The Eccles Institute and BAAS’s America Now! series continues on Tuesday 23 January 2025, with ‘The Inauguration of a New President: Where Will American Politics Go From Here?’ Ahead of the event, here’s a closer look at the speakers joining us for the evening, and some materials related to presidential inaugurations in the Library’s collections. 

In his inauguration speech in January 2017 Donald Trump promised to ‘make America great again’ and stem the ‘American carnage’ he saw in US society. Coming just weeks after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capital, Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration speech urged the American people to come together, even though he conceded that ‘speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days.’ Donald Trump returned to power as President of the United States on 20 January 2025, after an election cycle marked by violence and division.

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)

Following the inauguration, we will reflect on 2024’s electoral activity in the US, and the role of democracy in American political life, in our first American Now! event for 2025. What will the new President mean for the future of the US, and the world? 

Chaired by our friends at BAAS, the event will include a panel of experts to lead what’s sure to be a fruitful and frank discussion:  

Ursula Hackett (Royal Holloway)  

Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London. She specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the United States, with a particular focus on religion, race, and education. Dr Hackett is the author of America's Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press) and the essay writing guide, Brilliant Essays (Bloomsbury Study Skills). In the academic year 2023-4 she was a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow. 

Amy Tatum (University of Bournemouth) 

Amy Tatum is a Lecturer in Communication and Media at Bournemouth University. Her research explores gender and political leadership, political psychology and representation. Her recent work explores the impact of generative AI on US politics and the psychological responses to women in political leadership.   

Nick Witham (UCL) 

Nick Witham is Professor of American Studies and Dean of Social and Historical Sciences at UCL. He is a historian of American culture and politics. His most recent book is Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America (University of Chicago Press, 2023). 

So what is the inauguration? Inauguration Day is when the president-elect and vice-president-elect are sworn in and take office. George Washington was sworn in as the nation's first president on 30 April 1789, on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York. 

Engraving from Seventeenhundred and seventysix, or the War of Independence; a history of the Anglo-Americans, from the period of the Union of the Colonies against the French, to the inauguration of Washington, the first President of the United States of America by Benson John Lossing, BL shelfmark: 9604.c.3. 1847 edition (pictured here) available via GoogleBooks.

To mark this historic day, here is the speech that Washington made to the Senate and the House of Representatives on 30 April 1789, taken from the Chester Chronicle, Friday 26 June 1789 (BL shelfmark: MFM.M18894).

Washington's speech made to the Senate and the House of Representatives on 30 April 1789, taken from the Chester Chronicle, Friday 26 June 1789 (MFM.M18894). Part 1.

 

Washington's speech made to the Senate and the House of Representatives on 30 April 1789, taken from the Chester Chronicle, Friday 26 June 1789 (MFM.M18894). Part 2.

Washington's speech made to the Senate and the House of Representatives on 30 April 1789, taken from the Chester Chronicle, Friday 26 June 1789 (MFM.M18894). Part 3.

The ceremony today typically takes place at the US Capitol building in Washington, DC. However, it was announced last week that Trump’s inauguration would happen indoors due to dangerously cold weather being forecast in Washington. The address and other speeches took place inside the US Capitol's rotunda, rather than outside the building. The last president to be sworn-in indoors was Ronald Reagan in 1985, when cold weather also plagued the US Capitol. 

Vice president-elect JD Vance was the first to take his oaths of office on Monday 20 January 2025, followed by Mr Trump, at around midday local time (about 5pm UK time). 

John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court (for more information on the Supreme Court read our previous blog in the America Now! series), administered the oath to the incoming president. Mr Trump held up his right hand while taking his presidential oath as first lady Melania Trump stood next to the him holding two Bibles, one being her husband's personal Bible which was given to him by his mother, and the other the Lincoln Bible that President Abraham Lincoln used to take the oath of office in 1861. 

In recent years, inaugurations have attracted famous faces to sing the national anthem on the steps of The Capitol. Beyoncé and Lady Gaga have occupied this role in 2013 and 2021 respectively. Yesterday, country-folk singer Lee Greenwood, prior to the start of the inauguration ceremony, offered a rendition of ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’, followed by Carrie Underwood performing ‘America the Beautiful’ (see F.1893.w.(51.)), and opera singer Christopher Macchio closed with the national anthem 'The Star-Spangled Banner’ (of which the the Library holds various scores). 

Turning to Library collections on contemporary political ephemera, over 60 years of American electoral history can be seen via the Philip Davies Collection of US election archive material (Add MS 89357) which was donated to the Library in 2018. The material gives a picture of the competing sides of the US political landscape from the 1950s to the 2010s, and includes election campaign placards, newspaper cuttings, nomination petitions and promotional scripts for telephone calls made to recruit votes.  

Specifically, users can look at a Barack Obama Pride Poster supporting LGBT rights (Add MS 89357/4/27), President Trump's Inauguration Invitation 2017 (Add MS 89357/3/3), Democratic vs Republican flyer on environmental issues from 2000 (Add MS 89357/1/10), 1988 promotional posters for ‘Bold Leadership, New Direction’ under Jesse Jackson (Add MS 89357/1/7) and campaign posters calling for the protecting of women’s health (Add MS 83957/1/14). 

More on this collection can be read on our blog from 2019. 

America Now! is organised by the Eccles Institute and BAAS, and supported by the US Embassy London. You can book tickets for our next event in the series now: True Crime in the USA Tickets | Tuesday, 25 Mar 2025 at 6:30 PM 

Please note: as a result of the cyber attack in 2023, access to some of our collections and online resources is limited. Visit our website for full details of what is currently accessible. 

W Stands for Women, Bush–Cheney campaign, 2004 (Add MS 89357/1/10)

Images of President Trump's Inauguration Invitation ticket and programme, 2017 (Add MS 89357/3/3)

Images of President Trump's Inauguration Invitation ticket and programme, 2017 (Add MS 89357/3/3)

Amber Kirwan is a PhD student in English at the University of Cambridge and the British Library. Her current research is on African American periodicals of the mid-20th century such as the Chicago Defender, Negro Digest and Negro Story among others. She is funded by the AHRC CDP programme.  

Where other listings in a library catalogue might tell us an author name, an explanatory title or even genre, this is not the case for periodicals. Studying magazines and newspapers, research often begins with a list of dates. These dates contain a lot of practical details about periodicals: when they are published, publication order, publication period etc. Yet for all this information, they tell me very little about the periodicals and what I will find inside. In a periodical listing all I have to guide me are dates, flat and lifeless, with no meaning outside of their relation to each other. 

Screenshot of the British Library Catalogue showing the results for the search term 'Chicago Defender'.

In this sense, to read periodicals is to jump in, no context. No context despite, of course, knowing the extremely specific historical context of an abstract date. It is a peculiar feeling - knowing exactly when in history you are, but with no sense of what this means.

This feeling of jumping into an unknown has become very familiar to me as of late; starting my PhD has been full of new things. In January 2024 I began a doctorate with the British Library on ‘Short Fiction in Mid-20th Century African American Periodicals’. As a CDP AHRC student, I designed my project around a pre-established research topic (for more information on CDPs, see the end of the blog; they are a great way to do doctoral study).¹ This meant that I was new both to African American Studies and to periodicals. My previous research interests had been in mid-century Caribbean literature, specifically poetry, so even seeing myself as an Americanist was startlingly new. Much like studying periodicals, I had that peculiar feeling of knowing exactly where I was, with very little sense of what this meant.

Screenshot of the British Library Catalogue record for the Chicago Defender [City Edition] 1945-1966; shelfmark MFM.MA.496.

And so, I jumped: first into the Black Chicago Renaissance, the successor to the Harlem Renaissance during the mid-century in (you guessed it) Chicago; and then into modernist little magazines - magazines which are so named not for their size (although they were also physically small) but for their circulations. I began looking at Negro Digest, the Chicago Defender, Crisis, Negro Story, and then continued to the Harlem Quarterly and Negro Quarterly, and the newspapers Pittsburgh Courier and the Baltimore Afro-American.²  I did this the only way I could - plucking a random date from a long list and starting to read. 

Screenshot of the British Library Catalogue record for the Harlem Quarterly; shelfmark Mic.F.396.

Slowly I am constructing the contexts of these magazines around me. Now I recognise the names which reoccur in the periodicals. I know not just the canonical Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, but Ricardo Weeks, a poet, and Myrtle Sengstacke, associate editor of Negro Story. The most recent name that I recognized was one John Henrik Clarke, editor of the Harlem Quarterly. He was familiar because he was the same John Henrik Clarke that my grandfather had been sending me YouTube videos about for weeks. It is these points where you bump into yourself that research feels like it starts to take on meaning. 

Microfiche reader depicting the cover of Harlem Quarterly Vol.1 No.2.; shelfmark Mic.F.396.

I’m going to be writing regular posts here over the course of my PhD, sharing my research, the nuggets of interest I bump into in the British Library and the other serendipitous moments of understanding that bump into me over the course of my doctorate. I will also share the process of the project as well as the trials and errors of research as I jump into this other New Thing: a PhD. Studying periodicals will always begin with an opaque catalogue entry, with a long list of issues, with the limited historical contexts of publication dates. Over the next four years, as I read and I research at the British Library, some of those dates and their corresponding periodicals will come alive. I hope to share some of them here with you.  

Notes

1. CDP stands for Collaborative Doctoral Project. AHRC CDP PhD projects are collaborative PhDs between a cultural institution (such as the British Library) and an academic institution (such as the University of Cambridge). They are fully funded by the AHRC, the Arts and Humanities Research Council. For more information and a list of currently available AHRC CDP PhDs please go to https://www.ahrc-cdp.org/

2. Below is a list of mentioned periodicals with their catalogue numbers.  Please note that not all are currently accessible from the Library collection due to the cyber-attack; items with an asterisk are available to view in the Library collection at the date of publication:

• Negro Digest [6075.155000]
• Chicago Defender [MFM.MA496]
• Crisis [3487.382000] This is also publicly available on Google Books
• Negro Story [Mic.F.409] ***
• Harlem Quarterly [Mic.F.396] ***
• Negro Quarterly [Mic.F.388] ***
• Pittsburgh Courier [part of the ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers Collection; currently unavailable due to the cyber-attack]
• Baltimore Afro-American [part of the ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers Collection; currently unavailable due the cyber-attack]

 

 

Monique Hayes is a historical fiction author, poet, and screenwriter from Maryland. She was a 2023 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow at the British Library.

As an author who often utilizes young adult protagonists, I have to think about what passions and promises propel my characters to act. Will they ultimately get what they want? My novel-in-progress Sally Forth focuses on two enslaved brothers with disparate dreams and journeys, who go boldly into the Revolutionary War when they’re promised freedom for their service. While younger brother Brook’s path as a Continental Army soldier comes with difficult challenges, his older brother Albie, a Black Loyalist, goes down a rockier road full of weak promises, debilitating hardships, and dehumanizing moments. It becomes increasingly hard for Albie to get what he wants and deserves.

My Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship gave me access to rich resources so I could flesh out Albie’s journey, from his first time holding a uniform emblazoned with “Liberty to Slaves” in Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment to his days of crippling doubt in Nova Scotia and then his struggle to survive in Sierra Leone.

My primary goal during my Visiting Fellowship was to unearth as much information as I could about the Black Loyalist settlement of Birchtown and the Freetown colony in Sierra Leone. Unlike his brother who craves education, Albie’s passion is land ownership. He’s denied this as a slave in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and brightens at the promise of getting his own land in Birchtown after he emigrates to Nova Scotia. My eyes were truly opened by the British Library’s holdings. There were enlightening eyewitness accounts and secondary sources detailing how much the 1,521 free Blacks of Birchtown were disenchanted by the poor soil, the delays in receiving their land allotments, the lack of food and housing supplies, and the prejudice that forced them to take low-paying labour jobs.

The most stunning account came from a white landowner’s grandfather: “They just dug a hole in the ground and put a little packed roof over it…There was a small trapdoor in one side of the roof and the negroes entered the house by dropping right down through. And that was the black man’s home - a hole in the ground with a roof over the hole.”¹ Others erected crude huts, but the Black settlers often received lumber and tools after their white counterparts. It became much easier for me to compose scenes focused on Albie dealing with these injustices and waiting years for his longed-for land.

Inefficient surveyors and harsh winter conditions frustrated the Black Birchtown settlers as well. Some surveys for Black settlers were halted when new white Loyalists arrived looking for land. Other land allotments guaranteed to the Black Loyalists were taken away and used for other purposes.

I particularly gravitated to a passage about Black Loyalist Caesar Perth who went to his 34-acre lot for the first time, only to find “a rocky outcropping that was not suitable for crops.”² This was what Perth and 183 men received after several years of patience. I was heartbroken and inspired to craft a scene between Albie and Perth, arriving to see the “rewards” for their service, another crushing blow years after the loss at Yorktown.

After this devastating realization, Albie accepts the offer Thomas Peters gave to nearly 1,200 Black Nova Scotians to emigrate to Sierra Leone in 1792. According to naturalist Henry Smeathman, the land in Sierra Leone was a “suitable location”: “An opportunity so advantageous may perhaps never be offered to them again; for they and their posterity may enjoy perfect freedom.”³

Image 1: A drawing of Freetown in 1798, by William Augustus Bowles, a visiting Creek Indian leader. Frontispiece for Dr. Thomas Winterbottom’s An Account of the Native Africans of Sierra Leone (1803). Shelfmark L.69/5614.

However, that freedom was not at all perfect. Studying Mary Louise Clifford’s From Slavery to Freetown allowed me to truly see the major distrust between abolitionist John Clarkson and Peters, the negative influence the Sierra Leone Company had over the budding colony, and the emasculation of Peters over time.

Still, I was very moved when reading about the emigrants’ experiences, including the eldest emigrant that made the journey funded by the Sierra Leone Company. The one-hundred- and four-year-old woman, possibly the mother of famous preacher Cato Perkins, was determined to go so “that she may lay her bones in her native country.”⁴ Albie is just as eager to connect with his African past and start a family in the newly formed Freetown.

Image 2: Margaret Whitman Blair, “Liberty or Death: The Surprising Story of Runaway Slaves Who Sided with the British During the American Revolution” (2010). Shelfmark Y.K. 2010.b.6889.

What most surprised and inspired me was Thomas Peters’ downfall during the early days of Freetown. I was well aware that Sierra Leone’s intense rainy season and various illnesses plagued the settlers, but Peters’ life was more complex than I thought. Former Black pioneer Peters went from the settlers’ preferred leader to an outcast among his peers due to the machinations of Clarkson and other officials.

Orphan Albie views Peters as a father figure. He admires Peters, who protested when authorities delayed land distribution and failed to let the colonists govern themselves. Peters’ sudden death after being accused of theft is an event neither the settlers nor Albie are prepared for, and it’s a haunting historical example of what a life of dashed dreams can do.

I’m incredibly grateful for the Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship which fulfilled one of my dreams to study these materials in-depth so I could give Albie a more historically accurate and meaningful journey. As he pursues his passions, Albie’s heart and spirit are tested on and beyond American shores, and I hope his story finds its way into the hearts of many readers.

References

1. "Birchtown: The History and the Material Culture of an Expatriate African-American Community", by Laird Navin and Stephen Davis. Chapter 4 of Moving On: Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World, ed. by John Pulis (London: Garland, 2013), p. 72. Shelfmark Y.C. 2003. a. 12259.

2.  Mary Louise Clifford. From Slavery to Freetown (London: MacFarland, 1999) p. 60. Shelfmark Y.C. 1999. b. 6067

3.  Henry Smeathman, Plan of a settlement to be made near Sierra Leone, on the Grain Coast of Africa (London: 1786). Shelfmark B.496.(1).

4.  “The Black Loyalists in Sierra Leone” by Wallace Brown. Chapter 6 of Moving On: Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World, ed. by John Pullis (London: Garland,1999), p. 109. Y.C. 2003. a. 12259.

These Student Notes accompany the 2024 edition of ‘US Politics Today’, an exciting learning programme that takes place each November for students of A-level Politics.  

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., and discuss the latest trends and events with leading academics. These conferences and events offer students the chance to hear some of the critical questions and issues in US politics come alive and leap out of the textbook, and support classroom work on key topics in A-level US Politics courses, including sessions on The Presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and Elections and Democracy. 

This year, former Members of Congress Cheri Bustos (D-IL, 2013-2023) and Bob Dold (R-IL, 2011-2013; 2015-2017) shared their experiences and insights of lawmaking and representing two very different congressional districts in Illinois – together with their interpretations of the Republicans’ triumph in the general election.  

Professor Andrew Moran, Rep. Bob Dold and Rep. Cheri Bustos at the British Library, 22 November 2024.

If you would like access to catch-up recordings of the conference which took place at the British Library on Friday 22 November 2024, including academic presentations and Q&As with the Former Members of Congress, please email [email protected]. Please also get in touch if you would like to register your interest in bringing a class to the live events in London in 2025. 

Student Notes 

Professor Philip Davies: The Party Political Balance in Washington

Professor Josephine Harmon: Congress

Professor Andrew Moran: The Presidency

Dr Emma Long: The Supreme Court

Other Links and Resources 

Cheri Bustos recalls the events of 6 January 2021: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/03/january-6-capitol-riot-house-democrats-525975 

CNN’s updated data on the general election: 

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president?election-data-id=2024-PG&election-painting-mode=projection-with-lead&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false&filter-remaining=false 

Congress to Campus is organized by the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania, in collaboration with the USAFMC and with the support of the US Embassy, London.

Country music is certainly having a moment this year. Beyoncé surprised everyone by dropping Cowboy Carter, intentionally disrupting the racial politics of Americana. Orville Peck's interrogation of the genre's sexual and gender politics has crossed over into the mainstream. And a singer named Taylor, who started her career as a teen on Music Row in Nashville, has taken over the world. What are we to make of this country music moment? What does it tell us about the USA's understanding of itself and its culture? And is it going to last? Join us, members of the British Associate for American Studies and a panel of superfans and pop-culture experts (detailed below) to discuss more later this month. 

Why Country Music Conquered the World in 2024 takes place at the British Library, London, on Thursday 28 November 2024. Book your ticket today. 

On the panel will be:

Rachel Sykes: an Associate Professor in Contemporary Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham, where they lead courses in gender and sexuality studies and popular culture. Their work focuses on confession in contemporary culture and recently published (separate) articles on ‘hot’ priests, Princess Diana, and confessional pop music.

Jon Ward: a Lecturer in Race and Diversity Studies at King’s College London. His research and teaching generally focuses on representations of the body in visual, literary, and popular culture. His recent work examines “misremembrance” of racialized histories and coloniality in popular culture, and the figure of the “White Saviour” in US popular film.

Robyn Shooter: a Ph.D. candidate in English and American Studies at King’s College London. Her current research examines the role of (post-)genre classifications, gender representation, and community formations in the establishment and reception of Americana music (1960 to Present).

Claire Hurley: a lecturer in American and 20th century Literature at the University of Kent. She teaches modules on race, gender and sexuality, with a special interest in Black feminism. She has a chapter in the recently published Bloomsbury collection, The Literary Taylor Swift and organised a conference on Taylor Swift entitled ‘F**k the Patriarchy’ in May this year.

Listen to our event playlist on Spotify: Cowboy Carter to Taylormania!

Beyonce Cowboy Carter Billboard on April 6, 2024 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Photo by Barry King/Alamy Stock Photo

When we hear stories of long, hot summers, decayed and grotesque settings, and flawed or troubled characters – do we think Southern Gothic literature or 21st-century country music? Themes of social climate, gender identity, and sexuality can certainly be seen in both. For those interested in exploring representations of the Southern Gothic, particularly through a lens examining contemporary racial and gender stereotypes, the Library holds Kara Walker’s Freedom: A Fable (RF.2017.a.46). Featuring Walker’s famous silhouettes, the short story tells of a woman granted emancipation from slavery but who can never escape oppression and discrimination; the book speaks directly to the persistence of negative stereotypes that emerged in performances, novels, and artworks of the 18th and 19th centuries in America.  

The artistic reinventions of Taylor Swift may have changed over the course of the last 18 years but to revisit her country era beginnings, the Library holds an early edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Gothic Romance The Scarlet Letter (12704.f.15.), published by Ticknor, Reed & Fields in Boston, Massachusetts in 1850. Telling the story of a young woman outcast from society after an illicit affair, the novel is one of the many intertextual references mentioned by the Swift in her songwriting, in this case, 2008’s Love Story. When Swift re-recorded the song in 2021, it marked her eighth number 1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.  

Lana Del Rey’s country album Lasso is set for release in 2025 so it seems an apt time to nod to the Americana that has inspired her creative practice. From A Streetcar Named Desire to the Beats via 150+ years of Walt Whitman; all can be found in various forms at the Library. Along with a first edition of Leaves of Grass, published anonymously in 1855 (C.58.g.4) the Library also holds this place / this hour (2019)*, an accordion-fold artists’ book commemorating the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth. Created by Brooklyn-based artist Anne Gilman, the book combines Gilman's own writings with related quotes from Whitman’s works and is a fascinating contemporary interpretation of a piece of classic Southern American literature.  

New Directions front cover for A Streetcar Named Desire, designed by Alvin Lustig, BL shelfmark: YA.1996.b.5800, and Pictures of the Gone World (Fifth Printing) by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1955) BL shelfmark 011313.t.3/1.

 

First edition of Leaves of Grass, BL shelfmark: C.58.g.4

Remember it’s free to get a Reader Pass from the British Library and access materials in London and at our Reading Room in Yorkshire.   

“America Now!” is a new series of live events exploring the current state of the USA and its place in the world. See the full events programme on See Tickets and read about the season launch in our blog from September 2024.

*Shelfmarking of this item has been delayed due to the Library’s cyber-attack in 2023; we hope to make it available to Readers as soon as possible. 

America Now! is organised by the Eccles Institute and BAAS, and supported by the US Embassy London.

After a year’s hiatus, the Eccles Institute is delighted to announce that the Visiting Fellowship programme will be back for 2025-26. 

The lingering effects of last October’s cyber-attack on the British Library’s services mean that we are having to change elements of the programme this year, and we have developed some expedients and workarounds to support the application process.  

However, the central mission and purpose of the Visiting Fellowship programme remains the same – if you are working on any kind of fascinating and significant project about the Americas (the peoples and lands of Canada, the USA, the Caribbean, and Central and South America) that would be transformed by a few weeks of using the British Library’s collections, we urge you to apply. 

We’ve outlined a fairly comprehensive Q&A about the Fellowship programme and the application process below, but if you have any further questions please email [email protected].  

The deadline for receipt of completed applications via our online form is 17.00 GMT on Friday 20 December 2024. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application in late March, and Fellowships can be taken up after 1 April 2025. 

What is the Fellowship Programme? 

The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship offers funding for researchers working on the Americas across the arts, humanities and social sciences, to spend some time with the British Library’s collections in London.  

Visiting Fellows will join an exciting community of writers, thinkers and makers working across academic and creative disciplines and boundaries. We expect Fellows to be largely self-directed and independent in conducting their research in the Library’s Reading Rooms, but there will be opportunities to access enhanced curatorial support where necessary, and to present ideas at workshops and events. 

What support does the Fellowship offer? 

Fellows are given financial stipends intended to support at least 3 weeks research at the British Library in London. 

The amount of funding depends on where the Fellow is travelling from.  

The current stipends levels are: 

• The UK (Within the M25): £1,000  
• The UK (Beyond the M25): £2,000  
• Europe (incl. Eire)*: £2,500  
• Rest of World: £3,000 

Fellows are expected to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements. We also cannot arrange for or guarantee any necessary travel documentation to the UK (such as visas), but we will, where possible and appropriate, provide written documentation to support Fellows’ visa applications.    

We do not currently have a distance or remote-working version of the Fellowship available, but we hope to develop this option in the coming the years.  

Who is eligible to apply? 

Anyone over the age of 18 years old, from anywhere in the world, can apply. If you are interested in the Americas, we are interested in you.

What projects are eligible? 

The Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship supports innovative and exciting use of the British Library’s collections to ask questions about the past, present and future of the Americas.  

This could be original academic research leading to a doctoral dissertation, journal article or scholarly monograph. It could also be part of the research and development for new creative work in fiction, poetry, music, dance, theatre, art, design, and everything in between. 

You can see some examples of the kinds of researchers and projects that we have supported in the past on our blog. 

There are three themes that we are particularly excited to explore through the Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship. Please note that you do not have to apply with one of these themes in mind, however, and you will not stand a greater or lesser chance of success by applying with an ‘Open Submission’. 

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 erase 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. 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.

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 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.

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.

Although the Eccles Institute curates, researches and promotes the British Library’s Americas and Oceania collections, only projects that foreground the Americas or American experiences are currently eligible for support through the Visiting Fellowship programme. We plan to expand the scope of the programme to include Oceania over the coming years. 

How do I apply? 

Applications open on Monday 14 October 2024, and the deadline is 17.00 GMT on Friday 20 December 2024. 

Because of the impact of the cyber-attack on our catalogues and retrieval systems, we ask that applicants give detailed information about what they would like to consult if they are successful, as well as telling us about their wider project and plans for their work. 

As well as some questions about their disciplinary background and training, applicants will be asked to complete four sections about their project on the form: 

• A description of the topic or question they would like to research during their Eccles Institute Visiting Fellowship at the British Library. (400 words) 
• An indication of which kinds of material they would like to focus on during your Fellowship (e.g. Newspapers, Modern and Contemporary Printed Books)
• A list of up to ten representative collection items, with Reference Numbers. Please see the answer to Question 6 for more information about searching the British Library’s collections.  
• A description of what applicants hope to learn through using these and other research resources of the British Library. (300 words) 
• An account of what you hope to do with your research. This might include plans for a publication, a performance or exhibition, or a chapter in a thesis. We are particularly interested in suggestions for how your work might inspire non-specialists or non-experts to learn more about the Americas and use the British Library. (300 words) 
• Only applications made using the online form will be accepted, and we will not look at any late submissions. We do not require references or samples of work for the application.  

How do I search the British Library’s collections? 

The majority of the Library's collection, including Printed Books, Journals, Newspapers and Magazines, and Maps, can be searched using our online interim catalogue. Applicants are strongly encouraged to look at the latest tips and advice from the British Library about how best to use the interim catalogue.  

If you wish to use Archives and Manuscript collections or Sound and Vision collections (neither of which have publicly available online catalogues currently), you can, if you wish, request a ten-minute conversation with someone from the British Library. They will then conduct a short search on your behalf and then send you, where possible, a list of relevant collection items for your consideration and potential inclusion in your application. For more information, please click here. 

Please only request a conversation with a member of the Eccles Institute team if you want support in exploring our Archives and Manuscript and Sound and Vision collections.   

The deadline to request a consultation is 17.00 GMT on Friday 6 December 2024. The deadline for consultations to take place is 17.00 GMT on Friday 13 December 2024. 

There are a range of other research guides, bibliographies and handbooks that offer insight into the British Library’s holdings (including Eccles bibliographies and the Americas and Oceania blog) that are available online, at the British Library, or in other major research libraries. 

*‘Europe’ here is taken to include Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia (formerly Macedonia), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City (Holy See)

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. 

America Now! is organised by the Eccles Institute and BAAS, and supported by the US Embassy London.

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.