Transatlantic Tales
Charles Miller explores British-North American cultural and political connections, through the eyes of nineteenth century Americans such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Wells Brown and Margaret Fuller who visited and wrote about Britain.
In an era when news could only travel as fast as a ship, the transatlantic dialogue was surprisingly lively. Political and social reports crossed and recrossed the ocean, an endless stream of travel books was written and reputations were made and shredded.
Meet the characters, visit the places and explore the issues on Transatlantic Tales.
Transatlantic Tales
William Wells Brown: My British campaign against American slavery
In an exclusive Transatlantic Tales interview, William Wells Brown (1814-1884) talks about his years of lecturing and performing in Britain to raise awareness against slavery in his native United States. Born in Kentucky, Brown escaped to the northern states aged 20 and became a writer and campaigner for Abolition. In 1849, he travelled to Europe to continue his work. On the show, he talks about how he made his British lectures more entertaining by commisisoning a panorama, his protest at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and how he felt about allowing British supporters to send money to his American enslaver to secure his freedom. Brown says he has fond memories of Britain, especially of the support he received in cities like Manchester, from audiences whose livelihoods would suffer if the supply of cotton from the plantations of the south was interrupted.
How the interview with Mr Brown was secured:
- Text Q and A with ChatGPT, asking it to answer as William Wells Brown
- Audio recording of the questions on iPhone with Voice Record Pro 7
- Copy and paste of Brown's answers to Natural Readers text to audio
- Capture of audio output on Macbook using Audio Hijack
- Audio edit in Final Cut Pro
Follow Charles Miller on X and his Transatlantic Tales blog.
