Sadler Seminar Series

Tom Wright (University of Sussex) will give a paper titled "New York’s Mercantile Library and the Astor Place Riot of 1849". His talk will be followed by a Q and A session.

To continue with our theme of libraries, readers and activism, Tom Wright (University of Sussex) will give a paper titled "New York’s Mercantile Library and the Astor Place Riot of 1849".  He will speak for about 40 minutes, and this will be followed by a Q and A session.

The Astor Place Riot was a particularly violent episode in the history of New York and brought together class struggle, nativist hostility to immigrants and a personal grudge between two Shakespearean actors. Twenty two people were killed when the militia moved in to quell a riot that had, at its heart, the question of who was the better Macbeth - the Englishman Charles Macready, or American, Edwin Forrest. 

ALL WELCOME

Location series 

Leeds Humanities Research Institute, Seminar Room 1.