A staircase in the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was once part of the Edenton, North Carolina house where Harriet Jacobs was enslaved. Jacobs was enslaved from about age 12 to 22 by the physician James Norcom, who threw her down the stairs in a violent rage. She later hid in a nearby attic for seven years before escaping north. She described these experiences in her 1861 autobiographical book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The staircase was removed from the house in 1964 because of its 18th-century craftsmanship, not its connection to Jacobs. Only later did scholars and a local curator realise its link to her story. Today it stands between two galleries, with a photograph of Jacobs and a copy of her book nearby.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.