August 1st and Emancipation in the Steampunk Atlantic

On the anniversary of British Emancipation on August 1, 1834, revisiting an old post on freedom and abolitionism in the steampunk Atlantic–or lack thereof.

Image: Broadside advertising abolitionist August First commemoration in Worcester, MA, 1849. Boston Public Library.

Continue reading

August 1st- Emancipation in the Steampunk Atlantic

Is it just me, or does steampunk have an abolitionist problem–or rather, a lack of them? Okay. Perhaps I’m over generalizing. I haven’t read/seen every steampunk story after all. But I’ve noticed that some of the more popular works in the genre, those few that courageously even bother to address slavery, manage to leave out (or somehow weed-out through deft alternative history-making) those figures and groups that were so instrumental in bringing about the end of the slave system in the Atlantic world. Continue reading