The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism

The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism PDF Author: Julie Roy Jeffrey
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807866849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
By focusing on male leaders of the abolitionist movement, historians have often overlooked the great grassroots army of women who also fought to eliminate slavery. Here, Julie Roy Jeffrey explores the involvement of ordinary women--black and white--in the most significant reform movement prior to the Civil War. She offers a complex and compelling portrait of antebellum women's activism, tracing its changing contours over time. For more than three decades, women raised money, carried petitions, created propaganda, sponsored lecture series, circulated newspapers, supported third-party movements, became public lecturers, and assisted fugitive slaves. Indeed, Jeffrey says, theirs was the day-to-day work that helped to keep abolitionism alive. Drawing from letters, diaries, and institutional records, she uses the words of ordinary women to illuminate the meaning of abolitionism in their lives, the rewards and challenges that their commitment provided, and the anguished personal and public steps that abolitionism sometimes demanded they take. Whatever their position on women's rights, argues Jeffrey, their abolitionist activism was a radical step--one that challenged the political and social status quo as well as conventional gender norms.

The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism

The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism PDF Author: Julie Roy Jeffrey
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807866849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book

Book Description
By focusing on male leaders of the abolitionist movement, historians have often overlooked the great grassroots army of women who also fought to eliminate slavery. Here, Julie Roy Jeffrey explores the involvement of ordinary women--black and white--in the most significant reform movement prior to the Civil War. She offers a complex and compelling portrait of antebellum women's activism, tracing its changing contours over time. For more than three decades, women raised money, carried petitions, created propaganda, sponsored lecture series, circulated newspapers, supported third-party movements, became public lecturers, and assisted fugitive slaves. Indeed, Jeffrey says, theirs was the day-to-day work that helped to keep abolitionism alive. Drawing from letters, diaries, and institutional records, she uses the words of ordinary women to illuminate the meaning of abolitionism in their lives, the rewards and challenges that their commitment provided, and the anguished personal and public steps that abolitionism sometimes demanded they take. Whatever their position on women's rights, argues Jeffrey, their abolitionist activism was a radical step--one that challenged the political and social status quo as well as conventional gender norms.

Abolitionists Remember

Abolitionists Remember PDF Author: Julie Roy Jeffrey
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807837288
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In Abolitionists Remember, Julie Roy Jeffrey illuminates a second, little-noted antislavery struggle as abolitionists in the postwar period attempted to counter the nation's growing inclination to forget why the war was fought, what slavery was really like, and why the abolitionist cause was so important. In the rush to mend fences after the Civil War, the memory of the past faded and turned romantic--slaves became quaint, owners kindly, and the war itself a noble struggle for the Union. Jeffrey examines the autobiographical writings of former abolitionists such as Laura Haviland, Frederick Douglass, Parker Pillsbury, and Samuel J. May, revealing that they wrote not only to counter the popular image of themselves as fanatics, but also to remind readers of the harsh reality of slavery and to advocate equal rights for African Americans in an era of growing racism, Jim Crow, and the Ku Klux Klan. These abolitionists, who went to great lengths to get their accounts published, challenged every important point of the reconciliation narrative, trying to salvage the nobility of their work for emancipation and African Americans and defending their own participation in the great events of their day.

The Weston Sisters

The Weston Sisters PDF Author: Lee V. Chambers
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469618184
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The Westons were among the most well-known abolitionists in antebellum Massachusetts, and each of the Weston sisters played an integral role in the family's work. The eldest, Maria Weston Chapman, became one of the antislavery movement's most influential members. In an extensive and original look at the connections among women, domesticity, and progressive political movements, Lee V. Chambers argues that it was the familial cooperation and support between sisters, dubbed "kin-work," that allowed women like the Westons to participate in the political process, marking a major change in women's roles from the domestic to the public sphere. The Weston sisters and abolitionist families like them supported each other in meeting the challenges of sickness, pregnancy, child care, and the myriad household responsibilities that made it difficult for women to engage in and sustain political activities. By repositioning the household and family to a more significant place in the history of American politics, Chambers examines connections between the female critique of slavery and patriarchy, ultimately arguing that it was family ties that drew women into the activism of public life and kept them there.

Black Women Abolitionists

Black Women Abolitionists PDF Author: Shirley J. Yee
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9780870497360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Looks at how the pattern was set for Black female activism in working for abolitionism while confronting both sexism and racism.

Hearts Beating for Liberty

Hearts Beating for Liberty PDF Author: Stacey M. Robertson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807899489
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Challenging traditional histories of abolition, this book shifts the focus away from the East to show how the women of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin helped build a vibrant antislavery movement in the Old Northwest. Stacey Robertson argues that the environment of the Old Northwest--with its own complicated history of slavery and racism--created a uniquely collaborative and flexible approach to abolitionism. Western women helped build this local focus through their unusual and occasionally transgressive activities. They plunged into Liberty Party politics, vociferously supported a Quaker-led boycott of slave goods, and tirelessly aided fugitives and free blacks in their communities. Western women worked closely with male abolitionists, belying the notion of separate spheres that characterized abolitionism in the East. The contested history of race relations in the West also affected the development of abolitionism in the region, necessitating a pragmatic bent in their activities. Female antislavery societies focused on eliminating racist laws, aiding fugitive slaves, and building and sustaining schools for blacks. This approach required that abolitionists of all stripes work together, and women proved especially adept at such cooperation.

The Devotion of These Women

The Devotion of These Women PDF Author: Deborah Bingham Van Broekhoven
Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
This book covers the gamut of antislavery activism from a local perspective and it does so from the perspective of women, who have been underrepresented throughout abolitionist history.

Women's Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation

Women's Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation PDF Author: Kathryn Kish Sklar
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300137869
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Approaching a wide range of transnational topics, the editors ask how conceptions of slavery & gendered society differed in the United States, France, Germany, & Britain.

An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism

An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism PDF Author: Catharine Esther Beecher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Abolitionists
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Although Beecher takes issue with the call for women's active involvement in the abolition movement, her discussion reveals the inter-relationship between 19th century abolitionism and 19th century feminism.

The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861

The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861 PDF Author: Stanley Harrold
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813148243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Within the American antislavery movement, abolitionists were distinct from others in the movement in advocating, on the basis of moral principle, the immediate emancipation of slaves and equal rights for black people. Instead of focusing on the "immediatists" as products of northern culture, as many previous historians have done, Stanley Harrold examines their involvement with antislavery action in the South--particularly in the region that bordered the free states. How, he asks, did antislavery action in the South help shape abolitionist beliefs and policies in the period leading up to the Civil War? Harrold explores the interaction of northern abolitionist, southern white emancipators, and southern black liberators in fostering a continuing antislavery focus on the South, and integrates southern antislavery action into an understanding of abolitionist reform culture. He discusses the impact of abolitionist missionaries, who preached an antislavery gospel to the enslaved as well as to the free. Harrold also offers an assessment of the impact of such activities on the coming of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Radical Friend

Radical Friend PDF Author: Nancy A. Hewitt
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469640333
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
A pillar of radical activism in nineteenth-century America, Amy Kirby Post (1802–89) participated in a wide range of movements and labored tirelessly to orchestrate ties between issues, causes, and activists. A conductor on the Underground Railroad, co-organizer of the 1848 Rochester Woman's Rights Convention, and a key figure in progressive Quaker, antislavery, feminist, and spiritualist communities, Post sustained movements locally, regionally, and nationally over many decades. But more than simply telling the story of her role as a local leader or a bridge between local and national arenas of activism, Nancy A. Hewitt argues that Post's radical vision offers a critical perspective on current conceptualizations of social activism in the nineteenth century. While some individual radicals in this period have received contemporary attention—most notably William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Lucretia Mott (all of whom were friends of Post)—the existence of an extensive network of radical activists bound together across eight decades by ties of family, friendship, and faith has been largely ignored. In this in-depth biography of Post, Hewitt demonstrates a vibrant radical tradition of social justice that sought to transform the nation.