fragment of Abraham Lincoln’s speech, "House Divided" personal letters by abolitionists, slaves, and soldiers who fought in the Civil War, cartoons, photographs, and broadsides, are among the documents and images in this panel exhibition, developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History on view in March in the Cohen Library Atrium. The exhibit traces the history of the abolition movement in the United States from 1750 to 1865.

The exhibition materials are culled from the institute’s collection at the Pierpont Morgan Library, from the Library of Congress, and from other research libraries.  Arranged in six thematic sections—The Founding Era, Slave Resistance, Slavery and the Law, Abolition, Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation, and African-Americans in the Civil War—the sources and documents illuminate the social, moral and political climate of the times.  They give voice to the opinions and feelings of men and women from ordinary walks of life as well as the renowned, those who were in bondage and those who were free—all who struggled with the paradox of slavery in a democracy.

The exhibit’s curators are David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, and James Oliver Horton, Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies at George Washington University. It is their expectation that students and teachers will take the opportunity to use these documents as points of departure for exploring the impact of the legacy of slavery and racism on contemporary racial controversies.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the library is showing selected documentary and feature films from its media collection which relate to the exhibit's themes.  After March these films will be available for circulation.

Betty Jenkins
Reference Librarian
bljcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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