The Color Of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet, and a Contessa Moved a Nation

by Linda Hirshman

Overview

The story of the fascinating, fraught alliance among Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Maria Weston Chapman—and how its breakup led to the success of America’s most important social movement.

“Fresh, provocative and engrossing.” —New York Times

In the crucial early years of the Abolition movement, the Boston branch of the cause seized upon the star power of the eloquent ex-slave Frederick Douglass to make its case for slaves’ freedom. Journalist William Lloyd Garrison promoted emancipation while Garrison loyalist Maria Weston Chapman, known as “the Contessa,” raised money and managed Douglass’s speaking tour from her Boston townhouse.

Conventional histories have seen Douglass’s departure for the New York wing of the Abolition party as a result of a rift between Douglass and Garrison. But, as acclaimed historian Linda Hirshman reveals, this completely misses the woman in power. Weston Chapman wrote cutting letters to Douglass, doubting his loyalty; the Bostonian abolitionists were shot through with racist prejudice, even aiming the N-word at Douglass among themselves. Through incisive, original analysis, Hirshman convinces that the inevitable breakup was in fact a successful failure. Eventually, as the most sought-after Black activist in America, Douglass was able to dangle the prize of his endorsement over the Republican Party’s candidate for president, Abraham Lincoln. Two years later the abolition of slavery—if not the abolition of racism—became immutable law.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328900241
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/08/2022
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	788,561
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

LINDA HIRSHMAN is the author of Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment, and of the New York Times best-selling Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Introduction: Meeting on Nantucket xiii

Part I Allies Arise

1 Printer Garrison Learns His Trade 3

2 Manager Weston Chapman Comes of Age 21

3 Garrison Will Be Heard 26

4 The Enslaved Write Their History 31

5 Frederick Douglass's History in Slavery 37

6 Frederick Douglass's Escape 43

Part II Abolition Takes Root

7 David Walker Appeals and Garrison Hears 51

8 Starting the Black and White Antislavery Societies 63

9 A National Movement Emerges 71

10 The Liberator Will Be Read 78

11 Maria Weston Chapman Takes the Reins 82

12 Antislavery on the March 95

13 Moral Garrison Splits with the Politicos 102

Part III The Grand Alliance at Work

14 Douglass Joins Garrison 115

15 The Façade and the Cracks in the Alliance 129

16 Political Abolition Pulls on Garrisonians 137

17 The Cracks Widen 148

18 Douglass Writes and Garrison Publishes 162

19 Frederick Douglass, International Superstar and Publisher 170

Part IV Douglass to the Political Side

20 Slave Power Rises and Abolition Power Rises 211

21 The Private Lives of Public Activists 224

22 Compromise Makes Conflict Worse 231

23 Douglass Recruits the Constitution 240

Part V Douglass and Garrison Divide

24 The Political Divorce 255

25 The Personal Divorce 260

Epilogue: Three Meetings and a Funeral 269

Acknowledgments 278

A Note on Sources 279

Notes 281

Index 315

Editorial Reviews

11/29/2021

Historian and former labor lawyer Hirshman (Reckoning) focuses this informative look at the 19th-century antislavery movement on the relationship between Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Publisher of the abolitionist newspaper the Liberator and founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, Garrison and his followers called for immediate freedom for enslaved people and refused to work with any political or religious institution that didn’t reject slavery. Douglass was one of the most sought-after speakers and writers associated with Garrison’s network of antislavery societies until 1853, when he broke with the group to join the more politically focused American Anti-Slavery Society. Hirshman traces the roots of the fallout to Maria Weston Chapman, a wealthy activist who organized fund-raising bazaars and petition campaigns for Garrison and ran the Liberator in his absences. According to Hirshman, it was Weston Chapman’s “casual racism” and attempts to micromanage Douglass, coupled with his doubts about the effectiveness of Garrison’s policy of “nonpolitical nonresistance,” that led to the break, a realignment of the antislavery movement that Hirshman contends was crucial to electing Abraham Lincoln in 1860. By lucidly untangling the abolitionist movement’s complex web of alliances, Hirshman sheds light on the antebellum period and the dynamics of social movements in general. American history buffs will be engrossed. Illus. Agent: David Kuhn, Aevitas Creative Management. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Hirshman’s book is a lively depiction of the antislavery movement, in which the three charismatic characters at the heart of her story provide an engaging avenue into the competing philosophies and strategies that continually challenged abolitionism’s unity and effectiveness. Her writing is breezy, designed to engage readers who are not historians and whose interests may lie more in the present than the past." — Washington Post

“Linda Hirshman has two goals. One is to tell the story of the American antislavery movement. This broad narrative provides background for the author’s other focus, a group portrait of three deeply intertwined abolitionists [and reflects] the author’s interest in the current ‘lively and painful conversation about the possibility and conditions of an interracial alliance.’”
— Wall Street Journal

“Page-turning reading . . . . a wonderful cataloging of Americans, white and Black, who devoted their lives to ending slavery.” — Boston Globe

“By lucidly untangling the abolitionist movement’s complex web of alliances, Hirshman sheds light on the antebellum period and the dynamics of social movements in general. American history buffs will be engrossed.” — Publishers Weekly

“Hirshman brings much-needed attention to the little-known triangulation between Garrison, Douglass, and Chapman, opening a new realm of inquiry for readers of the history of slavery and abolition.” — Library Journal

“Linda Hirshman adroitly shows us that in the celebrated break up between Douglass and Garrison, a pivotal actor was Maria Weston Chapman. A brilliant but intrusive soul, Chapman stood watch over both men from a manager's desk in Boston. Beyond intrigue, though, this book provides a splendid lens into the nature of both the moral and political wings of abolitionism at their turbulent turning point. The ideologies of antislavery emerge here from vivid portraits of these three fascinating and rivalrous characters.”  — David W. Blight, Yale University, and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom  

"A rousing account of America’s one truly great crusade, studded with fascinating characters playing for the highest of stakes: freedom.”

— Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller  

“Viewing the abolitionist movement from a unique angle, Hirshman shows how the breakdown of the alliance among [activists Frederick Douglass, William Llloyd Garrison, and Maria Weston Chapman] was fueled in part by Douglass’ rising fame, burgeoning dissent among the nation’s political parties, and, not least, Weston Chapman’s aspersions about Douglass’ work ethic and character. A well-researched history of the fraught path to emancipation.” — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Linda Hirshman adroitly shows us that in the celebrated break up between Douglass and Garrison, a pivotal actor was Maria Weston Chapman. A brilliant but intrusive soul, Chapman stood watch over both men from a manager's desk in Boston. Beyond intrigue, though, this book provides a splendid lens into the nature of both the moral and political wings of abolitionism at their turbulent turning point. The ideologies of antislavery emerge here from vivid portraits of these three fascinating and rivalrous characters.” 

David W. Blight

"Hirshman’s book is a lively depiction of the antislavery movement, in which the three charismatic characters at the heart of her story provide an engaging avenue into the competing philosophies and strategies that continually challenged abolitionism’s unity and effectiveness. Her writing is breezy, designed to engage readers who are not historians and whose interests may lie more in the present than the past."

Washington Post

Page-turning reading . . . . a wonderful cataloging of Americans, white and Black, who devoted their lives to ending slavery.

Boston Globe

"A rousing account of America’s one truly great crusade, studded with fascinating characters playing for the highest of stakes: freedom.”

Megan Marshall

Linda Hirshman has two goals. One is to tell the story of the American antislavery movement. This broad narrative provides background for the author’s other focus, a group portrait of three deeply intertwined abolitionists [and reflects] the author’s interest in the current ‘lively and painful conversation about the possibility and conditions of an interracial alliance.’”

Wall Street Journal

Linda Hirshman has two goals. One is to tell the story of the American antislavery movement. This broad narrative provides background for the author’s other focus, a group portrait of three deeply intertwined abolitionists [and reflects] the author’s interest in the current ‘lively and painful conversation about the possibility and conditions of an interracial alliance.’”

Wall Street Journal

01/01/2022

While the lives of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison have been extensively covered in their own biographies, Hirshman (Reckoning; Sisters-in-Law) wanted to know more about their interracial alliance to end slavery and why it fell apart. What she discovered in her research for this book was a wealthy white woman at the center, Maria Weston Chapman, a largely forgotten figure in this story. Hirshman combed through the many thousands of letters abolitionists sent to and from Chapman, who supported and largely controlled Boston's American Anti-Slavery Society, which funded Douglass's and Garrison's speaking careers and The Liberator, Garrison's newspaper. Hirshman contends that Chapman drove a wedge between the two men by expressing her disdain to many members of the movement that Douglass dared to publish his memoir (to great acclaim) and strive for financial independence from his white benefactors. Douglass eventually left for Rochester, where he found refuge among abolitionists and started his own newspaper. The book includes black-and-white photographs of the central figures. VERDICT Hirshman brings much-needed attention to the little-known triangulation between Garrison, Douglass, and Chapman, opening a new realm of inquiry for readers of the history of slavery and abolition.—Kate Stewart

Library Journal

2021-11-10
A history of a group of American abolitionists who were roiled by divisiveness.

Despite having a common interest in ending slavery, the abolition movements of mid-19th-century America were hardly unified. As cultural historian Hirshman reveals, race, gender, and class issues incited deep, discomfiting conflicts. She focuses on three central figures: William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the influential newspaper The Liberator; rousing orator and activist Frederick Douglass; and socialite Maria Weston Chapman, who earned the epithet “The Contessa.” “Their alliance,” Hirshman discovered, “fueled critical years of the movement, and their breakup affected the direction of the movement profoundly.” Each was strong-willed and uncompromising: Garrison, whose initial connection to the anti-slavery cause came through his association with Boston Quakers, could be quarrelsome and moralistic. Weston Chapman, by virtue of her social status and wealth, expected to be obeyed. Douglass was an ambitious man who reveled in his celebrity and sought political influence. In the 1830s, the cause of abolition gained force. “From twelve white men in the basement of a Black church, through the efforts of workingmen and women, Black and white, and of dissenting ministers and argumentative college students,” Hirshman writes, “the tendrils of immediate abolitionism began to spread throughout the North.” Less than a decade after its founding in 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society counted some 150,000 members. The Society voiced strong opposition to its rival organization, the American Colonization Society, which proposed to return Black Americans to Africa. Even within the Anti-Slavery Society, factions clashed. Some abolitionists opposed the expansion of slavery; some wanted complete abolition throughout the nation. Some, like Garrison, held that the Constitution allowed for slaveholding; Douglass vehemently disagreed. Viewing the abolitionist movement from a unique angle, Hirshman shows how the breakdown of the alliance among the three activists was fueled in part by Douglass’ rising fame, burgeoning dissent among the nation’s political parties, and, not least, Weston Chapman’s aspersions about Douglass’ work ethic and character.

A well-researched history of the fraught path to emancipation.

Kirkus Reviews