PLACARD A
William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)
William Lloyd Garrison was an American journalist and
reformer who became famous in the 1830's for his condemnation
of slavery. Before his time, abolitionists (a person in the United
States before the Civil war who favored ending slavery) had made
reasonable appeals to slaveholders and legislators on behalf of
slaves, and hoped that slavery would gradually and eventually
disappear. Garrison said slavery ought to end "immediately,"
and criticized all who did not agree with him.
In 1831, Garrison began publishing an abolitionist’s newspaper
called The Liberator in Boston. This newspaper had a small
circulation, but it was influential and at times aroused violent
public reaction. Garrison continued to issue the paper until
1865, when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ended
slavery.
www.yahoo.com/search/williamlloydgarrison
In 1832, Garrison formed the first society for the immediate
abolition of slavery. In 1835, Garrison's life was endangered by
a mob in Boston. Garrison believed that the Northern states
ought to separate from the South. He refused to vote and
opposed the United States government because it allowed
slavery. He eventually approved of Abraham Lincoln and
supported his Administration during the Civil War.
www.yahoo.com/search/theliberator
PLACARD B
Dorothea Dix, 1802-1887
www.yahoo.com/search/dorotheadix
Dorothea Dix was a woman who accomplished much in her life.
She was a teacher and, then a social reformer for the treatment of
the mentally ill.
At the age of thirty-nine she began a change in the United States
with mental institutions. By the time she was fifty-four she covered
half of the United States and Europe inspecting institutions for
mistreatment of mentally ill patients. She played a major role in
founding 32 mental hospitals, 15 schools for the frail minded, and a
school for the blind and training facilities for nurses. Her efforts
were an indirect inspiration for the building of many additional
institutions for the mentally ill. She was also instrumental in
establishing libraries in prisons, mental hospitals and other
institutions.
Her achievements sparked immediate response, and are still being
felt today in the way mental patients are treated. This one woman
accomplished much for humanity during her lifespan.
“In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that
there must be something for me to do.”
- Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix
Hospital ~
Raleigh, North
Carolina
www.yahoo.com/search/dorotheadix/hospital
5
PLACARD C
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, 1811- 1896
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe is the famous author of the best-selling
anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. This novel increased northern
feelings against slavery in the United States and is considered one of the
causes of the American Civil War.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was the first book by an American author to have as its
hero an African American, Uncle Tom. His character portrays a saintly
slave of a good-hearted family in the Upper South. Debts force the family
to sell him downriver, where for two years he lives with another kindly
master. After this man's accidental death, Tom passes into the hands of
the novel's villain, Simon Léger, who beats him to death. In the novel,
Stowe attacks the institution of slavery rather than white Southerners,
who for the most part are presented as well meaning; the evil Simon
Léger is a transplanted (relocated) Northerner.
Sentimental and realistic, Uncle Tom's Cabin appealed strongly to 19thcentury readers. Because the book presented the horrors of slavery in
vivid human terms, it had a powerful impact. President Abraham Lincoln
only slightly exaggerated when upon meeting Stowe in 1863, he said, "So
you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this big war." While
fueling antislavery sentiment in the North, the book infuriated
Southerners, who charged that Stowe knew nothing about plantation life
and grossly misrepresented it. In response to her critics, Stowe published
A Key to Uncle Tom (1853), a nonfiction work containing documentary
evidence that supported her indictment of slavery in the novel. Also in
1853, Stowe and her husband visited England, where she was warmly
received.
www.yahoo.com/search/harrietbeecherstowe
Adopted: Harriet Beecher Stowe." American History. 2008. ABC-CLIO. 15 Feb. 2008
<http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com
"
www.yahoo.com/search/uncletomscabin
PLACARD D
Harriet Tubman, 1820-1913
Harriet Tubman is the most well known of all the Underground
Railroad's "conductors" who became known as "Moses." During a ten-year
period she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to
freedom. She once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass; in all of her
journeys she "never lost a single passenger."
Tubman had made the dangerous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860,
including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70year-old parents.
Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I
know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve
our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a
nurse, and
a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she spent
the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.
www.yahoo.com/search/harriettubman
www.yahoo.com
PLACARD E
Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895
Frederick Douglass was one of the leaders of the abolitionist movement,
which fought to end slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War.
Born a slave in Maryland in February 1818, he eventually escaped from
slavery, moved to the North and became a spokesman for the abolitionist
cause.
A brilliant speaker, Douglass was asked by the American Anti-Slavery
Society to engage in a tour of lectures. He became recognized as one of
America's first great black speakers. He won world fame when his
autobiography was publicized in 1845. Two years later he began
publishing an antislavery paper called the North Star.
Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the
Civil War and fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that
guaranteed voting rights and other civil liberties for blacks. Douglass
provided a powerful voice for human rights during this period of American
history and is still well regarded today for his contributions against racial
injustice.
www.yahoo.com/search/frederickdouglass
The North Star, anti-slavery newspaper,
published by Frederick Douglass
www.yahoo.com/search/northstar
PLACARD F
Angelina Emily Grimke Weld, 1806-1879
Crusaders for Abolition and Women's Rights
If these two South Carolinians were judged only on their
portraits (left), they might be known as the Grim, rather
than the Grimke Sisters. They had kind hearts and
determined spirits, which they exercised in their dual fight
for the abolition of slavery and the increase in rights for
women. The sisters moved north and became Quakers in
the 1820s.
www.yahoo.com/search/grimkesisters
When Angelina wrote "An Appeal the Christian Women of the
South," an anti-slavery pamphlet, southern postmasters
destroyed them as they came though the mail, and warned
the sisters not to return to the south. Sarah, married a black
man, and became heavily involved in the women's rights
movement. The sisters eventually took on religion when the
General Association of Congregational Ministers of
Massachusetts strongly objected to women preachers and
reformers in 1837. The Grimke’s are remembered as
trailblazers for women and people of color in the United
States.
www.yahoo.com
Although born in the South, the Grimke sisters
fought to abolish slavery.
PLACARD G
Sojourner Truth, 1797-1883
Sojourner Truth was born as Isabella Baumfree. Her parents James and
Elizabeth were slaves of a wealthy man from Holland who lived in upstate New
York. Sojourner had many different masters as a young child. When she was a
teenager she was sold to John J. Dumont. Mr. Dumont made Sojourner marry
another slave, named Thomas and together they had five children. He was a
cruel man, and sold away some of their children.
In 1827, Sojourner escaped from Dumont and was taken in by a Quaker family.
With this family’s help, she won a lawsuit to have her son Peter retuned to her.
She was freed in 1828 under the New York State Anti-Slavery Act.
Sojourner was a tall woman with a powerful voice. Standing six feet tall, she
towered over most men and women. She was an excellent speaker. No matter
where she spoke, crowds gathered to listen. She spoke for women’s rights and
the abolition of slavery. She believed that women could do any job just as well
as any man. Men often challenged her. Some people believed that she was really
a man dressed up like a woman. To prove the doubters wrong, Sojourner
opened her blouse and showed her breasts to everybody at a meeting.
www.yahoo.com/search/sojournertruth
In 1843 Sojourner said that God told her to change her name from Isabella to
Sojourner Truth, leave the city of New York to travel throughout the country
spreading the truth about slavery, life for African Americans and women.
During the Civil War, she traveled to Washington D.C., where she preached
in order to make money for black soldiers serving in the Union army. After
the war, Sojourner settled in Washington and continued to preach about
women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. Sojourner Truth died on
November 26, 1883, in Battle Cree Michigan.
www.yahoo.com/search/sojournertruth
PLACARD H
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1815-1902
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the first leaders of the American woman's rights
movement. She was an excellent writer and speaker; along with Susan B. Anthony,
they formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 and worked
together to secure voting rights for women. Throughout her life, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton was a spokesperson for the rights of women.
In 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton attended the World Antislavery Convention in
London with Lucretia Mott, another outspoken Quaker abolitionist (someone who
opposed slavery), and other women representatives. She believed that the laws that
treated women differently than men needed to be changed. Stanton drafted a
"Declaration of Rights and Sentiments," which she modeled after the Declaration of
Independence. In the document, she called for moral, economic, and political equality
for women. In 1848, she presented the document at the Seneca Falls Convention in
New York, a convention that focused on obtaining rights for women.
www.yahoo.com/search/elizabethcadystanton
“…We are assembled to protest against a form of government existing without the consent
of the governed -- to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the
government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the
power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property
which she inherits, and, in case of separation, the children of her love; laws which make her
the mere dependent on his bounty. It is to protest against such unjust laws as these that we
are assembled today, and to have them, if possible, forever erased from our statute books,
deeming them a shame and a disgrace to a Christian republic in the nineteenth century.”
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, First Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, New
York,1848
www.yahoo.com
PLACARD I
Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906
Susan B. Anthony was born February 15th, 1820 in Adams
Massachusetts. She was brought up in a Quaker family with
long protesting traditions. Early in her life she developed a
sense of justice and moral eagerness.
After teaching for fifteen years, she became active in the
temperance movement (control of alcohol consumption).
Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at
temperance rallies. This experience, along with her
inspiring acquaintance with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led her
to join the women's rights movement in 1852. Soon after
that she dedicated her life to women’ suffrage (right to
vote).
Ignoring the opposition and abuse, Anthony traveled,
lectured and drummed up support across the nation for the
right to vote. She also campaigned for the abolition of
slavery, women's rights to their own property and earnings,
and women's labor organizations. In 1900, Anthony
persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women.
Anthony never married, she was aggressive and
compassionate by nature. She had a brilliant, enthusiastic
mind and possessed a great ability to inspire others. She
remained active until her death on March 13, 1906.
www.yahoo.com/search/anthony
Abolition and Women’s Right Movement
Directions: As you read each placard, record the following information requested below.
Placard
Letter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
Reformer(s)
Movement(s)
Associated
Accomplishments
of Reformer(s)
Why did their
efforts matter?
(Effects)