Peter Drummey will discuss the irrepressible, obdurate, and occasionally obnoxious leaders of the Abolitionist movement in Boston, from the publication of the first antislavery tract here in 1700 (Samuel Sewall’s The Selling of Joseph) through the triumphant celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
Peter Drummey is the Stephen T. Riley Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, where he has worked since 1978. Founded in 1791, the Historical Society is an independent research library that collects and preserves manuscripts—the unpublished letters and diaries of individuals and families—that document the entire course of American history, including the personal papers and photographs of many Boston Abolitionists, and their supporters and opponents.
