Containing Multitudes, an exhibition and series of public lectures and cafe conversations from 1st – 14 October 2012, forms part of Norfolk’s Black History Month celebrations. Funded by the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia and supported by CUE East and the Annual Fund at UEA, the exhibition of several of the letters of Sarah Hicks Williams, a young woman born and raised in New York State, who, in 1853, married a slaveholder and relocated to Greene County, North Carolina. As the wife of a slaveholder, she consequently become plantation mistress to the 37 or so enslaved men, women, and children held on her husband’s plantation, Clifton Grove. The exhibition is being hosted by the Millennium Library, Norwich. The letters are part of the Sarah Hicks Williams’ Collection in the Southern Historical Collection archives and are kindly loaned by the Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Containing Multitudes. Designed By Alex Francis
This archive was the basis for the forthcoming book Gender, Race & Family in Nineteenth Century America: From Northern Woman to Plantation Mistress by Rebecca J. Fraser (see Monograph tab for further details).
In addition to the exhibition there are several free public lectures and cafe conversations running throughout the two weeks where scholars will be reflecting on Norfolk’s Black History Month’s theme for 2012, “Black Champions” (see Exhibition tab for further details).
For further information concerning the exhibition and related events please contact becky.fraser@uea.ac.uk.