american slavery

Hardcover. Albany NY, J. Munsell, 1st, 1867, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in brick red cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, 272 pages. Brown endpapers. Front hinge lightly cracked. Several early pages have foxing. A previous owner numbered in the margin, in light pencil, each sketch, ending with 429, and also noted with small light pencil lines, several men listed in "Names of Soldiers". Still a very nice copy of a first printing, 1867. A fascinating account of the first century of Pawlet, Vermont, a small farming community in southwestern Vermont. Memories of the Civil War were still fresh when this bountiful history was written. The first half of the book contains material on early settlement, the American Revolution (including some military correspondence, accounts of Burgoyne's defeat at Bennington, and a list of Revolutionary soldiers who settled in Pawlet), the War of 1812 (with a list of Pawlet soldiers), an extensive list of men who fought in the Civil War and brief histories of the local militia and Civil War regiments. Chapters are included on local government and politics (including lists of names of officials), emigration, customs and observances, names of merchants, physicians and lawyers, census figures, anti-slavery sentiment, railroads, church histories and other subjects, replete with names and dates. The second half of the book consists of family histories, presented as an alphabetical series of biographical sketches. These short narratives often note date and place of birth, occupation, spouse, children, military service, age and cause of death.

Hardcover. Columbus OH, Follett, Foster and Company, 1st, 1860, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, embossed brown cloth, 268 pages. Not first issue but an early printing with a "2" on page 13, line above publisher on copyright page, 2 leaves/4 pages of ads at front for The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, The Exiles of Florida; Adela the Octoroon; then a letter from Mr. Lincoln opposite title page. Contemporary transcripts of perhaps the most consequential campaign debates in American history. While campaigning against each other for the Senate seat for Illinois, Douglas and Lincoln engaged in a series of public debates on slavery that earned nationwide attention. Lincoln and the young Republican Party capitalized on the attention, partly by having the debate transcripts published-laying the foundation for his successful presidential campaign. Page 1, 104, and 105 with pencil marking, light water stain to bottom corner of some pages, 1 X 1/4" chip to spine cloth. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Basic Books, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 172 pages. This study examines the realities that the Free North held a substantial population who opposed the abolition of slavery, describing the history of this phenomenon and the attendant aspects of racism towards Black Americans during this period. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 2nd pr., 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, rubbed dust jacket, 576 pages. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Negro Universities Press, reprint, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 175 pages. Brown cloth covers with gilt lettering. Originally published in 1864 by the American Anti-Slavery Society. Introduction by William Lloyd Garrison, President. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Westport CT, Negro Universities Press, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, orange cloth, 176 pages. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 348 pages. Reflections in Black, the first comprehensive history of black photographers, is a groundbreaking pictorial collection of African American life. Featuring the work of undisputed masters such as James VanDerZee, Gordon Parks, and Carrie Mae Weems among dozens of others, this book is a refutation of the gross caricature of black life that many mainstream photographers have manifested by continually emphasizing poverty over family, despair over hope. Nearly 600 images offer rich, moving glimpses of everyday black life, from slavery to the Great Migration to contemporary suburban life, including rare antebellum daguerrotypes, photojournalism of the civil rights era, and multimedia portraits of middle-class families. DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Hampton, VA, Hampton Institute Press, 1st, 1927, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, dark blue cloth with gilt lettering on front cover and spine, 236 pages plus appendix. A scarce collection of traditional hymns, gospel, folk songs and "Songs of Tribulation" of the American Negro. An historical document of African-American culture and the history of slavery. Songs in musical score with lyrics. A tight, generally unmarked and clean volume with nice cloth and clear gilt, In a poor dust jacket with chipping and tape repairs. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, The New Press , 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover book with a bright dust jacket in a slipcase that also includes interview tapes. A startling first-person history of slavery. Using excerpts from the thousands of interviews conducted with ex-slaves in the 1930s by researchers working with the Federal Writers' Project, the astonishing audiotapes made available the only known recordings of people who actually experienced enslavement-recordings that had gathered dust in the Library of Congress until they were rendered audible for the first time specifically for this set. Two sixty-minute audiotapes: the first is original recordings of former slaves recorded in the 1930s, the second features dramatic readings by Esther Rolle, James Earl Jones and other black artists. Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley.

NY, Crown, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The monumental life of Benjamin Rush, medical pioneer and one of our most provocative and unsung Founding Fathers. By the time he was thirty, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin's protege, and become John Adams's confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington's surgeon general. And as with the greatest Revolutionary minds, Rush was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment. As the new republic coalesced, he became a visionary writer and reformer; a medical pioneer whose insights and reforms revolutionized the treatment of mental illness; an opponent of slavery and prejudice by race, religion, or gender; an adviser to, and often the physician of, America's first leaders; and "the American Hippocrates." Rush reveals his singular life and towering legacy, installing him in the pantheon of our wisest and boldest Founding Fathers.

Softcover. Urbana IL, University of Illinois Press, reprint, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 433 pages. From the plaintive tunes of woe sung by exiled kings and queens of Africa to the spirited worksongs and "shouts" of freedmen, enslaved people created expansive forms of music from the United States to the West Indies and South America. Dena J. Epstein's classic work traces the course of early black folk music in all its guises. Anchored by groundbreaking scholarship, it redefined the study of black music in the slavery era by presenting the little-known development of black folk music in the United States. Her findings include the use of drums, the banjo, and other instruments originating in Africa; a wealth of eyewitness accounts and illustrations; in-depth look at a wide range of topics; and a collection of musical examples. This edition offers an author's preface that looks back on the twenty-five years of changes in scholarship that followed the book's original publication. Clean copy.

Softcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, Reprint, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 236 pages. Softcover. Binding tight. Some underlining in pencil on a few pages, otherwise clean inside. A touch of foxing to top edge. Wrapper in great shape. Looks great.

Hardcover. Urbana IL, University of Illinois Press, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket with two small holes to front cover, 227 pages with index. "Slavery was a social and an economic institution of such power that it sustained and extended an economic system whose demands went far to determine the domestic and foreign policy of the "agrarian" party in our early history. For the agrarian politics of Jefferson, while possibly benefiting the small freeholder, very closely served the interests of the plantation system, at least as the planters conceived their interests." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. NY, Harcourt Brace and World, 1st pbk, 1966, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 261 pages. For whom was slavery profitable? Did it aid the slave, slaveowner, nonslaveholder, the South or all America? The readings here seek to clarify such questions. Front cover with light wear to fore-edge otherwise clean.

Softcover. Montgomery AL, Equal Justice Initiative, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 58 pages. Slavery in America: The Montgomery Slave Trade documents American slavery and Montgomery's prominent role in the domestic slave trade. The report is part of a project focused on developing a more informed understanding of America's racial history and how it relates to contemporary challenges.

Softcover. NY, The New Press, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 403 pages. Edited by Ira Berlin, the Bancroft Prize-winning author of Many Thousands Gone, and Leslie Harris, Slavery in New York brings together twelve new contributions by leading historians of slavery and African American life in New York. Published to accompany a major exhibit at the New York Historical Society, the book demonstrates how slavery shaped the day-to-day experience of New Yorkers, black and white, and how, as a way of doing business, it propelled New York to become the commercial and financial power it is today. Powerfully illustrated with images from the New York Historical Society exhibit, Slavery and the Making of New York will be the definitive account of New York's slave past.

Softcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st pbk, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 352 pages, b&w illustrations. Wilma Dunaway breaks new ground by focusing on slave experiences on small plantations in the Upper South. She argues that a region was not buffered from the political, economic, and social impacts of enslavement simply because it was characterized by low black population density and small slaveholdings. By drawing on a massive statistical data base derived from antebellum census manuscripts and county tax records of 215 counties in nine states, on a vast array of slaveholder manuscripts, and on regional slave narratives, she pinpoints several indicators that distinguished Mountain South enslavement from the Lower South. These include a higher incidence of ethnic mixing between African and Native American slaves, heavier reliance on the field labor of women and children, and more frequent assignment of slaves to non-agricultural occupations. Dunaway also calls into question the notion that large numbers were necessary before slaves could engage in community building and resistance. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, reprint, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 576 pages. Clean copy

Hardcover. New York, John S. Taylor, 2nd pr., 1837, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, leather bound with gilt design on front and rear covers, spine also with gilt design with the title Cabinet of Freedom (the series under which the publisher issued this narrative). 517 pages with an extra illustrated title page dated 1836, the regular title page dated 1837. All edges gilt. First published by John Shugert in Lewistown PA a year earlier. Written with the help of Isaac Fisher, a white Philadelphia lawyer, who declares in his preface that he has edited the oral narrative Ball had dictated to him to omit any beliefs or feelings Ball may have expressed about slavery. This declaration of significant editing has led scholars to debate the authenticity of Ball's narrative, but most agree that it represents a true story. Ball describes his experiences as a slave, including the uncertainty of slave life and the ways in which the slaves are forced to suffer harsh and inhumane conditions. In particular, he recounts the qualities of his various masters, and the ways in which his fortune depended on their temperament. The leather has separated from the spine of the book but appears to be very repairable. The first 3 pages loose (a blank leaf and the two title pages), there is a light stain to the illustrated one and light foxing. The interior of the book is clean, tight with minimal foxing throughout.

Hardcover. Westport CT, Greenwood Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, glazed pictorial boards, 177 pages. Postma draws on primary sources and current historical scholarship to offer secondary readers and researchers a comprehensive and well-written history. He covers the entire Atlantic slave trade era, from the 1400s to the final abolition of chattel slavery in the New World in 1888. The focus is on Africa and the entire New World. While he describes the many horrors of the Middle Passage, he also examines how the slave trade contributed to the development of the modern international economy. The last chapters discuss the efforts to abolish the slave trade and its legacy. Throughout, Postma documents the sources that support his discussion and conclusions. Chapter notes are supplemented by an extensive annotated bibliography that includes books, articles, films, and electronic resources. The volume concludes with biographical sketches of important people and excerpts from primary documents written by enslaved Africans and white officials. The black-and-white reproductions of period illustrations add little to the text. Clean copy.

NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A masterful, definitive, and eloquent look at the enormous cultural and economic impact on America of New England's textile mills. The author, an award-winning CBS producer, traces the history of American textile manufacturing back to the ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lodge. The early mills were an experiment in benevolent enlightened social responsibility on the part of the wealthy owners, who belonged to many of Boston's finest families. But the fledgling industry's ever-increasing profits were inextricably bound to the issues of slavery, immigration, and workers' rights. William Moran brings a newsman's eye for the telling detail to this fascinating saga that is equally compelling when dealing with rags and when dealing with riches. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Westholme Publishing, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 374 pages, b&w illustrations. Bright, clean. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on title page. "Early in the afternoon of May 22, 1856, ardent pro-slavery Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina strode into the United States Senate Chamber in Washington, D.C., and began beating renowned anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner with a cane until it splintered and the helpless Massachusetts senator lay unconscious and covered in blood. One of the most shocking and provocative events in American history, the caning convinced each side that the gulf between them was unbridgeable and that they could no longer discuss their vast differences of opinion regarding slavery on any reasonable level."