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Comparative

First page of a letter from President Andrew Jackson to the Senate in 1834 on the expansion of US trade.

Source

A letter from U.S. President Andrew Jackson to the Senate Dated Washington, May 30, 1834

A letter from President Andrew Jackson to the Senate where the President discusses the possibility of extending US trade. Jackson was particularly interested in the potential trade connections with areas around the Indian Ocean.

Large spreadsheet documenting each foreign vessel that arrived in the port of Zanzibar which kept track of things such as the origin, size, and cargo of each visiting ship.

Source

List of Foreign Arrivals in the Port of Zanzibar from the 16th September 1832 to 26th May 1835

This is an ostensibly mundane document that contains a tremendous amount of information for interpreting the global dynamics of this period of history, all while peering out into the world from the tiny island of Zanzibar.

Image of newspaper. Transcription in folder.

Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Music and Decolonization in the Black Atlantic

The decades after World War II witnessed rapid decolonization of European empires and a dramatic increase in independence movements for colonized peoples.

Album cover shows people marching on the left. On the right is the shape of Ghana with the colors of the Ghana flag. Text below it reads "United We Build a Strong Nation".

Source

Lord Kitchener, “Birth of Ghana,” 1957

On March 6, 1957, the Gold Coast Colony declared its independence from Britain and became Ghana, the first West African nation to break from European colonial rule.

Construction drawing of a social housing high-rise in La Duchère, 1960.

Teaching

Social Capital in World History: Lyon and Pittsburgh as Examples

Lyon, France, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are connected by the thread of social capital, or people power. This essay situates social capital as an non-financial asset possessed by people who have little wealth, but who use a variety of strategies to facilitate community improvements.

Picture of the title page of Edward Waring's book "Remarks on the Uses of Some of the Bazaar Medicines and Common Medical Plants of India"

Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Teaching the Intersection of Gender and Race through Colonial Medical Texts

This module focuses on medical texts written by British doctors working in India and their gendered and racial categorization of ailments and diseases.

Source

Edward Waring on Borax as medicine in India

Waring published the book in several Indian languages and another publication Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia of India, written by Moodeen Sherriff, an Indian doctor working for the colonial administration, provided the translations and medical plant knowledge in 14 different languages.

Source

Edward Waring on Assafœtida as medicine in India

Medical publications appealed to a medical and popular audience in the hopes of providing surgeons with tips on how to obtain similar drugs and medicine in local bazaars which could not be obtained elsewhere.

Title page of Dr. William Ruschenberger's memoir

Teaching

Short Teaching Module: Global Microhistory and the Nineteenth-Century Omani Empire

In their primer essay, Jessica Hanser and Adam Clulow note how scholars of global microhistory explore relationships between macro and micro, deep structures and contingency, and big state actors and minor players.

First letter from the British military officer and diplomat Atkins Hamerton on British merchants in the East

Source

1841 Letter from Atkins Hamerton

Atkins Hamerton (d. 1857) was a British military officer and diplomat, who served as the first British Consul to the Omani Empire based in Zanzibar. He left behind thousands of pages of sources, presently scattered between archives in the U.K., Zanzibar, and India.