Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (1802-1880) The right way the safe way, proved by emancipation in the British West Indies, and elsewhere.

High-resolution images are available to schools and libraries via subscription to American History, 1493-1943. Check to see if your school or library already has a subscription. Or click here for more information. You may also order a pdf of the image from us here.

Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC06219 Author/Creator: Child, Lydia Maria Francis (1802-1880) Place Written: New York, New York Type: Book Date: 1862 Pagination: 1 v. : 108 p. ; 19 x 12.1 cm. Order a Copy

Regarding emancipation, Child writes, "Leaving the obvious considerations of justice and humanity entirely out of the question, I ask whether experience has not proved it to be a measure of plain, practical good sense, and sound policy... Free labor has so obviously the advantage, in all respects, over slave labor, that posterity will marvel to find in the history of the nineteenth century any record of a system so barbarous, so clumsy, and so wasteful." Third edition, bound with string, which is broken.

Child, Lydia Maria Francis, 1802-1880

Citation Guidelines for Online Resources