Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 70,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World to soldiers’ letters from World War II and Vietnam. Explore primary sources, visit exhibitions in person or online, or bring your class on a field trip.

Reform Movement

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Showing results 201 - 225

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10 February 1846

Blanchard, Jonathan (1811-1892)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Homer H. Stuart

Blanchard discusses living the Christian life. He focuses on how worldly suffering brings you closer to salvation, because it is partaking in Christ's suffering. Last page of a longer letter.

GLC05508.040

20 February 1846

Garrison, William Lloyd (1805-1879)

Newspaper

Title: The Liberator. [Vol. 16, no. 8, whole no. 789 (February 20, 1846)]

Contains an article on "The Grand Inquest, or Condemning Unheard. Twelve Short Chapters in Maryland Legislation," among miscellaneous other reports. Garrison serves as editor, James Brown Yerrinton as printer, and Henry W. Williams as general agent.

GLC08875.59

7 May 1846

Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874)

Printed letter

Title: To the Liberty Party

Discusses the Liberty Party's objectives, including the foremost goal of overthrowing slavery. Analyzes modification and expansion of party objectives, regarding issues such as banks, tariffs, and association with slaveholders.

GLC04717.30

15 September 1846

Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874)

Printed letter

Title: To the Liberty Party of the County of Madison

Offers encouraging words to the Liberty Party following the recent Canastota Convention: "The New-York State Liberty Car is again upon the track."

GLC04717.31

16 November 1846

Brown, Neill (fl. 1846)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to a cousin

[Slavery] From Cleveland, Ohio to a cousin in North Carolina: "I am here surrounded by abolitionists, yea in the very hot bed of this class of people.… Three weeks since there was a negroe woman who said she was a fugitive slave from Mississippi, got up in the pulpit of one of the churches here and related her suffering while in slavery, more than three fourths of what she said of the usage or treatment of slave in the south I know to be false.

GLC09373

1847

Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874)

Pamphlet

Title: Letter of Gerrit Smith to S.P. Chase, on the unconstitutionality of every part of American slavery

Published by S. W. Green, Patriot Office. Letter was written at Peterboro, New York 1 November 1847. Chase recently disagreed with Smith's resolution at the National Convention of the Liberty party that slavery is unconstitutional. Argues that the Constitution "enjoins the abolition of every part of American slavery."

GLC04717.01

1847

Bushnell, Horace (1802-1876)

Pamphlet

Title: Barbarism the first danger. A discourse for home missions.

Claims that slavery has diminished southern society. Printed for the American Home Missionary Society, by William Osborn in New York. Bushnell was the pastor of the North Church in Hartford, Connecticut.

GLC00267.081

1847

Sumner, Charles (1811-1874)

Pamphlet

Title: Mr. Sumner's Lecture on White Slavery in the Barbary States.

Sumner's lecture given before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, 17 February 1847. Published by William D. Ticknor and Company. Printed in Cambridge by Metcalf and Company, printers to the University. Inscribed on the original orange cover to the editor of the Daily Bee from the publisher.

GLC02095.19

19 February 1847

New Hampshire. Senate.

Pamphlet

Title: Resolutions of the Legislature of New Hampshire in relation to slavery and the domestic slave trade.

29th Congress, 2d session, document no. 155. Opposes slavery in the territories, favors abolition in the District of Columbia and abolition of the domestic slave trade. Signed in print by John P. Hale as Speaker of the House, James U. Parker as President of the Senate, Anthony Colby as Governor, and George G. Fogg as Secretary of State. Approved 10 July 1846.

GLC00267.037

circa 27 April 1847

May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph) (1797-1871)

Autograph letter signed

Title: [to David P.Harmon]

Writes that he would like to arrange a meeting for "our friend P[arker] Pillsbury" and Lucy Stone at the town of Haverhill, Massachusetts on Sunday, 2 May. Asks that Harmon make arrangements to secure the availability of the town hall for the meeting.

GLC06143.06

26 June 1847

Birney, James Gillespie (1792-1857)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Joshua Leavitt

Birney, an abolitionist, writes to Leavitt, a reformer and minister in Boston. Has been asked to write columns for the Herald, a newspaper, and is allowed by the editor to freely express his opinions. Notes that Dr. Bailey (possibly Gamaliel Bailey) will not agree with what he has written. Writes, "I have but little faith in the constancy of some who stand prominent in this vicinity as abolitionists. I would not be surprised if some went off to the Democratic party before long." Remarks that Mr.

GLC02448.02

23 August 1847

Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874)

Printed letter

Title: To the Editors of the Emancipator, Boston

Discusses an extract of a letter he wrote in 1843 printed in a recent issue of the Emancipator. Pertains to Smith's views of the Liberty Party.

GLC04717.13

4 December 1847

Garrison, William Lloyd (1805-1879)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Joseph Ricketson

Accepts Ricketson's invitation to lecture before the New Bedford Lyceum, if his health permits. Exclaims, "Would that U could be an attendant at your anti-slavery meetings, to be held to-day and to-morrow in your place!" Notes that his friend, the bearer of this note, H. C. Wright (possibly Henry C. Wright) will be at the meetings.

GLC02448.06

1847-1874

Sumner, Charles (1811-1874)

Header Record

Title: Collection of signed materials, pamphlets and Civil War-related items of Charles Sumner [Decimalized .01 - .41]

Collection of signed materials, books, letters and documents related to the coming of the war, Sumner's career and Reconstruction. Includes: 17 ALSs (30 p.) 1847-1874, 6 AQS on themes of liberty and equal rights, 3 cartes de visite (2 signed), 2 signed checks, clipped signature of Preston Brooks, and 5 major books/pamphlets. Also includes a full set of the Complete Works of Charles Sumner, published by the Negro University Press, located with reference books. Two black and white bust engravings of Sumner included.

GLC02095

circa 1847-1878

Phillips, Wendell (1811-1884)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Dr. Howe

Phillips indicates that he has consigned Howe's excellent letter to George Thompson, M.P., who will put it "into the night train to reach as many English eyes as possible." Thompson was elected a member of Parliament in 1847 for the Tower Hamlets. Dr. Howe is possibly Samuel Gridley Howe.

GLC03998.02

6 June 1883

Phillips, Wendell (1811-1884)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Mr. Kip

Declines an invitation from H. G. Chapman to attend the Hemenway Gymnasium on class day.

GLC03998.04

18 April 1860

Phillips, Wendell (1811-1884)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Oliver Johnson

Requests Johnson to mail him a copy of the "Independent" containing Beecher's speech at Cooper Institute on women's rights.

GLC03998.03

1848

Pamphlet

Title: The Black Code of the District of Columbia in Force September 1st, 1848

A compendium of the laws for slaves in Washington DC, The Black Code of the District of Columbia in Force September 1st, 1848, printed in New York by the Anti-Slavery Society.

GLC09401

7 February 1848

Tathan, Benjamin (fl. 1848)

Printed document

Title: [Circular]

A New York Quakers Circular offering an alternative to goods made from slave labor: "The Managers of the Free Produce Association of Friends, of New York Yearly Meeting, have the satisfaction of stating, that a store has been opened for the sale of articles exclusively the result of Free Labor."

GLC09300

15 March 1848

May, Samuel J. (Samuel Joseph) (1797-1871)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to David P. Harmon

Informs Harmon that William W. Brown will be attending a meeting in Haverhill. Asks that Harmon publicize Mr. Brown's appearance and find a suitable place for him to give his lecture.

GLC06143.08

18 March 1848

Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874)

Printed letter

Title: Letter of Gerrit Smith, to the Liberty Party of New-Hampshire

Criticizes the Liberty Party of New Hampshire for voting for slaveholders. Encourages the state to reconstruct a "true" liberty party, "a Party, which will sooner perish than vote for a proslavery man- and a Party, too, which will practically recognize the doctrine of the equal rights of all men."

GLC04717.32

22 March 1848

Parker, Theodore (1810-1860)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Signore Mancinelli

Hopes that Mancinelli remembers him. Writes to introduce Dr. Loring, who is visiting Rome. Congratulates Mancinelli "on having so noble a Pope. Protestants as we are, we will all shout, Viva Papa Pio IX." Supposes that Mancinelli knows his American acquaintances now in Rome, including Mr. Cranch, Mr. Story, and Margaret Fuller. Pius IX ruled from 1846 to 1878. Loring is possibly George Bailey Loring, M.D.

GLC02509.08

10 June 1848

Brown, John (1800-1859)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Simon Perkins

Discusses his wool business. "Burlington" continues to make excuses for not paying, while at the same time pleading for wool to be sent to him. Burlington Mills Manufacturing Company in Vermont was one of Brown's clients in the wool business.

GLC00106

15 July 1848

Duley, Mary (b. 1811)

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Lloyd Duley

Writes to her siblings about a birth, her family's health, the abundance of rain, and local deaths and marriages. Notes a meeting of the "suns of Temperance." Hopes they will visit. Mentions she has "got the headache very bad." Sent to Lloyd but meant for "dear brothers and sisters." Signs Mary Ann Wood. There are some unrelated calculations in pencil on the address leaf.

GLC06377.03

15 August 1848

Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874)

Printed letter

Title: To J. K. Ingalls, editor of the Landmark, New-York

Smith writes, "I hardly need say, that I am deeply interested in the present movement against the extension of slavery; and that I infinitely prefer the election of the candidates, who are identified with it, to the election of the Whig and Democratic candidates. Gen. Taylor and Gen. Cass are proslavery candidates. Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Adams are antislavery candidates. The former are the shameless tools of the slave-power. The latter bravely resist it."

GLC04717.14

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