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Behind the Bar: researching the lives of Black Victorian barmaids

30 October 2024, 2:30 pm–4:30 pm

Black History Month: Reclaiming Narratives

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.

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All

Cost

Free

Organiser

Natasha Catnott

Location

IAS Common Ground (G11)
Wilkins Building Ground Floor, South Wing
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

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.

About the Speaker

Caroline Bressey

Professor of Cultural and Historical Geography, UCL Geography

Caroline Bressey
Caroline Bressey is a cultural and historical geographer in the Department of Geography University College London where she has been a lecturer since 2008. Her main research focus is the lives of Black women and men in Victorian London, Victorian anti-racist activism and the representation of history in heritage sites. In 2012 – 2013 she has been the Principal Investigator on the ‘Drawing over the Colour Line’ a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded Research which examines geographies of art and cosmopolitan identities in London between the wars.

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. More about Caroline Bressey