Doing Good While Doing Well: The Decision to Manufacture Products that Supported the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery in Great Britain
2008; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 29; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01440390802027871
ISSN1743-9523
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Economic and Social Studies
ResumoAbstract The British campaign to abolish the slave trade saw the introduction of consumer products for those who wanted to support the movement in a tangible way. However, there is scant documentation of these manufacturers and their reasons for deciding investments in the manufacture, promotion and sale of abolition-related products would be viable commercially and successful economically. By closely examining one transfer-printed Staffordshire jug, and identifying the sources of the prints and the manufacturer of the jug as well as the retailer, it may be possible to come to some conclusions as to why manufacturers of consumer goods decided that these products would be profitable as well as popular. Acknowledgements An earlier version of this article was presented at the conference on Public Art, Artifacts and Atlantic Slavery, University of Nottingham, 29 June 2007. I wish to thank Tony Tibbles, S. Robert Teitelman, Robin Emmerson, Miranda Goodby, Patricia Halfpenny, Ron Fuchs II, Sam Margolin, Rex Stark, Rob Hunter, James Walvin and Jay Gaynor for their comments and insights. Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Research Fellowship Program, Winterthur Museum and Country Estate. Notes 1. Fair Minute Books of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 22 May 1787 (MS Add. 21254, f.2, British Library, London. http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/Make%20An%20Impact/large9101.html; accessed 22 August 2007). 2. The cover of the Minute Book of the Meeting for Sufferings Committee on Slave Trade, 1783–1792, shows a kneeling black figure in chains. It is unclear whether this image was drawn before or after the seal was approved (Library, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, STC/M1; http://www.quaker.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=93460; accessed 22 August 2007). 3. Fair Minutes Books of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 16 October 1787 (MS. Add. 21254, fol. 16r, British Library, London, quoted in Honour, Image of the Black in Western Art, vol. 4, part 1, 62). 4. Society instituted in 1787, for the purpose of effecting the abolition of the slave trade. [London], 1787? (based on information from English Short Title Catalogue. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Group. http://proxy.nss.udel.edu:2770/servlet/ECCO; accessed 23 August 2007); see also Brown (Moral Capital, p. 443, n. 63); Compton ('Wedgwood and the Slave Trade); Honour (Image of the Black in Western Art, vol. 4, part 1, 62). 5. Clarkson, History, vol. 2, 191–192. 6. The number of books and articles on the subject of the English abolition and anti-slavery movements has grown enormously over the past two years, if not the past twenty or more, and it is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information available. The bibliography found in Hochschild (Bury the Chains) includes many of the basic sources. Brown (Moral Capital) is an excellent rethinking of the motivations behind the British abolition movement. 7. Oldfield (Popular Politics) devotes a chapter to the visual culture of abolition, while Sussman (Consuming Anxieties) puts the abolition movement into the broader context of consumer protest movements in the eighteenth century. Margolin ('And Freedom to the Slave') explains abolitionist iconography in both English and American ceramics of the period, but in the context of its reflection of contemporary sentiment towards Africans in general and slaves in particular, while Wood (Blind Memory) looks at visual representations of the enslaved in all of their manifestations and reminds the reader that not only did these images elicit sympathy and encourage abolitionist activism, they also worked to reinforce contemporary white notions of racial hierarchy. 8. See Glickman ('Buy for the Sake of the Slave') for a discussion of the American 'free produce' movement that began in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and ended not long after the Civil War (1826–1867). See also Shah et al. ('The Politics of Consumption/The Consumption of Politics') and Micheletti ('Anti-sweatshop and Anti-slavery'). 9. McKendrick et al., Birth of a Consumer Society. 10. The printer was James Phillips, one of nine Quakers who were the founding members of the Society for the Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The others were: John Barton, William Dillwyn, George Harrison, Samuel Hoare Jr, Joseph Hooper, John Lloyd, Joseph Woods and Richard Phillips (http://www.quaker.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=92262; accessed 2 September 2007). 11. Erik Goldstein, Curator of Mechanical Arts and Numismatics, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, e-mail message to author, 27 August 2007. 12. See McKendrick ('Josiah Wedgwood and Factory Discipline') and Elliott (Design Process in English Ceramic Manufacture). 13. Wedgwood's association with the Society is well-known and documented, but it has been very difficult to find published information regarding research that may have been done in the Wedgwood factory records to determine actual production dates and figures for the jasperware cameo. John Oldfield cites figures from the Etruria Oven Books for 7 December 1787 that seem to refer to the jasperware seals, but there are few, if any, other such figures published. Such information would give a better idea of how common these cameos were and the extent of their distribution both in Great Britain and America (see J. Oldfield, Popular Politics, 156, 180 n8). 14. One jug is owned by the Bishops Waltham & Botley Growmore Club of Hampshire, England, and is currently on loan to the Hampshire County Council Museums Service. It is illustrated in Pomfret ('W(***)', 113, 120, 121). The other jug is owned by Shelburne Museum, Burlington, Vermont, and is illustrated in Greene ('Oversize Staffordshire Jugs', 196, plate VII). A similar jug, with the 'WS' mark, but lacking the 'W(***)' mark, is owned by Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware. Yet another jug with several of the same transfer prints is illustrated in Godden (Encyclopaedia of British Porcelain Manufacturers, 744, plate 398). 15. Over-glaze transfer printing was first developed in England in the mid-eighteenth century and proved an especially popular method of decorating ceramics since, once the image was engraved, it was relatively simple to make prints that were, in turn, applied to the body of the individual ceramic form and make many identical copies. These images were taken from prints and paintings that had already appeared on the market, or were well-known works of art, including original artwork produced by famous artists such as Angelica Kauffmann and, in a small number of instances, artwork created by on-staff designers for the larger ceramic manufacturers such as Josiah Wedgwood. See Drakard (Printed English Pottery, 27–33) for the history of transfer printing and an explanation of the two primary methods of manufacture, tissue transfer and glue bat transfer. 16. Pomfret, 'W (***)', 111-136. My thanks to Robin Emmerson, Curator of Decorative Arts, Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, for bringing this article to my attention and taking the time to discuss the question of ceramic manufacturers' motivations with me. 17. Pomfret ('W (***)', 114); Whitehead (Designs for Sundry Articles of Earthenware). 18. Pomfret, 'W (***)', 125. 19. Pomfret, 'W (***)', 125. 20. The Staffordshire Advertiser, 'Obituary: Christopher Whitehead', 10 January 1818, p. 4. 21. Pomfret, 'W (***)', 126. 22. Pomfret, 'W (***)', 133–135. 23. Evans, Mather Brown, 274. The full title of the drawing, now lost, is 'Justice, Fortitude and Prudence supporting a medallion portrait of HRH the Prince of Wales, Grand Master of Masons in England'. It was engraved by J. Corner, 1 July 1793, for the June issue of the magazine, which was published by J.W. Bunney. The engraved version can be seen as fig. 101 on p. 123 of Evans' book. 24. Compton ('Richard Westall RA', 10–12); Cowper ('The Negro's Complaint'). 25. See an image of the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery jug online at: http://www.virtualmuseum.info/collections/object.asp?themetype=exhibition&themeid=468&row=5&ckid=4333 (accessed 29 August 2007). This jug was exhibited in 1899 at the Bethnal Green Branch of the V&A Museum [Catalogue of a Collection of Pottery and Porcelain Illustrating Popular British History. Lent by Henry Willett, Esq., of Brighton (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1899), p. 48, no.593]. In the catalogue of the exhibit, the date of the jug is given as c.1800, rather than c.1820. The second jug is illustrated in Margolin ('And Freedom to the Slave', 86). This jug and the one owned by the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery appear, from photographs, to be identical, including verses from 'The Negro's Complaint' on the opposite side of the pitcher. 26. A similar, though not identical image, is found on a print published by Laurie & Whittle and owned by the British Library. It can be seen online at: http://www.bl.uk/learning/images/Make%20An%20Impact/large9088.html (accessed 30 August 2007). 27. Pomfret ('W (***)', 113, fig., 4); Margolin ('And Freedom to the Slave', 90, fig. 23). 28. Advertisement (Sale of printing plates owned by Thomas Fletcher), Staffordshire Advertiser, 30 August 1800, p. 1. 29. Responses to email inquiries regarding the possible location of this business in Oxfordshire, England, sent to both the Oxfordshire Record Office (10 August 2007) and the Oxfordshire Studies Centre (15 August 2007), stated that there were no businesses by that name in the county in the years 1817–1819. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMartha Katz-HymanMartha Katz-Hyman, a former associate curator at Colonial Williamsburg, was part of the team that furnished the Carter's Grove Slave Quarter. She is now an independent curator whose areas of study include slave material culture of eighteenth-century Tidewater Virginia and the commercialisation of the movement to abolish the slave trade.
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