American Studies Commons^™

Common Cause: The Antislavery Alliance Of Gerrit Smith And Beriah Green, Milton C. Sernett

The Courier

The Gerrit Smith Papers in the manuscript collections of the George Arents Research Library at Syracuse University are an indispensable resource for scholars interested in American social reform. Given to the University in 1928 by Gerrit Smith Miller, a grandson, the col

lection reveals that the abolition of slavery dominated the Madison County philanthropist's reform interests from the mid-1830s to the Civil War. Of Gerrit Smith's numerous antislavery correspondents, including such prominent reformers as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Dwight Weld, none maintained a more regular and extensive epistolary relationship than Beriah Green, upstate New York's most radical …

The "Black Dream" Of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist, John R. Mckivigan, Madeleine Leveille

The Courier

This article tells the story of Gerrit Smith, a New York abolitionist who had been loosely linked to the raid on Haper's Ferry by John Brown. Shortly after the insurrection Smith was committed to an insane asylum by his family, and the scandal faded after John Brown's execution. Through their research in the Syracuse University Special Collections, the authors have uncovered much evidence affirming the financial link between Smith and John Brown. The authors also determined that the mental state of Smith seemed rather genuine, and he might have suffered from bipolar disorder. The fallout of the Smith scandal received …