Black Victorians/Black Victoriana

by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

Black Victorians/Black Victoriana is a welcome attempt to correct the historical record. Although scholarship has given us a clear view of nineteenth-century imperialism, colonialism, and later immigration from the colonies, there has for far too long been a gap in our understanding of the lives of blacks in Victorian England. Without that understanding, it remains impossible to assess adequately the state of the black population in Britain today. Using a transatlantic lens, the contributors to this book restore black Victorians to the British national picture. They look not just at the ways blacks were represented in popular culture but also at their lives as they experienced them—as workers, travelers, lecturers, performers, and professionals. Dozens of period photographs bring these stories alive and literally give a face to the individual stories the book tells. The essays taken as a whole also highlight prevailing Victorian attitudes toward race by focusing on the ways in which empire building spawned a "subculture of blackness" consisting of caricature, exhibition, representation, and scientific racism absorbed by society at large. This misrepresentation made it difficult to be both black and British while at the same time it helped to construct British identity as a whole. Covering many topics that detail the life of blacks during this period, Black Victorians/Black Victoriana will be a landmark contribution to the emergent field of black history in England.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, 19th Century, Race, Victorian, British Literature, Research

222 pages, Hardcover

First published February 6, 2003

About the author

Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina is Paul Murray Kendall Professor of Biography and Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. She is the author of Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of The Secret Garden (2004).

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.9/5

It was, after all, a Victorian English trait to enjoy very un-English Victorian traits, but only at a strategic distance.

Over time, my relationship with nonfiction has become increasingly touch and go. It's not a matter of my not knowing what I will be interested in, but that an inordinate pride in my learning curve has had me taking on texts of unknown yet, more often than not, heightened difficulty since I officially broke with my career in engineering. Sometimes I'll have read or have been taught a number of unofficial requisites, and can grasp most of it right off the bat while figuring the rest of it along the way. Other times I'll have no idea what's going on nine words out of ten and will push through out of sheer stubbornness, although my history with Woolf and Maso and co. has given me enough experience in reading holistically that a 10% understanding average usually results in a 70-80% cumulative understanding (don't ask me how that happens, there's a reason why Proust was considered a neuroscientiest). Of course it's difficult with nonfiction, but when it comes to history, there's a normative backbone that most everyone inclined towards academia has been made to swallow. The structure does more harm than good, but if you're willing to go out on its many limbs that it likes to pretend don't exist, you'll get somewhere interesting.

Academic essay collections aren't short stories, but I'm finishing this review later than usual due to packing up for moving out, so have some individualistic scribbles.

"Queen Victoria's Black "Daughter"" - Joan Anim-Addo - A solid start, with a focus on history and a healthy measure of analysis. Interesting look at slavery in combination with colonialism and the relationships between monarchs of two continents that rarely interact on film.

"Pablo Fanque, Black Circus Proprietor" - John M. Turner - Straightforward to the point of monotonous, but understandable considering the majority of information was drawn from newspaper clippings. This skeleton that remains to be fleshed up would be good and badly needed movie material.

"Reexamining the Early Years of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Composer" - Jeffrey Green - I'm not a music major person, so I sure hope they're as aware of the non-white and/or non-male persons of note in their field as I try to be in mine. The analysis of racialization of Coleridge-Taylor's work in prose makes me think of how black music artists today keep getting stuffed into rap when they're actually working in experimental pop.

"Tracing Peoples of African Origin and Descent in Victorian Kent" - David Killingray - I'm going to be so bored from now on by miniseries in Victorian England that don't have a single black person. So bored.

"Mrs. Seacole's Wonderful Adventures in Many Lands and the Consciousness of Transit" - Lixabeth Paravisini-Gebert - Instead of Hamilton trying to pretend a rapist monster like Thomas Jefferson should get a fanfic rehabilitation, where's my instant hit musical of this? In the meantime, there can never be too many academic articles written about it, especially ones that so interestingly subvert white feminist mainguards. The fact that I've actually read the book helped immensely, so hats off to The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers.

"Seacole, therefore, cleverly weaves Nightingale into her text, creating a mirror image that in many ways subverts Nightingale and allows Seacole, if not to displace Nightingale (whose career in England reverberates beyond the Crimean War), at least to share her Crimean space."

""A Colored Woman in Another Country Pleading for Justice in Her Own": Ida B. Wells in Great Britain" - Nicole King - Wonderful article, this time incorporating material from a book that I have not yet read but do own. I must get to Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells by the end of the year. She can use all the love and movie treatments.

""No Longer Rare Birds in London": Zulu, Ndebele, Gaza, and Swazi Envoys in England, 1882, 1894" - Neil Parsons - I usually find politics fascinating for more utilitarian reasons, but this was An African in Greenlandesque in terms of turning the usual gaze on its head, made all the more intriguing for its snapshots of normative Victorian England juxtaposed against nonwhitewashed history. It was nice to get a nonfictional approach to events I'd come across in fiction in River of Fire: Aag Ka Darya and In the City of Gold and Silver.

"The Representation of Africa in Mid-Victorian Children's Magazines" - Kathryn Castle - Start 'em young, and they'll never question you again. People need to leave off the whole Twain conflict and take a look at all that wholesome Christian doctrine and strapping young man tripe that keeps seeping into the Millennials who are in the position to benefit.

"The Blackface Clown" - Michael Pickering - A keen and sorely needed look at a cultural phenomenon that has wide ramifications in pretty much every other field of entertainment of creative work. Rock and roll was invented by a black bisexual woman, dontchya know.

"Anti-Imperial London: The Pan-African Conference of 1900" - Jonathan Schneer - Chock full of history and cross comparison between different personas, organizations, and governments running around at the time. Brings to mind The Devil in the White City, although I'd have to reread that to tell you why.

"Reconstructing Victorian Racial Discourse: Images of Race, the Language of Race Relations, and the Context of Black Resistance" - Douglas Lorimer - This collection knew what it was doing in saving the best for last. I said previously this mines the same vein that Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination does, and if that doesn't make you really excited, I can't help you.

"Under the much-studied ambiguities of Lord Mansfield's judgment in 1772, black[ people] in England could still be slaves, but if they asserted their liberty, not always the most attractive proposition, their masters' power of search and seizure were severely limited under the law. Slavery in England was not abolished in 1772 but rather, through the resistance of black residents, disappeared as a legal and social category by the 1790s."

I don't think I've ever read through something like this before. The essays built off of each other very nicely, so my hasty oversight of what the construction of this work was resulted in a welcome surprise rather than regret. I was also more engaged in comparing and contrasting the writers' different styles and analytical approaches to their material than I thought I'd be, which is good considering that sort of thing sounds like prime grad school activity. All in all, this is a very niche subject that has been expanded along myriad theoretical paradigms, so if you want to dive in, be prepared to peruse the end notes and tie things together at a constant rate. Payoff includes being able to laugh and laugh and laugh at people who try to say there were no black people in Victorian England, followed by punting the book straight at their "racial instinctive" head.

[Lane Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre
History, Black History, European History, Essays

Summary
Black history, as it’s taught in America, consists of a brief overview of slavery, the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, and the life of George Washington Carver. In other Western countries, the situation is apparently not much better; historians have been trained to think of white history as history and anything else as an obscure specialization. There are, thankfully, efforts to change that, and this book focuses on a particularly neglected period; the lives and rights of Black people living in England during the Victorian era.

Information
I got this book a few years ago because I wanted to know how to write non-white people in a Victorian inspired setting. And by Victorian inspired setting I mean steampunk. I was expecting a comprehensive picture, but instead it’s a collection of academic essays on different aspects of Black Victoriana. It was less of a picture, more of a collection of puzzle pieces, which in a way was more interesting. It’s intent was to open a conversation, by pointing out interesting and neglected facets, and leaving the reader still curious to learn more.
These articles touch on genealogy, famous individuals, immigrants, families, portrayal of Africans in Victorian culture and the efforts Black Victorians took to reclaim their image. Every one of these articles taught me something fascinating and new, and several gave me character ideas. I’d definitely recommend this both to writers and history nerds.

Tone: What’s it Like to Read This Book?
Obviously it varies by author, and it should be noted these people are mostly academics first and writers second. While some of them were stiff, they were straightforward and relatively easy to get through; nothing painfully bogged down in jargon or made artificially complicated. The prose is plain, but the content more than makes up on it.

Other Shiny Stuff
- An entire essay on the fabulously fascinating life of Pablo Fanque, who owned one of the most successful and famous circuses of his era. Yes, that’s one of the ones that gave me a story idea.
- The story of Ida B. Wells’ trip to Britain and how she continued her fight for racial justice there.
- Absolutely beautiful photos and illustrations of Black people in Victorian garb.
- The article on the Pan-African Conference of 1900 is required reading if you are into anti-imperialist and decolonizing movements.
- This is a fabulous starting point, not only because of the subject matter within, but because it draws from so many authors and references so many other books. It’s an introduction with a built-in reading list for your continued research.

Content Warnings
You’re good.

[LaSheba Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good! This book provides a general overview of Black Victorians during the reign of Queen Victoria (1840-1900). Topics include: imperial wealth, colonial wars, chattel slavery, emancipation, and African diplomatic envoys.

There are notable persons included such as: Ida B. Wells, Mary Seacole, Pablo Fanque, and Cetshwayo.

A well written book with informative footnotes and photographs. The chapter on Ida B. Wells is an excellent read!

[PerpetualPinkSlippers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming back to review this, though there's not much new to be said.
Well-written and organized, and a very diverse collection of case studies, this book reminds that modern perceptions of race are just that--very modern.
A few months ago I had a professor who said "The Victorians invented race--and racism--as we know it today." This book offers that same conclusion.
It sounds like a hot take maybe, but is one that could stand a lot more discussion.
...And to better understand that, one should read this book :)

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not an easy read. My scholarly chops are pretty meager and academic works like this are not regular fixtures in my reading material. I read this book as research for a project I’m working on. It was kind of a slog.

There are a few essays in this book that I did find genuinely interesting, and a few which provided information which will inform the work ahead. The essay on Mary Seacole, in particular, was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise very stodgy book.

It is unfair, perhaps, to criticize this book for failing to entertain and educate me at the same time, when that is clearly not its purpose. But it is worth knowing ahead of time what you are in for. Reading this book was work, and it did not appear interested in meeting me halfway.

Nevertheless, the book contains a wealth of information on a variety of subjects—not all relevant to my interests or purposes, but how could it be? Anyone interested in the topic is likely to find something to engage with here.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best parts of the book are the human stories focusing on lesser known historical figures such Sally Bonetta Forbes, Queen Victoria’s “adopted daughter.”

Certain chapters drag on with scholarly details but without compelling figure to give the writing life. Fortunately, the book is comprised of essays, so less appealing chapters can be skimmed or skipped.

The most valuable aspect is that my reading list has expanded to include books about compelling figures such as nurse Mary Seacole, who had been overshadowed by Florence Nightingale.

[Ricky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book about a topic that is unsurprisingly uncommon in scientific literature. When we think of black people before the 1960s we imagine segregated poor women and men in an all white world,but that's not always true. There are people that manage to be successful despite an obviously racist society. There are people who managed to become respectable bussinessman or to be adopted by the Queen despite the color of their skin,because Victorian England was not like what we imagine it to be. Reading this book is useful to defy the stereotypes we have, even the "positive"ones, and be aware of the wonderful and sometimes hidden side of history, discovering how people of different origins always lived togheter.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as cohesive as I would have liked - it was a series of essays, and I found it a little overly academic.

[Neale Sourna · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you think you know African American / African British / Caribbean history, y a Bou haven't a clue. Like how a Beatle song you know well connects with Black Victoriana.