The American Connections project, which received support from the SALC Social Responsibility Fund, highlights how Manchester’s growth and development has been inextricably connected to the wider world, and in particular to transatlantic exchange. It does this by establishing, for the first time, a gallery of prominent and influential Americans who travelled to Manchester between the late eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, as well as the supporters and networks who invited and hosted them. The project then uses the collective presence of these figures to prompt reflection on the history of Manchester’s own development, its standing in the world, its connections to transportation infrastructure and political currents, as well as to draw attention back to the specific sites and spaces where these figures spoke, sang, and stayed.
The project was guided by a wish to place some of the teaching and research that goes in the American Studies programme before a wider audience, and it has done this via several resulting outcomes. These now include a distinctive map of the city, designed and drawn by local artist Dave Draws and funded by a prior Faculty Social Responsibility Grant; a short booklet co-produced by undergraduate students and freely available for download; and a walking tour, co-led by students.
The project was conceived and developed as part of the American Studies programme’s commitment to offering a training in public-history work, and it ran as Dr. Fearnley’s first-year seminar. Students in that group read about the history of Manchester, as well as more particular histories of abolition, civil rights, and decolonization, and engaged with the latest scholarship on the impact of the US Civil War on this city and region. In assembling this project together, students also learned how to search in electronic newspaper databases, as well as how to conduct research in physical archives, and how to identify relevant material, some of which were previously little known or valued. Some of this work is now showcased in the resulting booklet.
One of the main goals of the project has been to create not only a written account of Manchester’s connections to the US, but a walking tour where this history could be recounted and referenced in physical space. As such, students came to see how putting together a walking tour required a different type of approach to historical narrative, one that was scripted more around considerations of where particular sites are located than a straightforward chronological account. On a wet afternoon in June, 25 members of the general public joined us for the first Manchester’s American Connections walking tour, as part of the 2024 Manchester Histories Festival. Three undergraduate students helped to assemble and lead that tour, which set off from Lincoln Square and ended, two-hours later, at the University of Manchester’s main campus.
A copy of the map and the printed booklet is now accessioned by the University’s Map Library here.