ANTISLAVERY IMPULSES. (17th November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: ABZUG, ROBERT H.
• Is Part Of: Modern intellectual history. Volume 13:Number 3(2016:Nov.)
• Page Start: 793
• Page End: 804
• Publication Date: 2015-11-17
• Subjects: Intellectual life -- History -- Periodicals; 001.09
• DOI: 10.1017/S1479244315000359
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1479-2443

Abstract

Abstract : The year 2015 marks not only the sesquicentennial of Appomattox but also the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Martin Duberman's anthology The Antislavery Vanguard, a collection of essays that set the agenda for an ever-expanding treatment of antislavery that continues to this day. In assessing these new additions to that literature, I began to think about the arc that historians of American abolitionism have traced in the past half-century, and the ways in which Kytle and McDaniel were inheritors and extenders of that historiographical revolution. Duberman defined his purpose as bringing together the work of historians bent on overthrowing a long-prevailing view of abolitionists as "meddlesome fanatics . . . wrapped in their self-righteous fury, who did so much to bring on a needless war." He initially imagined a volume that would debate abolitionist virtue and vice but could find no scholars who would uphold the older stereotype. Instead, his contributors explored themes largely sympathetic to the reformers.