, the content of these ‘Haunted Canada’ stamps is nevertheless a perfect accompaniment to a Halloween blog.

Figure 1: Canada Post's mini-sheets of Canadian hauntings

The first series released on Friday 13th’ June 2014, comprises five separate designs developed by Lionel Gadoury and Terry Popik from the illustrations of Sam Weber and C. H. J. Snider. Manufactured by the Canadian firm, Lowe-Martin using a lithographic printing process two stories centre upon particular sites rather than specific individuals. One, labelled ‘Ghost Bride’ depicts a veiled woman and candles in the background. It refers to reported sightings of a ghostly figure wearing a long flowing dress descending the staircase of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel (Figure 2). Many believe she is the apparition of a bride who tripped and fell to her death from the staircase on her wedding day. The second, ‘Ghost Train’ illustrates a steam-train with a ghostly spectre in the background and takes inspiration from sightings of a ghostly glowing light known as the ‘St Louis Light’ in the Saskatchewan River Valley (Figure 3). This unexplained phenomenon is locally associated with the tale of a long dead Canadian National Railway Conductor decapitated by a passing train whilst examining the track-line with a lantern during the 1920s.

Figure 2 and Figure 3

A second series was issued on 14 September 2014, all printed by the Canadian Bank Note Company using a lithographic printing process. The set includes five stamps designed by Lionel Gadoury and Kammy Ahuja using illustrations from Sam Weber as well as Photography from Peter Bregg. Two stamps chronicle hauntings centred on particular individuals from local history. One depicting a woman standing above a gibbet with two phantom trees refers to the spirit of Marie-Josephte Corriveau (Figure 4). Executed for murder in 1763, her remains went on public display in Levis, Quebec as a warning to others. Local residents have encountered her sprit walking the road at night, frightening unwary travellers. Moving on, the ‘Caribou Hotel’ stamp reveals a clothed skeleton representing the ghost of Bessie Gideon, one-time owner of the historic gold-rush era hotel situated in Carcross, Yukon (Figure 5).

Figure 4 and Figure 5

On 8 September 2016, the third ‘Haunted Canada’ series lithographed by Colour Innovations in Toronto went on sale. Lionel Gadoury developed each stamp, from Sam Weber’s illustrations and Peter Bregg’s photographs. The ‘Lady in White’ Stamp presents the evocative image of a woman standing in a lake with a skeletal reflection (Figure 6) in reference to the tale of Mathilde-Robin, whose spirit haunts Montmorency Falls, Quebec. Following the death of her fiancé during the Battle of Montmorency in 1759, she committed suicide. Finally, 'Dungarvon Whooper’ narrates the legend of a cook brutally robbed and murdered at a logging camp near the Dungarvon River in Renous, New Brunswick (Figure 7). Upon discovering the body, some lumberjacks buried the remains within a shallow grave. That night they were horrified by hideous screams and whooping sounds emanating from the new grave during a snowstorm.

Figure 6 and Figure 7

Contemporary to the release of these stamps was the publication of a series of books titled ‘Haunted Canada,’ recounting some of these tales. Beyond their entertainment value, each stamp is also inherently didactic, showcasing Canada’s topography, histories, myths and legends. In doing so, they buttress national identity within Canada whilst becoming ambassadors for the nation’s wider cultural diplomacy. The British Library’s Philatelic Collections would like to wish everybody a fun, spooky and scary Halloween!

By Richard Scott Morel

Curator, British Library’s Philatelic Collections

Rafael Pereira do Rego is the Interim Programme Manager and Area Specialist in the Eccles Centre for American Studies

In the previous blog post, I discussed the wonderful experience of hosting the 100th celebratory edition of the Bilingual Brazilian Book Club at the British Library and the exquisite publications created by the society Cem Bibliofilos do Brasil (100 Bibliophiles of Brazil) including Machado de Assis’ O Alienista, illustrated by Candido Portinari. (And I admit my pleasure at imagining the fancy gala dinners at the Country Club in Rio de Janeiro with its auctions of the original illustrations signed by distinguished visual artists to celebrate the work of the canon of Brazilian literature!)

Another publication from their collection, which was included in the Library’s show-and-tell at the Book Club event, is Macunaíma, by Mario de Andrade. Originally published in 1928, the 1957 edition was illustrated by Carybé, an artist born in Argentina, but who grew up in Rio and later in Salvador, Bahia, where he consolidated his work. Some of Carybé's work can be found in the Afro-Brazilian Museum in Salvador: 27 cedar panels representing different orixás or divinities of the Afro-Brazilian religion candomblé.

Illustrations by Carybé for the exquisite ‘Iconografia dos Deuses Africanos no Candomble da Bahia’ (Iconography of the African Gods in the Candomblé of Bahia' with texts by Jorge Amado, Pierre Verger and Waldeloir Rego. (BL shelfmark 37/Cup.408.rr.7 )

Carybé was a versatile artist portraying many themes and motifs, but his main forte was the exploration of Afro-Brazilian culture and its influence, especially in the state of Bahia, Northeast of Brazil, which inherited much Brazilian African heritage as a result of the transatlantic slave trade. Carybé had famous literary friends such as Jorge Amado, Gabriel García Márquez and Mario de Andrade, and illustrated many editions of their work. Among his paintings, you can also appreciate the urban and natural landscapes of Bahia, as well as popular festivities and practices such as soccer, capoeira and Carnaval. And below is Macunaíma, the Brazilian modernist anti-hero – as you can see in the subtitle of the book, ‘o herói sem nenhum caráter’ (the hero without any character).

Andrade, M. (1957). Macunaíma, o herói sem nenhum caráter. Aguas-fortes de Carybé. [By M. de Andrade.] ([Publicações da Sociedade dos Cem Bibliófilos do Brasil. no. 11.]). British Library shelfmark C.106.l.11

Exclusive edition for the British Museum (British Library shelfmark C.106.l.11)

Macunaíma’s author, Mario de Andrade, was one of the instigators of the Week of Modern Art in 1922 in Brazil, an avant-garde movement that disseminated Brazilian Modernism in literature, visual arts, music and architecture. He travelled to many parts of Brazil, writing travelogues and researching Brazil’s multiple sounds, voices and dialects, which enabled him to develop an extensive familiarity with the country’s linguistic and cultural variations. As a careful listener with a great sense of musical composition (he was trained as a musician), he applied the Brazilian linguistic diversity to prose fiction within a sort of rhapsodic, speech-patterned writing he had developed previously in the poems of Pauliceia Desvairada (translated in English as Hallucinated City), his second poetry collection. This novel is his major work in the context of those experimentations, and it is our Brazilian Odyssey (or perhaps our Ulysses – a modernist response to James Joyce).

 The book is a shapeshifting novel about an Indigenous man, ‘the hero without a character’, from a tribe in the northern Amazon who crosses the country in search of his amulet stolen by a cannibal giant. He arrives in the sprawling urban jungle of São Paulo on the verge of modernisation, learns the ‘official’ languages —both Portuguese and Brazilian, as the novel says —and goes for a ‘whirlwind tour of Brazil, cramming four centuries and a continental expanse into a single mythic plane’, as stated in the beautiful new translated edition, published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo editions (2023). The book magically intertwines Brazil’s Afro-Brazilian, European and Indigenous heritage and the country’s folklore, dialects, anthropology, mythology, flora, fauna, and pop culture – thus, examining Brazilian multifaceted identity in the context of rapid urban transformations. 

Mario de Andrade gave birth to this novel over six delirious days in a state of creative trance; he famously locked himself in a remote farm in Sao Paulo in order to work continuously. But this is, of course, not an improvisational piece. It is the consequence of years of research and the process of writing was inspired by Northern repentistas in Brazil – popular spoken poets and musicians whose compositions are seemingly improvised at first glance, but in fact, nothing is unpremeditated. The form and content come from careful research and experimentation that builds up the scaffolding of patterns, sounds and ideas feeding the creative mind for the final ‘impromptu’. Mario de Andrade is then engaging with popular culture in the very process of writing the book.

British Library shelfmark C.106.l.11

What I find interesting about the novel is the capacity to blend dialects and urban and rural rhythms that Andrade was collecting in his research, attempting to convey in language Brazil’s conflicted racial and cultural identity. It embodies a new style of prose creating a new rhapsodic and playful language which justifies the comparison between James Joyce’s Ulysses and Mario de Andrade’s novel, both published in the 1920s: the Brazilian Odyssey is full of Amazonian gods and demi-gods and historical figures, interplayed in a musical composite, and yet preserving a narrative overturn. The novel also mixes vivid descriptions of the jungle and the sprawling metropolis with abrupt turns towards fantasy – an emerging sign of the trend towards magical realism that would be consolidated in Latin America decades later.

Following Brazilian modernist tradition, Andrade also incorporated notions of primitivism learned from European modernism embedded with the principles of indigenous cannibalism introduced here as one of the novel’s thematic forces. Macunaíma was published in 1928, the same year that O Manifesto Antropofago (The Cannibalist Manifesto) by Oswaldo de Andrade (no familial relation) released the main tenet of Brazilian Modernism, which is the hugely influential concept of antropofagia. It postulates the Brazilian culture’s capacity to ‘digest’ the coloniser, to incorporate foreign influences and to turn them into something new and ‘originally’ Brazilian (and, in many cases, into something national, and sometimes stranding to utopic nationalism – as much as problematic this course can turn out to be).

Indeed, this is the main modernist tension in Brazil: the desire to bring European values and traditions but sometimes within a nationalist framework or with the perspective of building a nation that is separate from the coloniser’s influences. And perhaps that has also been the main tension in the construction of Brazilian cultural identity since the Portuguese arrived in 1500 and encountered the Tupi-speaking indigenous people (portrayed in the first European books about Brazil as practitioners of cannibalistic rituals): an 'existential' ambivalence between adopting European cultural codes and striving for a 'unique' identity which is memorably encapsulated in the manifesto by the famous aphorism 'Tupi or Not Tupi – that is the question'. 

Manifesto Antropófago in Revista de Antropofagia by Oswald de Andrade in 1928 (reedited text available at the British Library under shelfmark L.45/389). Image at center is a contour line drawing by Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral of her 1928 painting Abaporu.

The concept of antropofagia is a good stepping stone to our next collection item, Cobra Norato, by Raul Bopp who drank from the same well as Mario de Andrade, and I will explore this further in the next blog post. Before then, I will just mention that, although Macunaíma was initially regarded as a sheer strange piece of work with a perceived untranslatable complexity for foreign audiences, it became recognised as a modernist masterpiece and national cultural icon. It is impressive to see that in 2023 alone there have been two English translations of the novel; one by Katrina Dodson, published in the UK via Fitzcarraldo Editions, and the other by Carl Engel (published by King Tide Press).  These will accompany E.A. Goodland’s 1984 version for Random House, also available at the British Library. Additionally, it is worth checking Andrade's first novel To Love, Intransitive Verb, translated into English in 1933 as Fräulein – the title alluding to a German governess in a nouveau-riche family in Sao Paulo during World War I – but now available in a new translation by Ana Lessa-Schimidt. 

I hope the new directions of this novel for an English-speaking audience will bring to life again the work of an unquiet modernist, endlessly curious about the complexities of Brazilian culture. But the novel’s importance perhaps goes beyond the country’s geographical limits to shed light on the conflicted and fragmented post-colonial subject – playful and transgressive, yet always unfinished and full of possibilities that are never quite met.