The Anti-Slavery Alphabet: A Remarkable 1846 Primer for Children

[n2doc]

In 1846 a pair of Quaker sisters came up with an idea. They were abolitionists and actively campaigned against domestic slavery in the United States. However, Hannah and Mary Townsend came to realise that in order to ensure the end of the oppressive servitude of so many of their countrymen and women that educating the young was vital. A child, they decided was not only able to fight against slavery in their adult years but as youngsters too. They produced a new way for the 26 letters to be taught by rote – the Anti-Slavery Alphabet.

You might call it a form of liberal indoctrination but in 1846 the stakes were so very high. It would take a war for the Emancipation Proclamation to become a reality in 1863. Thanks to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History we still have a record of the alphabet. The pamphlet starts with an address to the youth of the nation, pleading with them to confront adults, to beseech them that they neither buy new slaves and that those they own should be liberated at once.




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http://www.kuriositas.com/2013/07/the-anti-slavery-alphabet-remarkable.html

[LiberalEsto]

1. Beautiful

[Nye Bevan]

2. Wow. Huge K&R. Best post I have seen here in a while.

God bless those two ladies.

[jtuck004]

3. Thank you for posting that. n/t

[adieu]

4. Harriet Beecher Stowe

who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, was introduced to Abraham Lincoln, who remarked, "So you're the little lady that started this war."

Sometimes, it takes a woman to do a man's job of forcing progress forward.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. Printed 15 years before the outbreak of the Civil War....

Think about it. There were Union Soldiers raised on this.

This is why I believe we need to reintroduce the concept of the United Nations to the children of the world.

The rest of the world is raised to take it seriously as a place that matters.

We treat it as a threat to our power.

[ananda]

6. This kind of book and thinking is why ...

... there are still some decent people in the world.

[heaven05]

7. operative word?

some. but better than none.

[ChazII]

8. K&R n/t