Looking Back

A white sugar bowl with gold trim and a drawing of a Black man chains with the text "Am I not a man and a brother?" underneath the image.

friends historical library

SYMBOLIC HOUSEWARE A sugar bowl from the exhibit “From Local to Global — Consumption and the Quaker Body” in McCabe Library. The exhibition was led by Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History Susan Eberhard ’09 and her students who organized the show in her Fall 2025 class, Object, Media, Matter: Introduction to Material Culture and Material Histories. Together they explored the material culture of Quaker consumption, from the individual to the local to the global.

not only holding sugar

This bowl reveals abolitionist messaging entangled in domestic spheres, as its purpose was to both hold sugar and signal to visitors in the home the politics of its owners. Sugar was one of the main industries dependent on Black and Indigenous slave labor in the Americas during the 18th and 19th centuries.

anti-slavery sugar bowls were common abolitionist messaging tools in the 1800s.

The Committee for the Abolition of Slavery, based in England, adopted English potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood’s design, which is featured on the body of this bowl. The phrase, “Am I not a man and a brother?” paired with an image of a Black person in chains became a central feature of many abolitionist objects after its coinage in 1787.

“For Quakers, consumption was political and often associated with the ethic of ‘plainness,’ but it was also deeply personal,” says Visiting Assistant Professor Art History Susan Eberhard ’09. Students in Object, Media, Matter: Introduction to Material Culture and Material Histories collaborated with the Friends Historical Library to research and curate an exhibition drawn from their objects collections. The sugar bowl is both a unique and common piece of abolitionist history that reveals how material and ideological circulation were functioning during the time of its production, 1847.

It was sent to a Philadelphia-based anti-slavery fair by Queen Victoria. It was then purchased by a Mrs. Thomas Jenkins. Anti-slavery fairs were very common in the U.S., being used by abolitionist communities as a way to disseminate political values and ideals.

“The abolitionist sugar bowl, a star object from the FHL’s collections, exemplifies the aspirations and contradictions of Quaker consumption practices: an object that takes a political stance on its contents, yet is also a luxury item made of gilt porcelain,” says Eberhard. The bowl reveals how abolitionist messaging became very entangled in domestic spheres as its purpose was to both hold sugar and signal to visitors in the home the politics of its owners.

This form of abolitionist work was exclusively associated with femininity, as most of the fairs were organized and put on by women. Looking closely at the sugar bowl, and the history embedded in it, reveals the values of anti-slavery work at this time.

While there is not much information available about both the actual making of the object and where the money that was raised from its selling went, it is evident how material culture can become explicitly infused with symbols and messaging as a way to further political agendas.

— NERIA SPENCE ’28

Back to Full Issue

Table of Contents