Images

Panoramic view of downtown Troy, New York, United States, taken from the Congress Street Bridge. In 1860, Harriet Tubman liberated Charles Nalle from slavery in Troy. Photograph by Matt H. Wade, 2009.

A poster, dated 24 April 1851, warning the "colored people of Boston" about police officers acting as slave-catchers under the directive of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which compelled citizens of the Northern free states, including government...

The litterae ignotae from Hildegard of Bingen’s Riesencodex, Folio 464v, Hs. 2. Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain.

Henry Clay (1777-1852), the Great Compromiser, takes the Senate floor one final time to present the Compromise of 1850, drawn by P. F. Rothermel, engraved by R. Whitechurch, published circa 1855. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

US President Zachary Taylor, daguerreotype by an unknown photographer, circa 1845.

Stephen A. Douglas, a US Civil War era politician from Illinois, photo by Julian Vannerson, 1859. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

John C. Calhoun, shortly before his death, photographed by Mathew Brady, 1849.

Henry Clay, toward the end of his long congressional career, photo by Julian Vannerson or Montgomery P. Simons, 1848.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, engraving based on an oil painting by Alonzo Chappel, published by Johnson Fry & Co, 1872. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) became famous in 1852 with the publication of her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Library...

Portrait of Sarah Hopkins Bradford (1818-1912), who wrote the first biography of Harriet Tubman, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869) and a follow-up volume, Harriet Tubman, Moses of her People (1886), both of which became bestsellers...