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 Here

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: 0807832081
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
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. --from publisher description

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: 0807899488
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 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.

Free Hearts and Free Homes

Free Hearts and Free Homes PDF Author: Michael D. Pierson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807854556
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
By exploring the intersection of gender and politics in the antebellum North, Michael Pierson examines how antislavery political parties capitalized on the emerging family practices and ideologies that accompanied the market revolution. From the birth

The Transformation of American Abolitionism

The Transformation of American Abolitionism PDF Author: Richard S. Newman
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807849989
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Newman traces the abolition movement's transformation from the American Revolution to 1830, showing how what began in late-18th-century Pennsylvania as an elite movement espousing gradual legal reform had by the 1830s become a radical, egalitarian mass movement based in Massachusetts.

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.

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.

Midnight Rising

Midnight Rising PDF Author: Tony Horwitz
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1429996986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 A Library Journal Top Ten Best Books of 2011 A Boston Globe Best Nonfiction Book of 2011 Bestselling author Tony Horwitz tells the electrifying tale of the daring insurrection that put America on the path to bloody war Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising portrays Brown's uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict. Brown, the descendant of New England Puritans, saw slavery as a sin against America's founding principles. Unlike most abolitionists, he was willing to take up arms, and in 1859 he prepared for battle at a hideout in Maryland, joined by his teenage daughter, three of his sons, and a guerrilla band that included former slaves and a dashing spy. On October 17, the raiders seized Harpers Ferry, stunning the nation and prompting a counterattack led by Robert E. Lee. After Brown's capture, his defiant eloquence galvanized the North and appalled the South, which considered Brown a terrorist. The raid also helped elect Abraham Lincoln, who later began to fulfill Brown's dream with the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure he called "a John Brown raid, on a gigantic scale." Tony Horwitz's riveting book travels antebellum America to deliver both a taut historical drama and a telling portrait of a nation divided—a time that still resonates in ours.