The Devil Man Springs to Life: Reading Race, Collecting Cultures - The Roving Reader Files

Alison Newby

Research output: Other contributionpeer-review

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Abstract

The Roving Reader Files category of blog posts is produced by Alison Newby (under the pseudonym The Roving Reader) in collaboration with Hannah Niblett (Collections Access Officer, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre). The former provides the text and the latter normally provides the images. The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre is an open access University of Manchester facility, and The Roving Reader Files are designed as public engagement materials. The intention is to introduce research skills and terminology to the general user/reader in an entertaining yet informative manner by revealing hidden stories, making unusual connections and sharing insights into using the Centre's collection for research. The blog post "The Devil Man Springs to Life" is part of a series exploring the links between items held by other institutions/collections and the race relations theme/holdings of the Centre. This post uses as its starting point an amazing lantern slide image annotated as 'Devil Man at Ladysmith' which was processed and reproduced for me by the Centre for Heritage Imaging & Collection care (CHICC) based in the John Rylands Library in Manchester. The lantern slide (along with thousands of others) had lain neglected for possibly eighty years or more in the astonishing uncatalogued Manchester Geographical Society Lantern Slide Collection now preserved by the John Rylands Library. The Manchester Geographical Society records held at the University of Manchester's Main Library reveal the context in which these lantern slides were amassed over decades and used for educational purposes in public lectures organised by the Victorians section of the Geographical Society. Collaboration with Dr Ian Fairweather (Social Anthropologist, University of Manchester) made it possible to explain the events the image may have been recording, as well as what these events may have meant to colonial observers in the 1920s or 1930s as opposed to the Black South African participants themselves. Such images were highly influential on the outlook of an otherwise uninformed British public regarding matters of race and culture, and may have unwittingly contributed to a social context in which various forms of racism and white-supremacist thought appeared to be justified. Other blog posts in this series are: "Massacre of the Missionaries" ; "Day in, Day out: Reminiscence work in Monsall" ; "Tennyson Makiwane comes to London - but how?" ; "Meeting Daisy Makiwane..."
Original languageEnglish
TypeBlog post on Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre blog
PublisherAhmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre
Publication statusPublished - 25 Aug 2015

Keywords

  • Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre
  • The Roving Reader Files
  • Manchester Geographical Society
  • Manchester Geographical Society Lantern Slide Collection
  • The Victorians Section of the Manchester Geographical Society
  • The John Rylands Library
  • Centre for Heritage Imaging & Collection Care (CHICC)
  • Ladysmith, South Africa
  • Dr Ian Fairweather
  • Devil Man
  • Nganga
  • Mhondoro
  • Christian missionaries

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