Launching on Tuesday 24 September 2024, “America Now!” is a new series of live events exploring the current state of the USA and its place in the world. Book your free tickets and see the full programme on See Tickets.  

Times Square, New York, showing US flag

 

In a world of hot takes these discussions will offer some much-needed deep dives, giving expert insight into some of the most pressing or peculiar aspects of modern American life - from the Supreme Court to Cowboy Carter. 
 
Organised by the British Association for American Studies and the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania, “America Now!" takes place every other month in the British Library Knowledge Centre. 

Ahead of the first event, we took to the collections to share some suggestions of what can be found in the Americas holdings at the British Library which speak to the first topic we’ll be discussing: The Supreme Court.  

Courting controversy: What’s the Deal with the US Supreme Court? 

Tuesday 24 September 2024 | 18.30-19.30 

Book your tickets

From reversing the constitutional right to have an abortion to boosting the power of the President, the US Supreme Court has been making some headline-grabbing decisions over the past few years. With its judgments also potentially reshaping other major issues including gun control, environmental protections, and Indigenous tribal sovereignty, it seems we need to talk about the conservatism of the Supreme Court. How have we got here, and how will the court’s impact be felt on the ground for everyday Americans?   

Who sits on the Supreme Court? What are their backgrounds and specialisms that shape their interests and priorities in making decisions that impact a superpower like the USA? Consult this online resource, via US Federal Government Documents: The nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, to find out more about the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. While Being Brown: Sonia Sotomayor and the Latino Question (YC.2021.a.45) tells the story of the country’s first Latina Supreme Court Associate Justice’s rise to the pinnacle of American public life at a moment of profound demographic and political transformation. 

Official photograph of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson taken by Supreme Court Photographer Fred Schilling, 2022 and Being Brown picture from: https://impactolatino.com/la-jueza-latina-de-la-corte-suprema-sonia-sotomayor-inspira-un-libro-puntual/

Primary source ephemera documenting historical movements in America relating to gun control, abortion laws and environmental protections are also available in the collections to unpack these very relevant and ongoing topics. For example:  

• a broadsheet by the People to Abolish Abortion Laws demonstrating against New York State Abortion Laws (YD.2014.b.915). This campaign poster, including the name of Betty Friedan, called for the repeal of all laws restricting abortion in the 1970s 
• an interesting and illustrated 70s women's guide on self-defense can be seen in The woman's gun pamphlet: a primer on handguns, 1975 (RF.2018.a.2015).

Demonstrate Against n.y. state Abortion Laws broadsheet and The Women’s Gun Pamphlet by and for women, photo courtesy of Ulysses Books/Michael L. Muilenberg, Bookseller

And here are the event speakers’ ‘must read’ books, articles, and resources for anyone who's appetite for further exploration of the topic is whetted by the talk.  

Dr. Ilaria Di Gioia, an academic with expertise in the American Constitution, American federalism and intergovernmental relations at Birmingham City University, recommends:  

• Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (Doubleday, 1st Ed., c2007), BL shelfmark: m07/.33898 

• Stephen Breyer, The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics (Harvard University Press, 2021)

• Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (Simon and Schuster, c1979), BL shelfmark: 80/11640

Dr. Emma Long, Associate Professor in American History and Politics at UEA, recommends:  

• SCOTUSBlog - arguably the single best online resource for studying the Court - largely written for those with some knowledge of the Court and its work, it's the best resource for keeping up with what the Court is doing and what people are saying about it 

• National Constitution Center - not just about the Court, but about the broader role of the Constitution in American politics and society - runs an incredible programme of events, podcasts, and discussions (almost all available online) that are designed from all levels from primary school to professorial 

• Linda Greenhouse, The US Supreme Court: A Very Short History (Oxford University Press, 2nd Ed., 2020) - a good, short introduction to how the Court works from the former New York Times' Court reporter 

• David O'Brien, Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics (W.W. Norton & Co., 2020) - available in multiple editions, one of the best academic introductions to the Court (previous editions in BL holdings available)

Dr. Mitch Robertson, Lecturer in US History at UCL, recommends:    

• Geoffrey Stone and David Strauss, Democracy and Equality: The Enduring Constitutional Vision of the Warren Court (Oxford University Press, 2020), BL shelfmark: YC.2022.a.1168

• Mary Ziegler, Roe: The History of a National Obsession (Yale University Press, 2023)

• J. W. Peltason, Fifty-eight Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation (University of Illinois Press, 1971), BL shelfmarks: X6/2646, W55/6339

• Anthony Lewis, Gideon's Trumpet (Random House, 1964), BL shelfmark: W28/9549

• Slow Burn: Roe v. Wade (podcast series) 

Some of these titles haven't hit the British Library's shelves yet but they should be available in other major libraries. Find items in libraries near you via WorldCat. 

Please note: we're continuing to experience a major technology outage as a result of a cyber-attack. Our Reading Rooms in London and Yorkshire are open, but access to our collection and online resources is limited. Visit our website for full details of what is currently accessible. 

Stay tuned for further blogs with reading lists related to “America Now!”, and book your tickets for Why Country Music Conquered the World in 2024 on Thursday 28 November and The Inauguration of a New President: Where Will American Politics Go From Here? on Tuesday 23 January 2025. Details of events for the rest of 2025 will be announced later this year. If you have any suggestions of topics that you’d like to see discussed, please email [email protected] with ‘America Now!’ in the subject line. 

Weiao Xing (PhD in History, University of Cambridge, 2023, @WeiaoX) is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Global Encounters Platform and Institute of Modern History, University of Tübingen in Germany. He works on cultural and literary history in early modern English-Indigenous and French-Indigenous encounters and was a 2022 Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow at the British Library.

Among the items I consulted at the British Library as an Eccles Institute Visiting Fellow was a 215-folio manuscript entitled ‘State papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of State, 1650–1658’ (Add MS4156).¹ Its compiler, John Thurloe, made use of his intelligence network across Europe, playing a pivotal role in domestic politics and foreign affairs during the Interregnum (1649–1660).² Within the manuscript, on its second folio, rests a copy of a letter that has traversed the Atlantic. Dated 2 October 1651, the original letter was sent from Oliver Cromwell to John Cotton, the esteemed pastor of the Boston church in New England. ‘I receaued yours a few days sithence’ [sic], as Cromwell commenced his letter in a continuing dialogue, the circulation of texts intertwined political and religious circumstances in England and New England.

This letter concisely conveyed the prevailing political situation in England. Just one month prior to its writing, the Battle of Worcester, a major event at the end of the English Civil War (1642–1651), witnessed the Parliamentarians defeating a predominantly Scottish Royalist force led by Charles II. In his letter, Cromwell celebrated this victory with Cotton – when Charles II and his ‘malignant party’ invaded England, ‘the Lord rained upon them such snares’.³ Moreover, Cromwell earnestly sought religious support from Cotton, emphasising the need for prayers ‘as much as ever’ given the recent successes, or ‘such mercies’ in his own words. This letter affirms Cotton’s interest in English politics and his significance among Puritans in England during the Interregnum.⁴

The transatlantic movement of texts and individuals unveils intricate connections within the political and religious realms of England and New England. In the summer of 1651, five Massachusetts ministers, including John Cotton, corresponded with their fellow ministers in England.⁵ They defended the embargo placed by the colony’s General Court on a theological book entitled The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption […], authored by William Pynchon, one of the founding figures of the colony.⁶ Pynchon had managed to publish and sell his book in London in 1650 while residing in the colony. At the British Library, a copy of this work, annotated with ‘June 2d’, is under the shelf-marked E.606.(3.). It was acquired from ‘Thomason Tracts’, a collection of imprints dated from 1640 to 1661, curated by the London-based bookseller George Thomason (c. 1602–1666). The provenance of this copy suggests that Pynchon’s work, albeit heretical in New England, entered the intellectual spheres amid the political upheaval in England. Facing religious tensions and sanctions, Pynchon relocated to England in 1652 and continued publishing books that reflected his theological views. Pynchon to some extent maintained his ‘New England’ identity; he identified himself as ‘late of New England’ in his The Meritorious Price reprinted in 1655.⁷

Between the 1640s and the 1660s, a convergence of political, religious, and economic motives prompted numerous English settlers in New England to return home. While this statement articulated by William Sachse in 1948 holds merit, it does not fully alter the prevalent presumption of seventeenth-century transatlantic migrations as one-way journeys from Europe to the Americas.⁸ Many returnees from New England embarked on careers in England while maintaining their transatlantic connections. Sir George Downing exemplifies this pattern. As an ambassador in the Hague from 1657 to 1665, he facilitated England’s acquisition of New Amsterdam from Dutch settlers – in 1642, he had previously graduated from Harvard College in its inaugural graduate cohort.⁹  The tapestry of transatlantic migration is also woven from ordinary lives. In the prologue of her monograph Pilgrims, Susan Moore zooms in on Susanna Bell (d. 1672), an English merchant’s wife who crossed the Atlantic twice. Bell’s testimony, published in London upon her death, encapsulates her experiences, rhetoric, and mentalities.¹⁰

Fig. 1: Egerton MS 2519, folios 10 and 11.

Within the British Library’s holdings, a myriad of manuscripts unfolds stories of texts and individuals crossing the Atlantic. Egerton MS 2519, for instance, encompasses correspondence and papers of Samuel Desborough (or Disbrowe), who assumed the role of the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland from 1657 onwards.¹¹ Desborough, after setting off for New England in 1639 and settling in Guilford, New Haven, returned to England in 1650 amid the Civil War before relocating to Scotland.¹² In this manuscript, on folios 10 and 11, a letter dated 1654 from Guilford by William Leete appears (see Fig. 1).¹³ Leete, who would later become the governor of New Haven and Connecticut colonies, shared recent affairs in New England with Desborough, particularly his operation of Desborough’s colonial estate and several settlers who returned to England. This letter epitomises multiple connections between New England and England, ranging from personal careers and businesses to colonial affairs. As Moore suggests, it underscores the ‘delicate relation’ between those who remained in the settlements and those who returned to England.¹⁴ Additionally, as the letter tells, Desborough had addressed Cromwell, expressing his concern about potential threats from the Dutch on the settlement. Therefore, such transatlantic movements of texts and individuals repositioned overseas affairs of New England within the scope of domestic and European politics.

For the New Englanders who made the voyage back to England during the mid-seventeenth century, their ‘American’ identities were ill-defined as they ‘returned’ to their careers and lives in England, but many maintained connections with the settlements. Their experiences, in both New England and England, contribute to our comprehension of their engagement in and perceptions of transatlantic travels, mobility, Puritanism, colonisation, and English politics.

Notes

1. John Thurloe, ‘State Papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of State, 1650–1658 (Especially 1654–1655)’ (1658), Add MS 4156, British Library, https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_4156.
2. Timothy Venning, ‘Thurloe, John (Bap. 1616, d. 1668)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27405.
3. In his letter, Cromwell enclosed a short narrative (possibly available on 26 September), see C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., ‘Table of Acts: 1651’, in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1911), British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/lxxxii-lxxxvii.
4. John Cotton, The Correspondence of John Cotton, ed. Sargent Bush (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 458–61.
5. Cotton, 454–58.
6. William Pynchon, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, Iustification, &c. Cleering It from Some Common Errors (London: Printed by J.M. for George Whittington, and James Moxon, and are to be sold at the blue Anchor in Corn-hill neer the Royall Exchange, 1650); Michael P. Winship, ‘Contesting Control of Orthodoxy among the Godly: William Pynchon Reexamined’, The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 4 (1997): 795–822.
7. William Pynchon, A Farther Discussion of That Great Point in Divinity the Sufferings of Christ (The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption [...]) (London: Printed for the Author, and are to bee sold at the Signe of the three Lyons in Corn-hill, over against the Conduit, 1655).
8. William L. Sachse, ‘The Migration of New Englanders to England, 1640–1660’, The American Historical Review 53, no. 2 (1948): 1640–1660.
9. Jonathan Scott, ‘Downing, Sir George, First Baronet (1623–1684)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7981.
10. Susan Hardman Moore, Pilgrims: New World Settlers & the Call of Home (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 1–15; Susanna Bell, The Legacy of a Dying Mother to Her Mourning Children Being the Experiences of Mrs. Susanna Bell, Who Died March 13, 1672 (London: Printed and are to be sold by John Hancock, Senior and Junior at the three Bibles in Popes-Head Alley in Cornhill, 1673).
11. Samuel Desborough, ‘Correspondence and Papers of Samuel Disbrowe, or Desborough, of Elsworth, Co. Cambridge, Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, 1651/2–1660’ (1660), Egerton MS 2519, British Library, http://searcharchives.bl.uk/permalink/f/1r5koim/IAMS032-001983482.
12. Susan Hardman Moore, Abandoning America: Life-Stories from Early New England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2013), 90–91.
13. Bruce P. Stark, ‘Leete, Williamunlocked (1613–16 April 1683)’, in American National Biography, 2000, https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.0100511.
14. Hardman Moore, Abandoning America, 91.

 

 Join two former Members of the US Congress and leading academics in a lively and bipartisan discussion of major themes in contemporary American politics. 

President Joe Biden, joined by First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and their children Ashley Biden and Hunter Biden, takes the oath of office as President of the United States Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, during the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

 

What is ‘US Politics Today’ 

This is an exciting opportunity for Year 12 and 13 students of A-level Politics to hear some of the critical questions and issues in US politics come alive and leap out of the textbook, as two former Members of the US House of Representatives – one Democrat, one Republican – share reflections from their direct experience at the heart of Washington D.C. 

Discussing the latest trends and events with leading academics, this day-long conference supports classroom work on key topics in A-level US Politics courses, including sessions on The Presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and Elections and Democracy. 

When is it? 

Monday 18 November | 10.30-15.30 (In-person only) 

Friday 22 November | 10.30-15.30 (In-person and Online) 

How can my school take part? 

Schools can attend either In Person at the British Library Knowledge Centre in St Pancras (£15 per attendee, to cover the cost of refreshments) or Online (free). 

To register your interest in bringing a class In Person: Please email [email protected] with the subject ‘US Politics Today: In Person’, specifying which date you would like to come (Monday 18 November or Friday 22 November) and how many people (students and teachers) would like to come. Applications close at 5pm on Friday 4 October and schools will be notified on Tuesday 8 October. School places will be allocated by ballot. 

To register your interest in participating Online: Schools can watch the session on Friday 22 November live online, and ask questions to the Former Members of Congress either in advance or through the viewing platform. Please email [email protected] with the subject ‘US Politics Today: Online’, and you will be sent a link nearer the time.  

There are also events with the Former Members of Congress in Norwich and Leicester during the week of 18 November. If you would like more information about these, please email [email protected] with the subject ‘US Politics Today: Norwich/Leicester’ (as appropriate).