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Letter to Mr. Strickland
Child replies to Strickland’s request for her autograph and information about John Brown, noting, “The only letter I ever received from John Brown I gave to a Sanitary Commission Fair in time of the war. They Sold it for $25.” About Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry she writes, “Noble old man! His foray into Virginia seemed a wild project, but the feeling that impelled him was grand: and I know of nothing in History more sublime than his conduct in prison, and at the place of execution. I shall never again witness such moral heroism as was brought out by the struggle of Freedom with Slavery.” -
[Portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe]
Harriet Beecher Stowe rocketed to celebrity with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), selling 300,000 copies during its first year in print. -
I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance [cabinet card]
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. By the 1860s, Sojourner Truth had moved to Battle Creek, Michigan. Between 1863 and 1875, Truth had at least fourteen different photographic portraits made. She sold them to provide income for herself. These cartes-de-visite and cabinet cards were portable and far cheaper to produce than copies of her Narrative. She controlled every aspect of the way she is depicted in these images—genteelly, in cap and shawl, often with her knitting, a book or photograph in her lap, obscuring her disabled right hand. -
The Gospel of Slavery: A Primer of Freedom
This illustrated juvenile alphabet book by Unitarian minister Abel Thomas is unsparing in its depiction of slavery. It includes an image and verse for each letter, with prose lines written in response to the defenders of slavery. “W stands for woman,” and the explicatory prose below the verse speaks to the selling of children from their mothers. The Gospel of Slavery is one of only two anti-slavery alphabets published during the antebellum period. The other, The Anti-Slavery Alphabet by Hannah Townsend (1847), is also in the collection. This copy is in its original wrappers. -
[Portrait of Lucretia Mott]
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were delegates to the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Female delegates were not allowed to participate in the convention and were relegated to the balcony. Some male delegates, including William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, sat with them in solidarity. After the convention, Stanton and Mott began to lay the groundwork for the first women’s rights convention, which took place in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. -
The Slave’s Appeal
On the eve of the Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton published The Slave’s Appeal, in which she applied the Ten Commandments to the institution of slavery and exhorted New Yorkers to defy the Fugitive Slave Act. The Slave’s Appeal included petitions to be circulated so that the signatures collected could be sent to state legislatures to demand an end to slave hunting. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony would later oppose the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted suffrage to black men, because it did not enfranchise women. -
Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, Emancipated from Bodily Servitude by the State of New York, in 1828
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. A spiritualist, in 1843 she had a vision and changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth. She became a preacher, earning her living as she moved through Long Island and Connecticut, eventually joining a Garrisonian, abolitionist, utopian community, the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. In 1850, noting the success of Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, Truth dictated her life story to her friend Olive Gilbert, who was a fellow member of the Northampton Association. Truth wrote, published, and distributed the book herself. She used the proceeds to support herself and to buy a house of her own in Northampton. -
Manuscript blurb for Sojourner Truth’s Narrative
Harriet Beecher Stowe rocketed to celebrity with the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), selling 300,000 copies during its first year in print. Abolititionist and feminist Sojourner Truth saw an opportunity. Truth asked Stowe to write a promotional statement that would bring notice to her autobiographical Narrative. She and Stowe met for the first and only time in 1853. This signed statement appears as an introduction in some copies of the 1853 edition of the Narrative. -
Letter to Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock
In this intimate letter to fellow abolitionists and suffragists, Lucretia Mott writes with updates on many colleagues and friends. She mentions a visit to Peterboro-Cazenovia, New York, that included time with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Stanton’s cousin, Gerrit Smith, who was one of the secret six who funded John Brown’s raid. It was over tea at the McClintock house in Waterloo, New York, on 9 July 1848 that Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright (Mott’s sister), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Elizabeth McClintock, and Mary Ann McClintock decided to organize a women’s rights convention. -
[Poems and illustrations]
This lovely hand-bound manuscript was made by Mary B. Tuckey and others in Cork, Ireland, to be sold at the Boston Anti-Slavery Fair to raise money for the abolitionist cause. The beribboned floral page dedicated to Maria Weston Chapman was drawn by Mary Mannix, the secretary for the Anti-Slavery Societies of Cork. Chapman, organizer of the fair and a Garrisonian abolitionist, wrote Right and Wrong in Massachusetts and edited the annual the Liberty Bell. Frederick Douglass’ acclaimed visit to Cork is commemorated in the volume with a poem in his honor. The strong international bonds of the Abolitionist movement are made evident in this small book. -
Letter to Robert Adams
In 1842 schoolteacher Sophia Foord moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, to join the recently formed utopian Northampton Association of Education and Industry. Founded to promote social reform through cooperative work, the NAEI was race-, class-, gender-and religion-equal. Foord writes that “this has become quite a depot for fugitives,” noting that “the slaves escape so frequently that their masters say . . . the Abolitionists must have ‘a railroad under ground.’” She also describes rather sarcastically a visit to writer and abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. -
History of Pennsylvania Hall Which Was Destroyed by a Mob On the 17th of May, 1838
Abolitionists had difficulty finding a place to meet in Philadelphia, and so they raised funds to build a building of their own. It was one of the largest and grandest structures in the city. In 1838 the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women met twice in the building, insisting that their meetings be attended by black and white participants. This was the second national meeting to be held by women in America. The first, the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, was held in New York in 1837, eleven years before the Seneca Falls Convention. Four days after the ceremonies dedicating Pennsylvania Hall, following a speech by Lucretia Mott, a mob burned the building to the ground. -
Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman
Sarah Moore Grimké and her sister Angelina were formidable and vocal anti-slavery activists and agitators for the rights of women. Growing up on a large plantation in South Carolina, Grimké disregarded the law forbidding teaching slaves to read. The sisters moved to Philadelphia, becoming Quakers, though both abandoned Quakerism over its racism and sexism. The Grimké sisters were delegates to the Women’s Anti-Slavery Convention held in New York in 1837 and, with Grace Bustill Douglass, co-founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. These Letters were addressed to Mary Parker, president of the 1837 convention. -
Fanaticism: its source and influence, illustrated by the simple narrative of Isbella, in the case of Matthias, Mr. and Mrs. B. Folger, Mr. Pierson, Mr. Mills, Catherine, Isabella, &c. &c.: a reply to W.L. Stone, with descriptive portraits of all the parties, while at Sing-Sing and at Third street, containing the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
Feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century America. She was born into slavery in 1797 on a rural farm in Ulster County, New York. At age thirty, she drew strength from her Christian faith and found the courage to escape with her infant daughter. A spiritualist, in 1843 she had a vision and changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth. In 1842, she came under the influence of a self-styled prophet, Robert Matthews, who established his “Kingdom of Matthias” on an estate in Sing Sing, New York. It was a questionable enterprise. Isabella was attracted by Matthias’ spiritualism and the promise of egalitarianism, which was unfulfilled. The community disbanded after a trial for murder and sexual impropriety. -
An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans
Lydia Maria Child was one of the most influential writers and reformers in the nineteenth century. Her first novel, Hobomok, about an interracial marriage between a white woman and a Native American, shocked reviewers but was extremely successful. Her Frugal Housewife was the first American cookery book written for a non-aristocratic readership. She published the first juvenile magazine in America and edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard. When she published An Appeal, her literary standing and her income both dropped sharply. Her comprehensive scholarly analysis of the slavery question included a sweeping indictment of racism. -
[Anti-slavery dessert service]
In Great Britain and the United States, women organized anti-slavery bazaars throughout the North to raise money and awareness for the cause. Members of female anti-slavery societies sold tokens, pottery, quilts, books, prints, and needlework. Some items were commercially produced, others made by hand. This dessert service is likely Staffordshire pottery transfer-ware. The images of two iconic elements of the visual vocabulary of the abolitionist movement—a black man kneeling in chains, and a black woman cradling a child—as well as the surrounding biblical passages were meant to evoke sympathy for the cause. The collection holds ten pieces, including a footed compote. -
A portraiture of domestic slavery, in the United States: with reflections on the practicability of restoring the moral rights of the slave, without impairing the legal privileges of the possessor; and, a project of a colonial asylum for free persons of colour, including memoirs of facts on the interior traffic in slaves, and, on kidnapping: illustrated with engravings
In November 1815, Ann Williams and her daughters were torn from their family and sold to Georgia slave traders. In desperation, Williams jumped out a third-story window. Jesse Torrey, a physician visiting Washington, hearing her story, sought to interview her. He found her in bed with a broken back and broken arm. Her daughters had been taken south to be sold. Torrey subsequently published this account along with other narratives that he chronicled. In 1816 Williams’ suicide attempt prompted a Congressional inquiry into interstate slave trade. Williams later successfully petitioned for her freedom and for that of her children. -
Deed of emancipation, Court held for Norfolk County, Virginia
This deed attests that Thomas Smith used Susannah Mallory’s own money to purchase her freedom from attorney Charles King Mallory of Elizabeth City County, Virginia. Susannah Mallory paid sixty dollars to emancipate herself. Some enslaved persons in Virginia were permitted by their masters to earn money from work done on their personal time, including hiring out their labor. Smith notes he acted only as her “Friendly agent,” and he resigns any legal right to her service. Susannah was then about fifty-five years old. -
Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq., on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade
Anna Letitia Barbauld was one of the leading writers of early Romanticism. Her poetry and essays express her political advocacy for peace, liberty, and independence of thought. She edited The Female Speaker, a book used to educate girls. A Unitarian and strong proponent of abolition, she wrote against those who supported the slave trade, as witnessed in her Epistle. Barbauld taught English, wrote primers, and with her husband ran a school for boys. Their school took in female boarding students as well.
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