Why it is that US First Ladies are held in such reverance and high esteem, with a prominance not extended, generally, to ‘political wives’ in other countries – Britain, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, France, Germany, the USSR (as it was) was not addressed by the presentations, yet it remains an issue for historical and cultural exploration and analysis.
Tag: slavery
Sojourner Truth
26 November 1883 Sojourner Truth (born as Isabella Hardenbergh), speaker and preacher, charismatic religious and political leader, died on this day at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA. The day of her death is known but the day of…
Black History Month: Witness against Slavery – The Story of Mary Prince
Oh the horrors of slavery! … the truth ought to be told of it; and what my eyes have seen I think it is my duty to relate …. I have been a slave – I have felt what a…
Black History Month: History in Fiction
Black history continues to discover new knowledge and generate new understanding. But today I want to celebrate a different kind of history, that which makes no bones about its invented characters, invented situations, invented scenes, yet which succeeds in telling…
Women’s History Month: Travelling Women
In 1774, the Scot Janet Schaw went on a trip to the Caribbean. She wrote this letter home to her family while in Antigua. Last Saturday was Christmass which we had engaged to pass with Mr Halliday, but our good…
Women’s History Month: Lucille Mathurin-Mair (née Waldrond), 1924-2009: Pioneer of Caribbean Women’s History
Lucille Mathurin Mair. Source: The Gleaner, Jamaica, January 31, 2009 http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090131/letters/letters4.html Lucille Mathurin-Mair, who died on January 29th, 2009 aged 85, was a well respected Jamaican historian, author, teacher, activist and diplomat and sustained a deep commitment to women’s rights…
Slave Narratives
Between 1936 and 1938, the American Works Progress Administration conducted oral histories amongst ex-slaves and the children of slaves across America. This is the story of Ms Holmes. More information and more life histories can be found here. Ms. Holmes…
Black History Month: Mary Prince
In September 1831 the Anti-Slavery Society in London published The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave. Related by herself. Prince, who was illiterate, had dictated her story, at her own suggestion, to a young abolitionist named Susanna Strickland…
Black History Month: Phillis Wheatley
On 18 October 1770 there appeared at Boston, Massachusetts, an advertisement for a broadside entitled An Elegiac Poem, On the Death of . . . George Whitefield. Whitefield was a charismatic evangelical preacher from England, who had died near Boston…