Abolitionism: Did you mean...?

Frederick Douglass in his early 30s, daguerreotype by Samuel J. Miller, circa 1847-52. Art Institute of Chicago.

Representation of the box in which Henry Box Brown was shipped to freedom in 1849. After his successful escape from slavery, many others were inspired to try the same. Image from the Narrative of Henry Box Brown, 1849. Boston Public Library...

Passmore Williamson (1822-1895), abolitionist, imprisoned for assisting a runaway slave, Moyamensing Prison, Philadelphia, 1855. Chester County Historical Society.

Cabinet card of Sojourner Truth, wearing a dark dress and a white shawl and cap, holding her knitting in her hand. Photograph taken in 1864, restored by Adam Cuerden. Beneath her image is a printed caption that reads: "I Sell the Shadow...

John Brown, daguerreotype by African-American photographer Augustus Washington in Springfield, Massachusetts, c. 1846-1847. Brown is holding the hand-colored flag of Subterranean Pass Way, his militant counterpart to the Underground Railroad...

Abraham Lincoln showing Sojourner Truth the Bible presented by colored people of Baltimore, Executive Mansion, Washington, D.C., 29 October, 1864. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Henry Box Brown, the former slave who had himself mailed from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to escape slavery on 29 March 1849. Image by Charles Stearns, frontspiece to the 1849 edition of Narrative of the Life of Henry...

The Jacobs Free School, which offered tuition-free schooling to African-American children. Founded by Harriet Jacobs, the school was unique in being free to use and run by African-Americans (the head of the school was Harriet's daughter...

Olaudah Equiano (l. c. 1745-1797), the abolitionist writer, by the English artist Daniel Orme (l. 1766-1837), frontispiece of Equiano's autobiography (published 1789).

Passmore Williamson, abolitionist and member of the Underground Railroad, c. 1856-1860, photograph by Guterkunst & Brothers, 1856-1860. Boston Public Library.