100 Objects #12: “Slave Cloth”

Available for over a year

In 1821, two Rhode Island brothers went looking for buyers for their woolen fabric, and stumbled into a lucrative, captive market: Southern slave plantations. Roman Mars and historian Seth Rockman trace the strange life of so-called "Slave cloth" — a textile category defined by nothing but who it was worn by. Along the way, they uncover how enslaved people shaped the very cloth used to control them, and how New England manufacturers convinced themselves they were the good guys. Host: Roman Mars Producers: Priscilla Alabi, Brenna Daldorph, Isaac Fisher, Ellie Lightfoot EPs: Annie Brown, Courtney Harrell, Kathy Tu