"A Picture of Slavery for Youth": Creating Young Abolitionists

Description Moderator: Dorothy J. Berry, Digital Collections Program Manager, Houghton Library, Harvard University Object: The Houghton Library copy of A Picture of Slavery, For Youth by Jonathan Walker. Boston: J. Walker and W.R. Bliss, [184-?].
This roundtable will explore the creation and propagation of abolitionist material directed at children, through the copy of Jonathan Walker’s A Picture of Slavery for Youth donated to Harvard University by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. The 1840s were a time of heavy abolitionist publishing, with directed entreaties to specific religious groups, to businesspeople, to upper-class women, and perhaps most surprisingly, to children. By exploring this text through ethno-bibliographical and socio-historical lenses, we will work to gain a clearer understanding of the ways that juvenile abolitionist texts played a role in shaping the cause of freedom. Participants will respond to questions contextualizing the world of abolitionist publications for children and how design and textual decisions were made with the goal of moral inculcation.
Panelists: Krystal Appiah, Instruction Librarian, Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Jesse Erickson, Assistant Professor, Department of English & Coordinator of Special Collections and Digital Humanities, University of Delaware Deborah De Rosa, Associate Professor of English, Northern Illinois University

AudiencesGraduates, Professionals, Scholars, Undergraduates