| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 152 words from this article are provided below; about 353 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

From Abolition to Rights for All: The Making of a Reform Community in the Nineteenth Century. By John T. Cumbler. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. xii, 238 pp. $49.95, ISBN 978-0-8122-4026-9.)

John T. Cumbler's study of abolitionists does not end with the Civil War. He devotes half of his chapters to the postwar period. He has in effect written a collective biography of about a dozen Boston-based reformers, mostly Yankees, who came of age between 1825 and 1845, giving equal attention to their pre- and post-emancipation activities. This innovative, lifespan approach to antislavery history yields less insight than it might, in part because Cumbler's goals are ultimately less explanatory than apologetic. He somehow thinks that historians are still not sympathetic enough to abolitionism and so feels compelled to write a defense of the movement, as if we needed another one. Still, his book is not without value.

. . .

There are about 353 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.