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.

[Constitution for the "Westfield Free Produce association of friends"]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09382.02 Author/Creator: Place Written: Westfield, Indiana Type: Manuscript document Date: circa 1840-1842 Pagination: 2 p. Order a Copy

The constitution for the "Westfield Free Produce association of friends," to boycott slave- produced goods for three years. Begins: "We believe that slaveholding is diametrically opposite to the whole spirit and tenor of the christian religion; and that while it sustains that traffic in slaves, it is mainly supported by the traffic in & the consumption of the production, of slave labor. In order, therefore, to promote the use and facilitate the acquirement of goods supplied by free labor, we unite in an association…"

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