Race, Slavery and Abolition at the Liverpool Athenaeum and Beyond, 1797-1833.
Biography
I am a first year PhD student in the department of history at Liverpool, where I also studied for my BA and MA degrees. I have worked with the Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online team at the University of Liverpool to trace the biographical details of library members in Liverpool and Manchester, and their connections to the trade in enslaved African people.
Research Interests
I am interested in the history of reading communities and libraries in the long Eighteenth-century, especially in uncovering the role of the subscription library as a potential site of cultural, mercantile, economic and social networking. My research seeks to understand the role that reading and libraries played in the exchange of ideas across the Atlantic against the backdrop of the violent system of transatlantic slavery. I am especially interested in libraries in the Anglo-Caribbean world and in drawing connections between readers, from Jamaica and Demerara to Liverpool and Manchester.