History 252: The History of Haverford College: Conflict, Consensus, and the Liberal Arts (HC)

Haverford and Swarthmore College libraries prepared an exhibit in conjunction with the 300th anniversary of the ending of the slave trade. The website includes digitized primary sources, brief thematic essays, and membership lists fro anti-slavery organizations. Pages include multiple links to related materials.

This document, written by four Quakers in Germantown, is the first known public protest against slavery. The document was refused for consideration at the Quaker Yearly meeting in Philadelphia but 88 years later the Society of Friends banned slavery.
Cadwalader Morgan, a minister in the Society of Friends, wrote another anti-slave protest in 1696 outlining the ethical and practical concerns he had against slavery. See a brief overview on these early protests in the Quakers and Slavery website.

Benjamin Lay's text, written in 1737, is one of the first anti-slavery texts published in America. He alienated people by his unrelenting drive and eccentric behavior. But he had a great influence in moving the Society of Friends to renounce slavery. Read more about Lay in the Quakers and Slavery exhibit.

Phillis Wheatley was taken by slavers as a small child. Her slaveowners in Massachusetts taught her to read and encouraged her gift for writing poetry. Read more about her in the American National Biography.

Greenleaf writes about the importance of the anti-Slavery cause in relationship to the women's rights movement. The Grimke sisters, natives of South Carolina, championed the cause of abolition, moving to Philadelphia and taking the unusual step of delivering speeches in public.

The Philadelphia Free Produce Association of Friends, founded in 1846, was one of several organizations that boycotted products and materials made by slaves. In the Quakers and Slavery website you can see more primary sources about the organization and a brief description.

This anti-slavery pamphlet forcefully conveys the ideas of the freelabor movement. It was found among the paper of George Washington Taylor.

Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel in 1852 to great popular acclaim. Not only did it have an impact on views of slavery in the United States but also in Great Britain. Read more about the book on the Stowe Center website. See also Stowe's subsequent book, The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in which she responded to critics and documented her sources.

910A Article by Edwin Bronner. Lincoln travelled to Harrisburg stopping at the Haverford station where Haverford College students greeted him. He passed through Haverford on his return east, but for security reasons, his second journey was unannounced. Photocopies from three articles documenting these trips are included.

• For contemporary reactions to Lincoln, see: MC 965 Thomas Chase papers, 1843-1947, Box 1

Chase, Alice Cromwell (ca. 1837-1882)
ALS of Alice [Chase] to Carrie, from Lawnside, 4/19/1865 re: service held at Haverford for Lincoln, her and her husband's reactions on hearing the news, their trip into town (train searched), stores closed [gift of M.C. Scattergood, 1939]

1184, Box 3
George M. Coates Jr. (1845-1894)
To Aunt Beulah Coates. Haverford, 1861 5/5. [20 days since Lincoln called out 75,000 men and gave the "traitors" time to return to their homes, but the war will soon start after Lincoln retook all the property of the U.S.]

Call Number: HCV R8 ID, HCV R8 IE, HCV R8 IF

A Haverford student literary group, the Loganian Society, hand wrote magazine articles for each issue of the Collegian from 1838 - 1883 (with some gaps). During the Civil War students wrote articles reflecting a variety of viewpoints about slavery, secession, and fighting:

1. "Our Country." Collegian (1861). 7 pages


2. "A Debate: Resolved that a Permanent Separation of the North and South would be Preferable to the Union with Slavery in the Southern States." Collegian (1862). 32 pages


3. "The Crisis and its Requirements." Collegian (1862). 14 pages


4. "What to Do with the Darkies." Collegian (1862). 8 pages


5. "Negro Equality." Collegian (1865). 9 pages

Call Number: HCHC 1865

Thomas Chase, the speaker, was at this time a faculty member at the college teaching Philosophy and Literature. He spoke in July 1865 to the student members of two literary clubs, three months after Lincoln had been assassinated.