Imoinda in Berlin: Feminists and the Cultural Memory of Slavery After 1848

Abstract

This chapter discusses the intersection between the discourses of antislavery and of women’s rights in the aftermath of 1848. It discusses cases of women’s reception of antislavery history and cultural production in different cities: Rochester (New York), Paris, and Berlin. It aims to show two things. First, it discusses how women’s rights advocates drew inspiration from the transnational movement to abolish slavery, in which some of them were also personally involved. In light of developments in France, they used abolition to frame and draw attention to their own grievances. Second, I argue that women’s rights advocates used the transnational cultural memory of antislavery to redefine the significance of 1848 for their own purposes. As the chapter shows, these efforts of reception happened across different media, including tomes like German Luise Mühlbach’s historical novel Aphra Behn (1849); the periodicals and almanacs associated with French Jeanne Deroin (1848–1853); Lucretia Mott’s speeches; and British Quaker Anne Knight’s open letters to colleagues and dignitaries (1848–1852).