The ‘After Slavery’ project today launched a new website www.afterslavery.com, which provides an excellent learning resource for those interested in the slave emancipation and its aftermath in America.
‘After Slavery’ is a collaborative research project which brings together historians from the UK, Ireland and the USA. The project is led by Dr Brian Kelly from Queen’s University Belfast and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Speaking about the aims of the website, Dr Brian Kelly said: “In short, our aim is to make ‘After Slavery’ the most user-friendly, visually and technologically impressive educational website available to anyone interested in studying the aftermath of slavery in the United States.”
Over the coming year the website’s interactive ‘Online Classroom’ will showcase study classes built around documents, maps and images from the US states of North and South Carolina. Currently visitors to the site will find diaries, presidential proclamations, reports, contracts and many previously unpublished images that help with the understanding and visualisation of the subject. The project is able to provide a wide variety of source materials and the AHRC funding has facilitated access to what is probably the largest collection of relevant records held anywhere in Europe.
The ‘Online Library’ provides a comprehensive selection of materials to assist those interested in the subject. In the medium term the project is also working to build a fully searchable, interactive bibliography with links to archives and special collections. However, in the meantime there is an excellent links section to further assist research, which contains web resources related to emancipation in the Carolinas.
Visitors to the site can keep up-to-date with the progress of the ‘After Slavery’ project in the ‘News and Events’ section and by listening to podcasts.
Dr Brian Kelly concludes: “Although the site is a work-in-progress, we’ve already had very positive reviews from many of the leading scholars in the field, who until now have had no credible web resource for classroom use. The material covers one of the most vibrant fields in US history, and we’re excited that a research project based on this side of the Atlantic is pioneering an online resource that will be widely used across the United States.”
The ‘After Slavery’ website is accessible at:
www.afterslavery.com
ENDS
Notes for editors:
Media contact: Matthew Begent, Communications, M.Begent@ahrc.ac.uk
About the Arts & Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and dance. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,000 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. Arts and humanities researchers constitute nearly a quarter of all research-active staff in the higher education sector. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.
What scholars are saying about ‘After Slavery’:
“This engaging website combines the most up-to-date scholarship on the aftermath of slavery with a set of provocative and fascinating documents and other materials ideal for classroom use. It will allow a broad online readership to understand where our thinking now stands on this pivotal moment in American history.”
Eric Foner, Dewitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University
“An invaluable resource, rich in insight and immensely helpful for those who seek guidance on the topic. Afterslavery.com will be used with profit by students, teachers, and scholars.”
Walter Edgar, Director of the Institute for Southern Studies, University of South Carolina
“This is an exciting, well-conceived, and very valuable project. It promises to be a great resource for scholars, teachers, and students. The history of the Carolinas can capture the variety of experiences in the period after slavery and also reveal the depth of the challenges faced as African Americans sought to realize the promise of freedom.”
Paul D. Escott, Reynolds Professor of History, Wake Forest University
“Given the lamentable shortage of online sources, anyone teaching Reconstruction will welcome this new website concentrating on race and the evolution of labour in the Carolinas, two contiguous states that nicely encapsulate the range of freed people’s experience after the Civil War. After Slavery should find a wide audience among college instructors and their students.”
Michael W. Fitzgerald, Professor of History, St. Olaf College
“After Slavery makes readily available to professional historians, students, and whoever else is interested a rich collection of both original sources and insightful books and articles dealing with the efforts of working people both black and white to reshape their own lives during and after the defeat of slavery. Its focus on the adjacent but very different worlds of South and North Carolina reveals the variety of efforts and experiences involved in this decisive chapter of the history of American working men and women.”
David Montgomery, Farnam Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University