Victorian Jamaica explores the extraordinary surviving archive of visual representation and material objects to provide a comprehensive account of Jamaican society during Queen Victoria's reign over the British Empire, from 1837 to 1901. In their analyses of material ranging from photographs of plantation laborers and landscape paintings to cricket team photographs, furniture, and architecture, as well as a wide range of texts, the contributors trace the relationship between black Jamaicans and colonial institutions; contextualize race within ritual and performance; and outline how material and visual culture helped shape the complex politics of colonial society. By narrating Victorian history from a Caribbean perspective, this richly illustrated volume—featuring 270 full-color images—offers a complex and nuanced portrait of Jamaica that expands our understanding of the wider history of the British Empire and Atlantic world during this period. Contributors. Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Tim Barringer, Anthony Bogues, David Boxer, Patrick Bryan, Steeve O. Buckridge, Julian Cresser, John M. Cross, Petrina Dacres, Belinda Edmondson, Nadia Ellis, Gillian Forrester, Catherine Hall, Gad Heuman, Rivke Jaffe, O'Neil Lawrence, Erica Moiah James, Jan Marsh, Wayne Modest, Daniel T. Neely, Mark Nesbitt, Diana Paton, Elizabeth Pigou-Dennis, Veerle Poupeye, Jennifer Raab, James Robertson, Shani Roper, Faith Smith, Nicole Smythe-Johnson, Dianne M. Stewart, Krista A. Thompson

"Jamaica's rich history has been the subject of many books, articles and papers. This collection of eighteen original essays considers aspects of Jamaican history not covered in more general histories of the island, and illluminates more recent developments in Jamaican and West Indian history." "Unique in its interdisciplinary approach, the collection emphasizes the relevance of history to everyday life and the development of a national identity, culture and economy. The essays are organized in three sections: Historiography and Sources; Society, Culture and Heritage; and Economy, Labour and Politics, with contributions from scholars in the Departments of History, Literatures in English and Political Sciences and from the Main Library, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica." -- Book Jacket.

This lavishly illustrated guidebook to the many distinctive attractions of Boston's Victorian heritage provides the walker and the armchair traveler alike with delightful and enlightening discoveries of the city's remarkable treasure trove of nineteenth-century landmarks and luminaries. Victorian Boston Today, edited by Mary Melvin Petronella for the New England Chapter of the Victorian Society of America, includes a beautifully drawn map for each tour, and contains such features as expanded descriptive captions for the profuse vintage illustrations, telephone numbers and web addresses for sites open to the public, directions between tour sites, information about public transportation, and a wealth of other practical enhancements and tips. From the South End's signature residential squares to the Black Heritage Trail to Jamaica Plain's pastoral landscape, these walking tours vividly recapture the spirit of Victorian Boston. The guidebook will fascinate Boston residents, tourists, and historians, and it will provide inspiration for the active preservation of the city's magnificent buildings and neighborhoods.

"Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain" by Harriet Manning Whitcomb Jamaica Plain is a diverse, tight-knit neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. In this book, Whitcomb dives into the history of this fascinating area through the words and memories of those who called it home. Written as part of a memorial project, the book continues to capture the essence of one of Boston's most unique neighborhoods.

In Caribbean history, the European colonial plantocracy created a cultural diaspora in which African slaves were torn from their ancestral homeland. In order to maintain vital links to their traditions and culture, slaves retained certain customs and nurtured them in the Caribbean. The creation of lace-bark cloth from the lagetta tree was a practice that enabled slave women to fashion their own clothing, an exercise that was both a necessity, as clothing provisions for slaves were poor, and empowering, as it allowed women who participated in the industry to achieve some financial independence. This is the first book on the subject and, through close collaboration with experts in the field including Maroon descendants, scientists and conservationists, it offers a pioneering perspective on the material culture of Caribbean slaves, bringing into focus the dynamics of race, class and gender. Focussing on the time period from the 1660s to the 1920s, it examines how the industry developed, the types of clothes made, and the people who wore them. The study asks crucial questions about the social roles that bark cloth production played in the plantation economy and colonial society, and in particular explores the relationship between bark cloth production and identity amongst slave women.

An examination of the cultural evolution of the Jamaican people after the explosive uprising at Morant Bay in 1865. For the first time, the specific methods used by British imperial legislators to inculcate order, control and identity in the local society are described and analysed. The authors compellingly and convincingly demontrate that Great Britain deliberately built a new society in Jamaica founded on principles of Victorian Christian morality and British Imperial ideology. This resulted in a sustained attack on everything that was perceived to be of African origin and the glorification of Christian piety, Victorian mores, and a Eurocentric idealized family life and social hierarchies. This well-written and meticulously researched book will be invaluable for students of the period and those interested in Jamaican history and/or imperial history

Jane’s Career: A Story of Jamaica (1913) is a novel by H. G. de Lisser. Born and raised in Jamaica, H. G. de Lisser was one of the leading Caribbean writers of the early twentieth century. Concerned with issues of race, urban life, and modernization, de Lisser dedicated his career to representing the lives and concerns of poor and middle-class Jamaicans. In Jane’s Career: A Story of Jamaica, the first West Indian novel to feature a Black protagonist, de Lisser captures the hope and struggle of a young woman leaving home for the first time. “‘Jane,’ he continued impressively after a pause, ‘Kingston is a very big an’ wicked city, an’ a young girl like you, who de Lord has blessed wid a good figure an’ a face, must be careful not to keep bad company.’” Preparing to send young Jane off to the Jamaican capital, village elder Daddy Buckram attempts to offer her advice on how to keep herself safe from Satan and sinners alike. Despite his serious tone and gloomy portrait of urban life, all Jane can think of is the wonder and excitement waiting for her in Kingston. Raised in the countryside, brought up in a conservative Christian family, Jane sees her new job as a means of achieving independence and establishing her own identity as a proud black woman, of forging her own path in a new, modern Jamaica. In spite of her dreams, however, Jane finds herself subjected to the cruelties of her employer Mrs. Mason, who threatens to send a letter to her parents alleging all sorts of imagined misdeeds. Through it all, she tries to maintain a sense of pride, hopeful that hard work—and even romance—will set her free. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of H. G. de Lisser’s Jane’s Career: A Story of Jamaica is a classic of Jamaican literature reimagined for modern readers.

From New York Times bestselling author Helen Rappaport comes a superb and revealing biography of Mary Seacole that is testament to her remarkable achievements and corrective to the myths that have grown around her. Raised in Jamaica, Mary Seacole first came to England in the 1850s after working in Panama. She wanted to volunteer as a nurse and aide during the Crimean War. When her services were rejected, she financed her own expedition to Balaclava, where her reputation for her nursing—and for her compassion—became almost legendary. Popularly known as ‘Mother Seacole’, she was the most famous Black celebrity of her generation—an extraordinary achievement in Victorian Britain. She regularly mixed with illustrious royal and military patrons and they, along with grateful war veterans, helped her recover financially when she faced bankruptcy. However, after her death in 1881, she was largely forgotten. More recently, her profile has been revived and her reputation lionised, with a statue of her standing outside St Thomas's Hospital in London and her portrait—rediscovered by the author—now on display in the National Portrait Gallery. In Search of Mary Seacole is the fruit of almost twenty years of research and reveals the truth about Seacole's personal life, her "rivalry" with Florence Nightingale, and other misconceptions. Vivid and moving, In Search of Mary Seacole shows that reality is oftem more remarkable and more dramatic than the legend.

The Oberlin College mission to Jamaica, begun in the 1830s, was an ambitious, and ultimately troubled, effort to use the example of emancipation in the British West Indies to advance the domestic agenda of American abolitionists. White Americans hoped to argue that American slaves, once freed, could be absorbed productively into the society that had previously enslaved them, but their “civilizing mission” did not go as anticipated. Gale L. Kenny's illuminating study examines the differing ideas of freedom held by white evangelical abolitionists and freed people in Jamaica and explores the consequences of their encounter for both American and Jamaican history. Kenny finds that white Americans—who went to Jamaica intending to assist with the transition from slavery to Christian practice and solid citizenship—were frustrated by liberated blacks' unwillingness to conform to Victorian norms of gender, family, and religion. In tracing the history of the thirty-year mission, Kenny makes creative use of available sources to unpack assumptions on both sides of this American-Jamaican interaction, showing how liberated slaves in many cases were able not just to resist the imposition of white mores but to redefine the terms of the encounter.