| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic. By Richard S. Newman. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. xiv, 256 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-8078-2671-5. Paper, $18.95, ISBN 0-8078-4998-7.)

Questions about the timing and origins of the abolitionist crusade continue to intrigue historians. Why in the 1830s did an evangelical mass movement against slavery suddenly emerge from the more sedate antislavery sentiment of the postrevolutionary generation? In this slim volume Richard S. Newman frames the transition as a tale of two societies. Founded by Philadelphia Quakers in 1775, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) exemplified the conservative early approach. Its wealthy and prestigious members worked quietly, often behind the scenes, to achieve incremental progress through established institutions, especially the courts. The goals and tactics of the PAS exemplified upper-class benevolence. It foreswore rabble-rousing, zealotry, and confrontation. Its means were respectable, its demeanor deferential, and its aims ameliorative. . . .

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