Volume B Early Nineteenth Century 1800 1865 1

Volume B Early Nineteenth Century, 1800– 1865 1

“The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority, ” wrote David Walker in his “Appeal. . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World. ” This is a torture mask some white masters used to exercise and retain power over their slaves. (Library of Congress) David White 2

By the time of this 1848 portrait of Margaret Fuller, she had published Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844) and was living in Italy, deeply involved in European revolutionary movements (see “Things and Thoughts in Europe”). Her son Angelo was born in 1848, too; she, her partner Giovanni Ossoli, and her baby died in 1850 as their ship wrecked off Fire Island, NY, on their way home to the U. S. A. (Constance Fuller Threinen) Margaret Fuller 3

This rather severe portrait of Angelina Grimke is belied by the richness and range of her voice in “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” and “Letters to Catherine Beecher. ” Her sister Sarah wrote “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Women. ” Raised in a slaveholding South Carolina family, they left the South, moved to Philadelphia, and joined the Society of Friends. (Library of Congress) Angelina Grimke 4

The swollen hands of the child mill worker in this daguerreotype suggest that her job is in a cotton mill. Compare to the whitish complexions of Herman Melville’s unmarried women in “The Tartarus of Maids, ” also a sign of bodily suffering, signifying both intense cold and unhealthy effects of the paper they make. (Courtesy of Jack Naylor) Herman Melville 5

Walt Whitman celebrated the men of the Gold Rush in his “Song of Myself. ” He also celebrated the multiplicities in America, such as the black and white men working together in this 1852 photograph of gold miners at El Dorado. (California State Library) Walt Whitman 6