Exhibition in a Box:
Black Chronicles

Create a pop-up archive display of reproductions from 19th century photographs portraying people of African, Caribbean and South Asian descent during the Victorian era in Britain. Autograph's Black Chronicles Exhibition in a Box is a powerful educational tool to facilitate conversations and lesson plans around identity, diverse histories and photography.

The 30 portraits in the box represent a range of people living and working in Britain during the Victorian era: performers, politicians, dignitaries, servicemen and women, royalty and missionaries, known personalities and unidentified individuals. These portraits highlight an important and complex black presence in Britain before 1948, a watershed moment often cited as the beginning of the emergence of a multicultural modern British society after the HMT Empire Windrush brought the first large group of West Indian migrants to Britain. Produced in commercial studios during the second half of the nineteenth century, many of the images included in the resource lay buried deep within the archives for decades - unseen for more than 125 years.

The Exhibition In a Box encourages students to critically analyse and engage with a unique collection of historical photographs, exploring how they present different, under-explored perspectives on British cultural history. This free resource will be available for UK schools to borrow from autumn 2024, join our Teachers' Newsletter to find out first.