Behind the Bar: researching the lives of Black Victorian barmaids
Join Professor Caroline Bressey, UCL Geography, for this event to mark Black History Month, co-hosted by the SHS EDI Committee and UCL Geography BAME network.
Behind the Bar: researching the lives of Black Victorian barmaids
30 Oct 2024, 14:30 – 16:30
This event is open to all students and staff at UCL. Please join us for tea and coffee after the talk when we will be introducing a new SHS Black Staff Forum.
Abstract
In this talk I will be outlining my approach to mapping the lives of Black barmaids in Victorian England. In this work I consider how Black women fitted into multiple imaginaries of ‘the barmaid’, and the forms of work Black barmaids were asked to undertake in drinking spaces. How their bodies were racialised and sexualised and how they may have managed these loads as part of a broader set of performances they were ask to give.
The Black barmaid became part of an institution within England, an attraction that was a key part of everyday local working class cultures, a young woman who was financially independent, and who, in the pub at least, could command respect. But a Black barmaid could also be a novelty attraction, presented to punters as different and other, and one person could find themselves playing all these roles at the same time, in the same space. Her presence in the archives offers an entry point for exploring the ethnic diversity of the everyday in the Victorian city, and also a way to consider how we bring the voices of Black working women to the surface of the archive.
Reclaiming Narratives: Theme for Black History Month 2024
This year’s theme for Black History Month is “Reclaiming Narratives”, and marks a significant shift towards recognising and correcting the narratives of Black history and culture.
By emphasising “Reclaiming Narratives,” we shine a brighter light on our stories, allegories, and history.
Professor of Cultural and Historical Geography, UCL Geography
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Caroline graduated from the University of Cambridge with BA Honours in Geography. In 1998 she joined the UCL Geography department as postgraduate student and was awarded her PhD Forgotten Geographies: Historical Geographies of Black Women in Victorian and Edwardian London in 2003. Between 2003 and 2007 Caroline continued to research the Black Presence in Victorian Britain and the role of the anti-racist community as an ESRC postdoctoral student and research fellow. In 2007 she became a lecturer in human geography and founded the Equiano Centre to support research into the Black Presence in Britain. In 2009 she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for an outstanding contribution to geography.