Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-77). Also available via the Internet from the Humboldt eScholar web site.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1943. / Published also as: Studies in history, economics and public law / ed. by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University ; no. 508. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-172).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1991. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 435-455).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This essay reconstructs the unexplored history of a group of women who claimed a place for themselves in the male-dominated public sphere of Toronto in the early 1850s. The history of these women, who took a public stand on the issues of slavery, abolition and the fugitives escaping to Canada, does not fit seamlessly into the history of the struggle for women's rights nor the history of women's philanthropy. While the anti-slavery women engaged in some of the same activities as these better-known subjects of women's history, they brought a distinctive set of social and political concerns to their activism. Troubled by the influx of destitute fugitive slaves arriving in Canada from the United States, the potential extension of slavery on the North American continent, and the implications these developments could have for the free Christian nation they were building in Canada, these women took advantage of the public sphere to voice and act on their concerns about the moral progress of society, especially in their city. They constructed a distinctly feminine political culture that represented themselves and their activities as conforming to the canons of femininity and domesticity, while it enabled the women to secure access and influence for themselves - albeit limited access and influence - in the public sphere. With aspirations to influence public opinion, but without formal positions of authority in the public sphere, these women called upon the moral authority that nineteenth century society ascribed to women to underwrite their public activities. Feminine moral authority affirmed the righteousness of the values and beliefs that underlay their public activities, and it justified their attempts to persuade others to espouse similar beliefs. It was the foundation upon which these women tried to build a collective political culture and speak on behalf of all Canadian women in the public sphere. Construed as gender-specific, this moral authority rested, however, not only on the distinction of gender, but also on a combination of social attributes and cultural distinctions that included the distinction of race. While there is no doubt that positions of authority in the public sphere of mid-nineteenth century Toronto were dominated by white men, the inroads the women achieved and the roadblocks they confronted suggest that the public sphere was undergoing considerable change in the early 1850s. To be sure, their attempts to influence the formation of public opinion were indicative of larger social and political changes underway in Canadian society — changes that historians have only begun to consider. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation asks how the British anti-slave-trade movement permeated musical culture of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and how musical activities, in turn, were used to support the cause. It examines a group of newly discovered musical scores—described here as “serious antislavery songs”—that were published in the years between the founding of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1787) and the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Highlighting the inclusion of such scores in extant personal music collections of contemporary British women, the study explores both who used the scores and how they used them. The dissertation thus paints a detailed picture of musical abolitionism and argues that composing, collecting, practicing, and performing serious antislavery songs enabled female amateur musicians to promote opposition to human trafficking from their homes. The study joins close readings of ideas—found in letters, poems, and musical content—with analyses of activities, such as private musical practice and polite shopping. The first chapter discusses the music of Ignatius Sancho, who died before the start of widespread mobilization against the slave trade but who nevertheless used his music to make a powerful, if subtle, antislavery statement. The second chapter moves to the beginning of the British abolition movement, examining two politically charged poems written in 1788 that became popular songs among female amateur musicians. The next three chapters explore the varied ways that these women incorporated serious antislavery songs into their everyday lives. Chapter 3 maps out the London musical marketplace for scores where women could purchase a variety of songs, including abolitionist and anti-abolitionist songs alike. The fourth chapter explores the activity of music-making and argues that practicing from musical scores and singing through them among friends was a form of conversation. It therefore introduces the term “sociable abolitionism,” of which “musical abolitionism” was one key component. Finally, Chapter 5 uses extant music collections that were once owned by British women to unpack the ethical tensions involved in white Britons’ practice of singing serious, sympathetic songs whose lyrics were written from the imagined perspective of enslaved Africans. The chapter argues that singing these songs was a kind of “musical masquerade”—one where singers could indulge in identity play while encouraging abolitionism from their listeners. The dissertation addresses a major gap in the literature on abolitionism: while literary, theatrical, and visual contributions to the movement have been received ample scholarly treatment, musical scores have remained virtually absent from discussions of antislavery activism. Scores are presented here as key sources for understanding the ways women enacted their opposition to human trafficking and bondage. Problematic but politically useful, scores incorporated easily into the activities of British women’s everyday lives and contributed to the widespread culture of abolitionism.

No description available.

The abolitionists were a community of wordsmiths whose political movement took shape in a sea of printed and handwritten words. These words enabled opponents of slavery in the nineteenth-century United States to exert political power, even though many of them were excluded from mainstream politics. Women and most African Americans could not vote, and they faced violent reprisals for speaking publicly. White men involved in the antislavery cause frequently spurned party politics, using writing as a key site of political engagement. Reading and writing allowed people from different backgrounds to see themselves as part of a political collective against slavery. “The Politics of Correspondence” examines how abolitionists harnessed the power of the written word to further their political aims, arguing that letter writing enabled a disparate and politically marginal assortment of people to take shape as a coherent and powerful movement. “The Politics of Correspondence” expands the definition of politics, demonstrating that private correspondence, not just public action, can be a significant form of political participation. The antislavery movement’s body of shared political ideas and principles emerged out of contest and debate carried on largely through the exchange of letters. People on the political fringes and disfranchised persons, especially African Americans and women, harnessed the medium of letters to assert themselves as legitimate political agents, claiming entitlements hitherto denied them. In doing so, they contested the presumed boundaries of the body politic and played key roles in advancing demands for immediate emancipation, civil rights, and equality to the forefront of national political discussions. “The Politics of Correspondence” argues that correspondence was a flexible medium that abolitionists used throughout this period in efforts to both shape and respond to the changing conditions of national politics. A vast and dispersed archive documents the antislavery movement and serves as the basis of research for the dissertation. Scholars of antislavery have used the extensive manuscript collections of prominent abolitionists and print archives of antislavery newspapers, pamphlets, and circulars to investigate the movement’s ideas and organization. But this is the first project to focus on letter writing itself and its role in the movement. Rather than view letters as transparent windows into the past, “The Politics of Correspondence” examines them as tools that ordinary people and unexpected political agents used to advance the antislavery cause. Abolitionists relied upon conventions associated with handwritten letters, which they creatively manipulated to achieve political ends. Writing a letter was an act of composition that involved self-reflection, imagined discussion, and staking a claim to one’s beliefs. Correspondents drew upon shared cultural understandings, ranging from the anonymity of the postal system to the sense of physical intimacy associated with handwritten letters. They inventively employed these understandings to make political statements that simultaneously relied upon and subverted letter-writing conventions.

"The Science of Antislavery" explores the critical though rarely studied role scientists played in the early antislavery movement. It argues that scientists not only helped legitimize abolitionism but also helped create the myth that slavery was a backward institution. During the Age of Revolution (1770-1830), when antislavery societies first took root, abolitionism attracted many scientific supporters. Though their refutations of scientific racism are perhaps better known, they also made many arguments that went beyond race. Chemists argued that new chemical techniques would fertilize the soil more effectively, which would in turn reduce the need for slave labor. Botanists touted the natural environments of new British colonies in Africa and Southeast Asia, contending that they would make ideal free labor alternatives to Caribbean plantations. Geologists argued that the western American frontier, with its unique mineral deposits, was best suited to free white agricultural settlements rather than slavery’s expansion. Even by the 1830s, when the movement was taken over by a more radical, less elite multiracial coalition, scientific arguments continued to influence antislavery arguments. From the 1830s until the Civil War, antislavery supporters on both sides of the Atlantic argued that slaveholders’ alleged refusal to adopt new machinery was evidence of their backwardness. Today, as a new generation of historians demonstrate how modern slavery in fact was, The Science of Antislavery shows how the idea that it was somehow never modern came into being.