To Set This World Right: The Antislavery Movement in Thoreau's Concord by Sandra

Description: To Set This World Right by Sandra Harbert Petrulionis In the decade before the Civil War, Concord, Massachusetts, was a center of abolitionist sentiment and activism. To Set this World Right is the first book to recover and examine the voices, events, and influence of the antebellum antislavery movement... FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description In the decade before the Civil War, Concord, Massachusetts, was a center of abolitionist sentiment and activism. To Set this World Right is the first book to recover and examine the voices, events, and influence of the antebellum antislavery movement in Concord. In addressing fundamental questions about the origin and nature of radical abolitionism in this most American of towns, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis frames the antislavery ideology of Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson-two of Concords most famous residents-as a product of family and community activism and presents the civic context in which their outspoken abolitionism evolved.In this historic locale, radical abolitionism crossed racial, class, and gender lines as a confederation of neighbors fomented a radical consciousness, and Petrulionis documents how the Thoreaus, Emersons, and Alcotts worked in tandem with others in their community, including a slaveowners daughter and a former slave. Additionally, she examines the basis on which Henry Thoreau-who cherished nothing more than solitary tramps through his beloved woods and bogs-has achieved lasting fame as a militant abolitionist.This book marshals rich archival evidence of the diverse tactics exploited by a small coterie of committed activists, largely women, who provoked their famous neighbors to action.In Concord, the fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins was clothed and fed as he made his way to freedom. In Concord, the adolescent daughters of John Brown attended school and recovered from their emotional distress after their fathers notorious public hanging. Although most residents of the town maintained a practiced detachment from the plight of the enslaved, women and men whose sole objective was the moral urgency of abolishing slavery at last prevailed on the philosophers of self-culture to accept the responsibility of their reputations. Author Biography Sandra Harbert Petrulionis is Associate Professor of English at Penn State Altoona. She is the editor of Journal 8: 1854 in The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau and coeditor of More Day to Dawn: Thoreaus Walden for the Twenty-First Century. Review "In To Set This World Right, historian Sandra Harbert Petrulionis notes that when Henry David Thoreau set out on a highly principled but very criminal mission in the early morning of Dec. 3, 1859, he could have called on any number of his neighbors to take his place. It was the morning after John Brown was hanged for his role in the failed Harpers Ferry raid, and Thoreau was undertaking to transport Francis Meriam, one of the conspirators, to the South Acton railroad station, where he would board a train, eventually escaping into Canada."-Boston Sunday Globe, December 31, 2006 "Every student of American Transcendentalism should read this book; it teaches us how ordinary people helped transform U.S. politics, as well as influenced their more famous friends and neighbors. The book also testifies to the ways these women transgressed the boundary separating their separate sphere of domesticity from the public sphere of political action and conscience."-John Carlos Rowe, University of Southern California, Emerson Society Papers, vol. 18, no. 1, spring 2007 "The author considers how Thoreau and others, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, helped to shape an antislavery consciousness in Concord. This New England town, according to Petrulionis, serves as a microcosm of how the acceptance of abolitionism crossed race, class, and gender lines to become a formidable force in U.S. reform."-Choice "To Set This World Right is an impressive work. Demonstrating mastery of a range of primary materials and secondary literatures, Petrulionis has produced a fascinating study for scholars interested in abolitionism, American literary studies, or antebellum U.S. history. Her book makes a significant contribution to a growing literature on the critical grassroots role that women played in the most important reform effort in nineteenth-century America, while also contextualizing the emerging antislavery commitment of several of the periods most eloquent voices."-Ethan J. Kytle, H-SHEAR, H-Net Reviews, July 2007 "Henry David Thoreau liked to boast that he marched to a different drummer, but when it came to protesting slavery, his mother, sisters, and aunts set the beat. As Sandra Harbert Petrulionis demonstrates in fine detail and lively prose, female abolitionists were the driving force behind the antislavery activism for which Concord, Massachusetts, became legendary in antebellum America. Spurning the expediency of politicians and the abstractions of Transcendentalists, the women of Concord labored tirelessly for three decades to protest the sin of slavery in a nation supposedly devoted to liberty and equality. In the town famous for the battle that launched the Revolutionary War, women fired their own shot heard round the world in the protracted struggle to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. In charting their sacrifices and contributions, Petrulionis restores the women of Concord to their rightful role in the contest against slavery and the shaping of the New England tradition of reform."-Robert A. Gross, University of Connecticut, author of The Minutemen and Their World "In To Set This World Right Sandra Harbert Petrulionis has written a vivid account of the growth of the antislavery movement in one of Americas most historic and influential communities, Concord, Massachusetts. She describes how Henry David Thoreaus abolitionist views were grounded in and nurtured by the communitys active reform culture, and the work of several dedicated political activists. Petrulioniss mastery of the letters, journals, newspapers, and other archival documents that record Concords antislavery past is impressive, and she finds in these materials an engaging-and inspiring-narrative of progressive political commitment and achievement."-David M. Robinson, author of Natural Life: Thoreaus Worldly Transcendentalism "To Set This World Right is the finest and most detailed account of the essential role played by women in the grassroots effort to promote the cause of antislavery. Sandra Harbert Petrulionis not only presents the efforts of largely unknown figures such as Mary Merrick Brooks but also describes the activities of the women in the Thoreau and Emerson households, who eventually persuaded Thoreau and Emerson to lend their powerful voices to the controversial cause."-Len Gougeon, University of Scranton, coeditor of Emersons Antislavery Writings "It is a refreshing change to read an elegantly crafted book which understands that writers like Emerson lived in a precise place and time and were influenced by the world around them. In addition, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis writes very well."-Douglas Egerton, LeMoyne College, author of Rebels, Reformers, and Revolutionaries Long Description In the decade before the Civil War, Concord, Massachusetts, was a center of abolitionist sentiment and activism. To Set this World Right is the first book to recover and examine the voices, events, and influence of the antebellum antislavery movement in Concord. In addressing fundamental questions about the origin and nature of radical abolitionism in this most American of towns, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis frames the antislavery ideology of Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson--two of Concords most famous residents--as a product of family and community activism and presents the civic context in which their outspoken abolitionism evolved. In this historic locale, radical abolitionism crossed racial, class, and gender lines as a confederation of neighbors fomented a radical consciousness, and Petrulionis documents how the Thoreaus, Emersons, and Alcotts worked in tandem with others in their community, including a slaveowners daughter and a former slave. Additionally, she examines the basis on which Henry Thoreau--who cherished nothing more than solitary tramps through his beloved woods and bogs--has achieved lasting fame as a militant abolitionist. This book marshals rich archival evidence of the diverse tactics exploited by a small coterie of committed activists, largely women, who provoked their famous neighbors to action. In Concord, the fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins was clothed and fed as he made his way to freedom. In Concord, the adolescent daughters of John Brown attended school and recovered from their emotional distress after their fathers notorious public hanging. Although most residents of the town maintained a practiced detachment from the plight of the enslaved, women and men whose sole objective was the moral urgency of abolishing slavery at last prevailed on the philosophers of self-culture to accept the responsibility of their reputations. Review Quote "To Set This World Right is the finest and most detailed account of the essential role played by women in the grassroots effort to promote the cause of antislavery. Sandra Harbert Petrulionis not only presents the efforts of largely unknown figures such as Mary Merrick Brooks but also describes the activities of the women in the Thoreau and Emerson households, who eventually persuaded Thoreau and Emerson to lend their powerful voices to the controversial cause."--Len Gougeon, University of Scranton, coeditor of Emersons Antislavery Writings Details ISBN0801441579 Author Sandra Harbert Petrulionis Short Title TO SET THIS WORLD RIGHT Publisher Cornell University Press Language English ISBN-10 0801441579 ISBN-13 9780801441578 Media Book Format Hardcover Imprint Cornell University Press Subtitle The Antislavery Movement in Thoreaus Concord Place of Publication Ithaca Country of Publication United States Affiliation Assistant Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University, USA Edition 1st Birth 1959 DOI 10.1604/9780801441578 UK Release Date 2006-11-01 AU Release Date 2006-11-01 NZ Release Date 2006-11-01 US Release Date 2006-11-01 Pages 264 Year 2006 Publication Date 2006-11-01 Alternative 9781501729447 DEWEY 306.3620973 Illustrations 20 halftones Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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