Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book
This article utilises a recent discovery of a textual trace of black people’s self-representation in Edwardian Britain. It concerns an autograph book, currently kept in private hands, bearing entries by black students who attended the African Institute, Colwyn Bay, in around 1905. This short text sp...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2024-03-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/13752 |
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| author | Robert Burroughs |
| author_facet | Robert Burroughs |
| author_sort | Robert Burroughs |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article utilises a recent discovery of a textual trace of black people’s self-representation in Edwardian Britain. It concerns an autograph book, currently kept in private hands, bearing entries by black students who attended the African Institute, Colwyn Bay, in around 1905. This short text speaks to the difficulty of accessing private writings and self-representations by black people who lived in Victorian- and Edwardian-era Britain. Though there exist substantial texts written by black people in late-nineteenth-century Britain, including texts of an autobiographical type (broadly defined), self-expressive writings by black people are unquestionably rare. In retracing black lives, scholars frequently piece together information from archival and print sources. The autograph book is itself a work of fragments, though given their autobiographical character they are both rare and valuable: quotations from Shakespeare, sketches, original verse, epigrams, and quotations from scripture. These writings afford some degree of insight into the personalities of the students, who are otherwise generally represented by onlookers in the primary and secondary literature of the Institute. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-06d4b2f922eb49d098fc9272d3a840eb |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-03-01 |
| publisher | Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| spelling | doaj-art-06d4b2f922eb49d098fc9272d3a840eb2025-01-30T10:21:22ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492024-03-019810.4000/cve.13752Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph BookRobert BurroughsThis article utilises a recent discovery of a textual trace of black people’s self-representation in Edwardian Britain. It concerns an autograph book, currently kept in private hands, bearing entries by black students who attended the African Institute, Colwyn Bay, in around 1905. This short text speaks to the difficulty of accessing private writings and self-representations by black people who lived in Victorian- and Edwardian-era Britain. Though there exist substantial texts written by black people in late-nineteenth-century Britain, including texts of an autobiographical type (broadly defined), self-expressive writings by black people are unquestionably rare. In retracing black lives, scholars frequently piece together information from archival and print sources. The autograph book is itself a work of fragments, though given their autobiographical character they are both rare and valuable: quotations from Shakespeare, sketches, original verse, epigrams, and quotations from scripture. These writings afford some degree of insight into the personalities of the students, who are otherwise generally represented by onlookers in the primary and secondary literature of the Institute.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/13752black historyimperial historyautographsself-representation |
| spellingShingle | Robert Burroughs Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens black history imperial history autographs self-representation |
| title | Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book |
| title_full | Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book |
| title_fullStr | Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book |
| title_full_unstemmed | Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book |
| title_short | Autographs, Autobiography, and Black History in Britain: the Congo House Autograph Book |
| title_sort | autographs autobiography and black history in britain the congo house autograph book |
| topic | black history imperial history autographs self-representation |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/13752 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT robertburroughs autographsautobiographyandblackhistoryinbritainthecongohouseautographbook |