KS 3 & 4 themes
- Africa and the transatlantic slave trade
- Cotton and transatlantic slavery
- Local cotton industries in Greater Manchester
- The American Civil War and Lancashire cotton workers
- Freedom and human rights
- Campaigning for the abolition of slavery
- After abolition
- Legacies of transatlantic slavery: racism in Manchester
Contact the partnership learning team
learning@revealinghistories.org
If your enquiry is to arrange a visit to one particular museum please contact that museum directly.
The American Civil War and Lancashire cotton workers
Statue of Abraham Lincoln, 1917, by George Grey Barnard
This bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln was sent from the USA to Britain to mark 100 years of peace between the two countries. It was intended to stand outside the Houses of Parliament in London.
The statue shows Lincoln as an ordinary man of the people rather than as a statesman, which was controversial, so a different statue was sent to London. Manchester took this one because of its connections with Lincoln during the American Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the USA in 1860. One of his main policies was to stop the spread of slavery. The pro-slavery southern states which used enslaved labour to grow cotton feared his election would destroy their way of life. Seven southern states, then four more, split from the northern anti-slavery Union states.
The American Civil War, between the Union north and the Confederate ‘rebel' south, began on 12 April 1861. It led to a cotton famine in Lancashire when the export of raw cotton from the USA dried up. Many cotton workers in the north west of England were unemployed and starving as a result, but they still showed widespread support for Abraham Lincoln and abolition.
The statue of Abraham Lincoln can be seen in Lincoln Square on Brazennose Street in Manchester. It says: ‘This statue commemorates the support that the working people of Manchester gave in the fight for the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War’.