March 12, 2026 – 7pm
Unsung Architects of Freedom: Smallwood and Torrey’s Bold Crusade – Virtual
Thomas Smallwood and Charles Torrey are virtually unknown names in American history but they assisted in the emancipation of over 400 people from slavery. Learn more about the lives of these remarkable men and the impact they had on the Washington, D.C. and Maryland slave markets at this virtual lecture.
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March 14, 2026
Burn the Ships: Resistance as an Exercise of Agency Among Teenage Reformatory Ship Inmates in Victorian Liverpool – Temple University Barnes Conference, Philadelphia, PA
In the latter half of the 19th century, Liverpool, England faced a specific and unique slew of criminal activity. Teenage boys on reformatory ships were wreaking havoc on a system designed to transform them into better people. The boys were previously arrested for crimes such as petty theft or vagrancy and confined to two old man-of-wars anchored in the River Mersey, the Akbar and the Clarence. These ships, one Protestant and the other Catholic, operated much like reformatory schools on land, teaching inmates a trade, extracting manual labor, and instilling a Christian morality which would preclude further crime. The boys did not always accept their fates though, and many resisted by escaping, setting fire to the ships, and leading mutinies. The perpetrators were almost always caught and severely punished.
This paper argues that acts of resistance performed by the boys of the Akbar and the Clarence were primarily exercises of agency rather than attempts to improve their conditions. Prior research has focused on circumstances precipitating the use of reformatory schools and ships, including the development of a new concept of childhood, and the causes and public perceptions of juvenile crime in Victorian England. No scholarly research has yet delved into the lived experiences of the boys confined to reformatory ships, including their motives for resistance. Using newspaper accounts of the deviant behaviors and subsequent trials, this paper reads against the grain in order to understand the persistence of the boys in resisting despite the hopelessness of any actual change in their circumstances.
Kira Quintin 