Warriors for Freedom: John Brown and Henry David Thoreau
History / Heritage - Lecture/Discussion
Friday, November 6, 2009
7:30 PM-9:00 PM
American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609-1634
Google Maps - MapQuest
David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (Knopf, 2005), will describe how the Transcendentalists were the boldest and most publicly visible proponents of John Brown in the immediate aftermath of Harpers Ferry. Virtually everyone in the North, including radical abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, initially reacted negatively to Browns attack on Virginia. Henry David Thoreau stood alone in coming out immediately and eloquently on Browns behalf and planted the seed for the mass veneration of John Brown that grew steadily in the months before and after John Browns execution on December 2, 1859. Focusing on three newly discovered letters housed at the American Antiquarian Society and written by Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Dr. Reynolds will argue that if it had not been for the positive reception and promotion of John Brown by Thoreau and other Transcendentalists, Brown may very well have passed into obscurity as a solitary, crazed anarchist.
David S. Reynolds is distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His cultural biography John Brown, Abolitionist won the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award and was the most widely reviewed book in America in the spring of 2005. Professor Reynolds has authored or edited a dozen other books, including Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, Walt Whitmans America, and Beneath the American Renaissance. Among the awards his books have won are the Bancroft Prize, the Christian Gauss Award, and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Professor Reynolds has lectured worldwide on Thoreau, Emerson, and John Brown.
Cost: Free
Suggested Audiences:
High School, College, Adult, Elders
Website: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/publiclec.htm
E-mail:
library@mwa.org
Phone: 508-755-5221
Last Modified: September 21, 2009 at 12:14 PM
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Warriors for Freedom: John Brown and Henry David Thoreau
History / Heritage - Lecture/Discussion
Friday, November 6, 2009
7:30 PM-9:00 PM
American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609-1634
Google Maps - MapQuest
David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (Knopf, 2005), will describe how the Transcendentalists were the boldest and most publicly visible proponents of John Brown in the immediate aftermath of Harpers Ferry. Virtually everyone in the North, including radical abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, initially reacted negatively to Browns attack on Virginia. Henry David Thoreau stood alone in coming out immediately and eloquently on Browns behalf and planted the seed for the mass veneration of John Brown that grew steadily in the months before and after John Browns execution on December 2, 1859. Focusing on three newly discovered letters housed at the American Antiquarian Society and written by Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Dr. Reynolds will argue that if it had not been for the positive reception and promotion of John Brown by Thoreau and other Transcendentalists, Brown may very well have passed into obscurity as a solitary, crazed anarchist.
David S. Reynolds is distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His cultural biography John Brown, Abolitionist won the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award and was the most widely reviewed book in America in the spring of 2005. Professor Reynolds has authored or edited a dozen other books, including Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, Walt Whitmans America, and Beneath the American Renaissance. Among the awards his books have won are the Bancroft Prize, the Christian Gauss Award, and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Professor Reynolds has lectured worldwide on Thoreau, Emerson, and John Brown.
Cost: Free
Sponsored by: Mass Humanities
Suggested Audiences: High School, College, Adult, Elders
Website: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/publiclec.htm
E-mail: library@mwa.org
Phone: 508-755-5221
Last Modified: September 21, 2009 at 12:14 PM
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