Press

ALBANY, NY – An exhibition of letters, written by former slave and prominent black anti-slavery activist Frederick Douglass, has opened at the New York State Museum.

The exhibition in New York Metropolis Hall, outside of the Harlem in the 1920’s gallery, will feature six letters recently acquired by the New York State Library. They provide valuable insight into anti-slavery activities in upstate New York in the years just before the Civil War. Douglass wrote the letters between 1855-1857 to Miss Hannah Fuller, the organizer of the Skaneatles Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. They show the close working relationships that Douglass forged with white women leaders of the anti-slavery movement. The letters also reveal a personal side of Douglass, including his relationships with other lesser-known abolitionists.

One of the most recognizable African-Americans of 19th-century American History, Douglass was an escaped slave from Maryland who taught himself to read and write. In the 1840s he began speaking on the abolitionist circuit with William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society, which was dominated by New Yorkers and based in New York City.

Four of the letters discuss arrangements Douglass made for a speaking engagement in Rochester for anti-slavery activist William Wells Brown, who was also a former slave. After escaping in 1834 Brown worked as a conductor on the Underground Railroad and became a prominent abolitionist speaker and author. Douglass was also an eloquent speaker who passionately recounted his personal experiences in slavery. Although they worked for the same cause, the letters show that Douglass and Brown were also rivals for prominence within the anti-slavery movement.

In 1847 Douglass moved to Rochester, a hotbed of reform and political activism, where he continued his national anti-slavery campaign using New York State as his base of operations. During the Civil War Douglass called African-Americans to fight and actively recruited the first

black regiment formed in the North. Following the war Douglass continued his activism against
the black codes in the South and became the leading advocate of the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the vote. He spent his final years in Washington and when he died in 1895 he was buried in Rochester.

A virtual exhibit on the Douglass letters and a link to other resources on African- American history in the Office of Cultural Education can be found online by visiting http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/library/features/fd/ .

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.