A four-week seminar for sixteen school teachers to examine the abolitionist movement from the time of the American Revolution to the aftermath of the Civil War.
Project director Richard Newman (history, Rochester Institute of Technology) leads a project on the development of American abolitionism. During the first week, the seminar covers moderate strategies for gradual emancipation in the years following the American Revolution; the second week looks at the role of African-American abolitionists, such as James Forten, David Walker, and David Ruggles. The third week deals with the radicalization of abolitionism in the decades before the Civil War, the rise of abolitionist political parties, debates over the uses of violence, and the expanding participation of women reformers. In the final week, participants investigate the role of abolitionists during the Civil War era, including emancipation in the South, struggles for racial justice in the North, and precedents for the modern Civil Rights movement. The program includes seminar sessions, primary source discussions, site visits in Philadelphia and Gettysburg, and teacher presentations on specific historical sources. The readings are drawn from a large list of primary sources, including documents housed at the Library Company of Philadelphia and the neighboring Historical Society of Pennsylvania, as well as from writings by such leading historians as Gary Nash, John Stauffer, Patrick Rael, Ira Berlin, and Steven Hahn, among others. Four outside historians visit the seminar: Maurice Jackson (Georgetown University), Erica Armstrong Dunbar (University of Delaware), Elizabeth Varon (University of Virginia), and James Oakes (City University of New York Graduate Center).