The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism
Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement
Julie Roy Jeffrey
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 11/2000
Pages: 328
Subject: History, Political Science, Social Science
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807866849
DESCRIPTION
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.