On Thursday, February 8 (9am-5pm), we invite you to a Transnational History Symposium at the History Corner in Room #307, organized by myself (Matt Randolph) and fellow Phd Candidate Christian Robles-Baez with Professors Zephyr Frank and Mikael Wolfe as faculty cosponsors. The theme is “Baltimore and Latin America in the 19th Century.” We will specifically explore Baltimore's lesser-known connections with Latin America and the Caribbean, in all of its economic, cultural, political, ecological, and intellectual dimensions. This symposium has been made possible thanks to the support of the Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of History, the Department in African & African American Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center’s Slavery and Freedom Research Workshop. RSVP Required: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeB7PhSqVRn0_-2YaE3tgQKSdbKIr49KjV8Y2VsPd3DIMHzdw/viewform

As one of the leading Atlantic ports in the nineteenth century and one of the biggest American cities at the time, Baltimore was a cosmopolitan center, although this international legacy has been largely forgotten in the contemporary era. This symposium will specifically explore Baltimore's lesser-known connections with Latin America and the Caribbean, in all of its economic, cultural, political, ecological, and intellectual dimensions. Similarly, this symposium strives to demonstrate how Latin America and the Caribbean itself was a critical region in the making of the modern Atlantic World. Merging Latin American and Caribbean history into the study of Baltimore spotlights the hidden connections between far-flung locales and therefore the intellectually enriching potential of transnational approaches to urban history. We will elevate comparative approaches to thinking through race, slavery, and freedom as well as how Black diasporic identities and experiences transcend national borders.   

This gathering will be an opportunity for scholars to present published or in-progress works resonating with this theme. Stanford doctoral students will be featured, alongside visiting guest scholars with expertise on the topic. Doctoral students will present working drafts of their dissertation chapters. Three visiting scholars will come to campus and provide thorough feedback, in addition to presenting their own scholarship on Baltimore and/in the Americas. Stanford community members will also be invited to provide feedback for these graduate student research workshops.

Schedule -  Thursday, February 8, 2024 

Breakfast & introductions (9:00-9:30 am) 

Guest scholar presentation #1 (9:30-10:30 am) - “The Brazilian-Baltimore Connection: A Nineteenth Century Geographical Perspective” (Alan Marcus)

Graduate workshop #1 (10:30-11:30am) - "Migrating Mariners: African American Emigration from the Chesapeake Bay to Samaná Bay, 1824" (Matthew Randolph)

Lunch (11:30-12:30pm) 

Guest scholar presentation #2 (12:30-1:30pm) - "Developing a Baltimore Commercial Presence in Brazil: An Early 19th-Century Pernambuco Connection" (Laura Jarnagin Pang) 

Graduate workshop #2 (1:30-2:30pm) - "The Rise and Fall of James Birckhead, Baltimorean Merchant Established in Rio de Janeiro, 1817-1850" (Christian Robles-Baez)

Coffee & Tea Break (2:30-3:00pm) 

Guest scholar presentation #3 (3:00-4:00pm) - “Sweetness and Flour: Antebellum Baltimore's Pursuit of the Brazilian Bread Market” (Daniel Rood)

Keynote lecture  (4:00-5:00pm) "Comparative Urban Histories of Slavery and Freedom in the Age of Abolition" (Mariana Dantas)