An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans

Lydia Maria ChildProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.3
Word count
505K words
Chapters
51

Tags

English Originals Social Sciences Historical ReappraisalPolitical AllegoryCivic AwarenessIntellectual EnlightenmentSocial CritiqueRacial EqualityAbolitionismFemale Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans by Lydia Maria ChildAuthor: Child, Lydia Maria, 1802-1880,Language: English, Class: E300: History: America: Revolution to the Civil War (1783-1861), Release Date: Mar 3, 2009

Editor's review

This is an argumentative work written by Lydia Maria Child for the abolitionist movement, using morality, religion, and social consequences as threads to directly respond to the prejudices and discrimination against African Americans of her time. Drawing on history, law, and personal observation, the author dismantles popular stereotypes layer by layer with a firm yet reasoned tone, making it one of the earlier comprehensive public-facing arguments in nineteenth-century American abolitionist literature. Its value lies not in providing modern historical conclusions but in presenting the framework of issues, rhetorical methods, and moral concerns of the debate at the time. Read it within its historical context, examining its argumentative structure and era limitations while noting how the author intervened in politics through public writing. Suitable as introductory material for the intellectual and social movement history of nineteenth-century America, best read alongside related historical background.

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with introductory background material to clarify the basic landscape of American abolitionist debates in the 1830s
  2. Mark the author's core arguments and evidence as you read, mapping the layers of her reasoning
  3. Compare the book's views with other contemporary abolitionist texts, noting commonalities and differences
  4. Write a short review afterward, distinguishing which arguments are era-bound and which remain thought-provoking

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
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  11. 11
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  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51

FAQ

Is this book historical research or a political tract? It is essentially a public-facing argumentative political tract that refutes discrimination against African Americans on moral, religious, and social grounds. It is not academic research in the modern sense, lacking systematic annotations and source criticism, and is better read as a primary document of nineteenth-century abolitionist thought.
What background knowledge is needed before reading? It is advisable to understand the general trajectory of the slavery debate from American independence to the eve of the Civil War, and the rise of abolitionist societies in the 1830s. With this background, the specific prejudices and debate targets in the book become clearer, and the author's strategies and limits easier to assess.
Are the book's views outdated by today's standards? Some arguments bear clear marks of their era, such as the religious framework and racial conceptions of the time. Yet the author's inquiries into how prejudice forms, its social consequences, and moral responsibility still merit discussion. Distinguish era-specific expressions from transferable lines of argument, and avoid judging the past simply by present standards.

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About the author

Lydia Maria Child Author · American · 1802–1880

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) was an American writer, editor, abolitionist, and advocate for women's rights. In 1833 she published An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans, the first abolitionist monograph of its kind, and later edited the National Anti-Slavery Standard and helped publish Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Her writing ranged across political essays, domestic advice, and fiction: alongside protest works such as The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act, she produced the practical household classic The American Frugal Housewife, novels including Philothea: A Grecian Romance and A Romance of the Republic, and Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life. Seven of her works are held in this collection.