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Historic marker for the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848.

175 Years Ago, the Seneca Falls Convention Kicked Off the Fight for Women's Suffrage

An iconic moment deeply shaped by Quaker beliefs on gender and equality.
by Julie L. Holcomb via The Conversation on July 18, 2023
Painting of a pond surrounded by lush vegetation.

A Paradise for All

The relentless radicalism of Benjamin Lay.
by Astra Taylor via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 21, 2023

“A Very Curious Religious Game”: Spiritual Maps and Material Culture in Early America

The Quaker spiritual journey, often invisible due to its silent, humble and individual nature, is illustrated in this map.
by Janet Moore Lindman via Commonplace on June 7, 2022
English Quakers on a Barbados plantation

How 18th-Century Quakers Led a Boycott of Sugar to Protest Against Slavery

These Quakers led some of the early campaigns against sugar being produced by enslaved people.
by Julie L. Holcomb via The Conversation on February 2, 2022
Illustration of white Quakers with enslaved Africans in the background.

Slavery in the Quaker World

Christian slavery and white supremacy.
by Katharine Gerbner via Friends Journal on September 1, 2019

Revisiting the Prayer at Valley Forge

The fable of George Washington's prayer was meant to foster religious tolerance, not paint him as a pious leader.
by Blake McGready via Journal of the American Revolution on October 15, 2018
A drawing of Nathanael Greene.
partner

An Unlikely Soldier

On Nathanael Greene’s inauspicious start.
by Alan Pell Crawford via HNN on July 2, 2024
Illustration of Nancy and the first edition of the Emancipator.

He Published the First Abolitionist Newspaper in America. He Was Also an Enslaver.

When "The Emancipator" was first published in 1820, its original owner had to answer for why he owned Nancy and her five children.
by Anne G'Fellers-Mason via The Emancipator on April 30, 2024
Bayard Rustin speaking at an event.

Eclipsed in His Era, Bayard Rustin Gets to Shine in Ours

The civil-rights mastermind was sidelined by his own movement. Now he’s back in the spotlight. What can we learn from his strategies of resistance?
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on November 6, 2023
Prison hallway

The Silent Treatment: Solitary Confinement’s Unlikely Origins

Characterised today by the noise of banging, buzzers, and the cries of inmates, solitary confinement was originally developed from Quaker ideas.
by Jane Brox via The Public Domain Review on October 25, 2023
Painting of Reverend Lemuel Haynes preaching

The Revolution Within the American Revolution

Supported and largely led by slaveholders, the American Revolution was also, paradoxically, a profound antislavery event.
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on October 23, 2023
People pray outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 27, 2022.

Separation of Church and State Has Always Been Good for Religion

The US Supreme Court's most recent decisions undermine centuries of established secularism within American government.
by Ed Simon via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on June 30, 2022
Sesationalized painting of Native Americans about to scalp a white woman. The Murder of Jane McCrae by John Vanderlyn, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut

“White People,” Victimhood, and the Birth of the United States

White racial victimhood was a primary source of power for settlers who served as shock troops for the nation.
by Gregory Rodriguez via Contra Mundum on June 9, 2022
Painting of “Polling Day” in Pennsylvania in the Colonies, date unknown.

“They Chase Specters”

The irrational, the political, and fear of elections in colonial Pennsylvania.
by J. L. Tomlin via Age of Revolutions on December 3, 2020

The Boycott’s Abolitionist Roots

How a group of 19th-century Quakers cut their economic ties to slavery.
by Willy Blackmore via The Nation on August 14, 2019
Enslaved people being baptized.

'Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World'

A Q&A with author Katharine Gerbner about "Protestant Supremacy."
by Katharine Gerbner, Casey Schmitt via The Junto on April 19, 2019
Jemima Wilkison.

The Person Formerly Known as Jemima Wilkinson

Awakening from illness, the newly risen patient announced that Jemima had died and that her body had been requisitioned by God for the salvation of humankind.
by Adam Morris via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 26, 2019
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The Tireless Abolitionist Nobody Ever Heard of

He was a well-known figure in early America, but the name of Warner Mifflin has all but faded from the nation's memory.
by Gary B. Nash via HNN on October 24, 2017

The "Quaker Comet" Was the Greatest Abolitionist You've Never Heard Of

Overlooked by historians, Benjamin Lay was one of the nation's first radicals to argue for an end to slavery.
by Marcus Rediker via Smithsonian on September 1, 2017
A painting of a group of Puritans walking through a snowy forest, with the men carrying rifles.

The Puritans Were Book Banners, But They Weren’t Sexless Sourpusses

From early New England to the present day, censors have acted out of fear, not prudishness.
by Peter C. Mancall via Zócalo Public Square on November 25, 2024
Painting of Benjamin Franklin reading a manuscript, while a boy operates a printing press behind him.

Benjamin Franklin, Man of Letters

The inventor, philosopher, and elder statesman of the American Revolution never gave up on his first love — publishing.
by Eric Weiner via The Saturday Evening Post on November 12, 2024
Martin Luther King Jr. speaking to an anti-Vietnam War rally in 1967.

The Anti-War Political Tradition: An Introduction

Anti-war politics has a rich historical tradition, one that seems to be in desperate need of revival.
by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via Foreign Exchanges on September 17, 2024
Autographed photo of Richard Nixon and Jerelle Kraus.

Two and a Half Hours Alone with Nixon, the Anti-Trump

When Nixon practiced law, he declined divorce cases because he disliked frank sexual talk from women. Trump asked Playboy to run a “Girls of Trump” feature.
by Jerelle Kraus via LA Progressive on August 6, 2024
Portrait of a Black woman; artist unknown, American, circa 1830–1835.

In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

"The Bondwoman’s Narrative" is the first novel by a Black woman to describe slavery from the inside. Recently, scholars have discovered her true identity.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on July 25, 2024
Boiling House at the Sugar Plantation Asunción, Cuba, 1857.

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.
by Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling via Jacobin on April 10, 2024
A Buddhist monk stands next to a banner with a picture of monk Thich Quang Duc who set fire to himself to protest the Vietnam War.

Why Would Anyone Kill Themselves to Stop A War?

In the past 3 months, two people in the US have taken or risked taking their own lives in an attempt to change US policies on Palestine and call for a cease-fire.
by Ann Wright via Common Dreams on February 26, 2024
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Freedom By the Sea

On the trail of whales, Melville, and Douglass in New Bedford.
by Ed Ayers on August 9, 2023
Portrait of Lydia Maria Child reading a book. Courtesy the Smithsonian/NMAAHC

Lydia Maria Child and the Vexed Role of the Woman Abolitionist

Taking up arms against slavery, the famous novelist foreshadowed the vexed role of the white woman activist today.
by Lydia Moland via Aeon on March 27, 2023
Women feeding chickens at the Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls.

The Forgotten History of America’s First Public Women’s Prison

The editors of a new book talk about the history of the Indiana facility — written by people who were held there almost 150 years later.
by Candice Norwood, Elizabeth Nelson, Michelle Daniel Jones via The 19th on March 23, 2023
original

No Better Soil

In the first half of the 19th century, upstate New York was a hotbed of movements for reform. How visible is that history today?
by Ed Ayers on January 23, 2023
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