HIST 285/LACS 270/AFS 270 The Social History of Capitalism

Historical Biography

This 1500-1750-word essay takes the form of a carefully researched biography of a fictional person. It is worth a fifth of your grade in the class.

You will choose an individual’s profile from the list below. As you can see, the profiles are spare, comprising just names, birth dates, and perhaps one or two other details. You will investigate the time period, place, and imagined activities of your chosen person as much as possible. Write a biographical treatment of that person, rooted carefully in the historical context. Build that sense of context through research in secondary historical sources. If you wish, you can also use primary sources. Cite carefully from your evidence, using Chicago-style footnote citations. For a quick guide and reminder, see the last entry on this page: https://guides.libraries.emory.edu/c.php?g=49955&p=323977

If you would like, you could approach the assignment as an autobiography, writing in the first person. Or you could frame the paper as a set of journal entries, or a series of letters from (or to) your individual. You could write an obituary for someone who had become famous, or you could write a series of speeches that your character delivered. Each of these approaches have challenges and you should remember the main point of the paper: to demonstrate and communicate effective historical research. A straightforward biography offers the most direct path to that end.

As one possible methodology, we recommend the following steps:

• Brainstorm ideas for the period based on what you know, building a list of key words
• Use those words as database search terms to build your bibliography, gathering an array of scholarly articles and books
• Take notes from the sources and find your historical landmarks—big events but also processes or trends
• Consider cause and effect
• Structure your story
• Write a first draft
• Revise, revise, revise

The assignment demands imaginative interpretation based solidly in research. You cannot create and richly describe a life without a reasonable grasp of that life’s milieu. We will emphasize some points:

• Research shows. Be thorough. Immerse yourself in the time period and give yourself opportunities to connect to events or to demonstrate key processes from capitalism history.
• Write a good story. Make your paper interesting by thinking about an overall trajectory. Plot the life carefully by thinking about what type of story can best illuminate your historical period.
• Reflect on the role of the individual. What impact can one person have? How much does the time affect the person?

João Gomes – Portuguese slave trader from Lisbon, active in the 1790s. Had trade connections in Angola and Brazil

Peter Smith – 22-year-old cotton factory worker in Manchester, 1760. Born into a weaver’s family.

Maria da Mina – African girl trafficked to Rio de Janeiro in 1780. Sold into domestic servitude at the age of 14.

Mary Simpson – 6-year-old girl working in a textile mill in Birmingham in 1790.

Samuel Jones – Apprentice to a coal miner in Newcastle, age 12, in the 1790s.

Andrew Johnson – Sailor from London, left his hometown in 1830 at the age of 17 and has lived in Sierra Leone, Boston, and New York.

Rose Taylor – Domestic servant in London, 1830, working in the household of a rising bourgeois banking family.

Ama Kofi - Midwife and healer in Cape Coast, early 19th century.