For several years I have worked in local archives, exploring questions about the free and enslaved laborers who built Brown University and Providence. This work draws on multiple sources, but is grounded in the Brown Family Business Records, housed at the John Carter Brown Library. During an in-person session in May, I updated attendees on what I’ve found and how I found it.

The project seeks to build on previous research by examining the memory, language and historiography of slavery and unfreedom connected to the founding and early days of Brown University. The core of the work is deep archival research, scanning the same records but from a different perspective. By centering laborers, relationships and material culture, I hope to demonstrate the importance of sharing new stories and of identifying names, networks and shifting identities in the archival record.

Archival research can be a solitary pursuit, so getting this work out to the Brown community has provided me with great conversations and feedback, both during the talk and in the months afterwards. It also marked a shift from mostly gathering information to beginning to produce a report, tentatively called Company Property: Re-examining the Archives of Slavery and the Building of Brown University.