Seth Rockman

@sethrockman.bsky.social

5207 Followers 847 Following

Historian at Brown University: https://history.brown.edu/people/seth-e-rockman Author of _Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery_ Nov. 2024, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo237040605.html

Campaign sign saying "Les Washington. More Germany" and showing a German dog on an American leash
stacks of quarters nickels dimes and pennies
The New Colossus BY EMMA LAZARUS Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
sheet of 1973 US Postal Service "Postal People" stamps
page 562 of Gordon Wood's Creation of the American Republic.
Sheet of US Postal Service stamps commemorating the Semiquincentennial
Image from Brown University daily email announcements, indicating more security cameras on campus and more AI tools.
Seth Rockman in his mud machine shirt
A stack of 5 copies of the paperback version of Plantation Goods by Seth Rockman
Pop-up marketing event for Googe Gemini AI on the Brown University campus.
Banner for Gemini on campus event on athletic fields at Brown University
A jar of gefilte fish on a kitchen counter
A gold chocolate coin marked Bitcoin
Brown university main green, snowy and abandoned
Maryland. Anyone unable to pay could be auctioned into temporary slavery to cover the costs. It is not clear the 1832 law was enforced in Baltimore, but it surely hung over the heads of many working-class families. Today, the comparison of illegal immigration to slavery is not uncommon. Representative James Sensenbrenner, Congress’s most outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, has labeled companies like Baltimore’s Jones Industrial Network the “21st-century slave masters.” The analogy is dubious, unless one believes that Africans willingly endured the Middle Passage in search of better lives in America. Nor can Sensenbrenner don the mantle of abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, who also fought discrimination against African Americans. Instead, Sensenbrenner’s historical forbearers were those nineteenth-century politicians who claimed that slaves and free blacks took jobs away from white people. No more evidence supported this argument in the years before the Civil War than it does now among those who accuse immigrants of stealing “American jobs.” Such incendiary rhetoric sparked mob violence against Frederick Douglass when he worked in Baltimore’s shipyards, and so too has it jeopardized the lives and livelihoods of immigrant families today. When we consider the longer history of “illegal” labor in Baltimore, we should consider how earlier workers defied such an ugly classification to make better lives for future generations.
Karin Wulf talking with Leslie Harris at a table with microphones
Still from the recent Saturday Night Live sketch about George Washington, with Washington saying "And we shall call the class The American Revolution and it shall meet Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30am"
Cover of the Nov 2025 issue of the Atlantic on the American revolution
Poster for Rockman November 13 talk at Amherst, picture of Rockman and Plantation Goods cover
Flier for Rockman talk at Florida International U on Thursday Oct 23rd. Picture of Rockman and book jacket for Plantation goods.
Poster for Brown University event Saturday October 18 called "What Can't you do with a History Concentration!" featuring Sam Adler-Bell, Rachael Bedard, and Rebecca Qiu
statue of Dorr that now stands in the RI State capitol
Rockman holding book entitled The Selected Writings of Thomas Wilson Dorr
Poster announcing Sept 23 talk by Richard Cellini at Columbia University with image of enslaved workers harvesting sugar cane,
Poster with QR code announcing Seth Rockman talk on October 9, 630 at the Carpenter Museum in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.
Image of a container ship with the words "history of capitalism" spelled out on the containers, and "M-W-F 10:00-10:50, Stephen Robert Hall 280 BrooK St., room 101, Professor Seth Rockman" spelled on the hull.
Using the "Is this butterfly" meme to ask whether current US economic policy is or isn't capitalism.
Beach view from east matunuck state beach
Cover of Alice Driver's Life and Death of the American Worker book.
Picture of Seth Rockman and Craig Friend with copy of Craig's new book, Becoming Lunsford Lane
Seth Rockman in orange sweater holding copy of Sally Tuckett's book
Seated Seth Cotlar interviewing seated Rachel Maddow on a stage
Poster featuring Rachel Swarns's picture and information about her May 9 talk at Brown University at 4:00 pm
We want to inform you about important changes regarding tariffs on goods imported from China. Due to new government regulations, import taxes into the U.S. will significantly increase effective May 2, 2025. While President Trump has announced that tariffs will not reach 145%, they will not be reduced to zero either. At this time, we are unable to provide the exact tariff rates, but we will keep you updated as more information becomes available. We are actively working on long-term solutions to minimise the impact of these changes and to restore HNTR to normal operations as quickly as possible. Please note that not all our products are made in China, so if you are interested in a specific item, feel free to reach out to confirm its country of origin. All gowns are ready for dispatch and will be shipped once we receive confirmation that you are aware of and willing to pay the import taxes on your goods upon arrival in the U.S. To proceed, please respond to this email with your consent so we can expedite the shipping of your order. Please be aware that we do not control these fees, and HNTR cannot be held responsible for customers who fail to pay import taxes; refunds will not be issued in such cases.
Poster for talk on Wednesday April 30 4:00 at Brown University's Watson Institute. Features image from 1838 Antislavery Almanac "M is the Merchant of the North..."
Judges’ citation: At the heart of Yankee ingenuity lay a fundamental secret that none dared name: slavery. As Seth Rockman brilliantly shows, New England’s mills, factories, mercantile houses, and packet ships relied on the “wealth produced by stolen labor.” Rockman’s astonishing detective work reveals how New England’s “men on the make” sent agents to Alabama, Kentucky, and Missouri to design and distribute the reliable plantation axes, cheap leather shoes, and durable “negro cloth” that would make American manufacturers famous around the world. These plantation goods became hidden parts of slavery’s infrastructure: Slaveholders demanded tools that would accelerate work, while the familiar “Georgia stripes” —fabric we now recognize as prison clothing — made enslaved people identifiable anywhere. Enslaved men and women nonetheless washed, dyed, mended, and transformed them, all inside the violent tinderbox of the plantation landscape.
Screenshot from Auburn website indicating an 83% growth rate in federal funding over the last decade.
recreation set of Secret mall apartment with a couch and cinderblock wall
Warning out warrants from Providence, RI, 1838
Picture of Rockman
A bracket of the Auburn - Creighton match up, comparing losses in federal funding
Cover image of Katie Moore's Promise to Pay
a selection of 60 books from the 1950s thru the 1990s on business and labor histoty, now sitting on the floor of my office
Flyer with pictures of Chaplin, Immerwahr, Herschthal and Rockman for talk at Harvard's Warren Center Thursday Feb 20, 4:00.
a pile of thank you notes on a table
Cover page of journal article called "Rubbed, Pricked, and Boiled: Coins as Objects of Inquiry in the Dutch Republic" by Sebastian Felten
Display cabinet of nineteenth-century historical documents
Book cover of Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor's America under the Hammer. Orange cover with an image of a wooden gavel.
Event poster featuring a black-and-white photograph of twentieth-century Turkish factory women.
Molly O'Neill's 1992 New York Cookbook
Catalog page featuring books by Robin Bernstein, Ana Lucia Araujo, Andrew Kahrl, Sharon Murphy, and Jonathan Schroeder.
American Girl Doll, Felicity Merriman, pictured on the Brown University campus for a September 30 event.
1859 advertisement for a New York City hardware merchant offering "superior cotton hoes" and featuring a hoe blade.
a small square of plaid fabric is affixed to a page indicated the thread counts and colors to be used in production.
1850s metallic token from New Orleans clothing supplier N.C. Folger. The text reads "Caps Blankets & Plantation Goods"