To Enter Africa from America: The United States, Africa, and the New Imperialism, 1862–1919

FAIN: RZ-260918-18

University of Nebraska, Lincoln (Lincoln, NE 68503-2427)
Jeannette Eileen Jones (Project Director: December 2017 to present)

Research and preparation of an online resource and print publication about United States engagement with Africa during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (36 months)

To Enter Africa from America (TEAA) is a collaborative research project whose goal is to reveal little known patterns of American movement across Africa in the context of broader American ideas about the continent that emerged during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Specifically, TEAA places those actions in dialogue with the “African Question”—a body of political discourses that emerged during the mid-19th century that sought to articulate the meaning and relevance of Africa in an increasingly Eurocentric interconnected world. The collaborators argue that scholars have overlooked, underestimated, and understudied the new imperialism in Africa in the historical context of U.S. expansion and empire. TEAA will explore how such connections formed through American diplomatic, social, religious, and leisure activities in Africa, producing a published, peer-reviewed scholarly digital project, an interdisciplinary symposium, and a peer-reviewed edited volume of interpretive essays.

Associated Products

To Enter Africa From America: The United States, Africa, and the New Imperialism, 1862-1919 (Web Resource)
Title: To Enter Africa From America: The United States, Africa, and the New Imperialism, 1862-1919
Author: Jeannette Eileen Jones
Author: Nadia Nurhussein
Author: Nemata Blyden
Author: John Gruesser
Abstract: This project presents the complex network of connections between a diverse group of historical actors through a document archive, annotated gallery, interactive maps, interpretive essays, and visualizations to emphasize connections between literacy, visual, and historical movements of Americans in Africa during the so-called "New Imperialism" era. It focuses on the period from 1862—when the United States officially recognized Liberia diplomatically—to 1919—the year that the belligerent powers of World War I signed the Versailles Treaty that made provisions for the redistribution of Germany's colonies, including those in Africa. 1919 also marked unprecedented anti-Black violence that erupted across the United States in hundreds of recorded lynchings of Black people and over 26 anti-Black race riots that took more Black lives. During this 57-year period, U.S. international relations with Africa and domestic policies affecting African Americans underwent substantial transformation.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://africafromamerica.unl.edu/
Primary URL Description: To Enter Africa from America documents and analyzes the presence of American state and non-state actors in Africa during the "age of empire," as well as the ways in which Americans imagined Africans during the same period.

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