William Lloyd Garrison Facts & Worksheets

• Upon the conclusion of his apprenticeship, Garrison assumed sole ownership, editorial responsibilities and printing duties of the Newburyport Free Press, obtaining the rights from his associate Isaac Knapp, who had likewise completed an apprenticeship at the Herald. John Greenleaf Whittier, a poet and abolitionist, was one of their regular contributors. In this initial role as a small-town newspaper writer, Garrison developed competencies that he would subsequently employ as a nationally recognised writer, speaker and newspaper publisher. In 1828, he was designated editor of the National Philanthropist in Boston, Massachusetts, the inaugural American publication advocating for legally enforced abstinence.
• On 4 September 1834, Garrison wed Helen Eliza Benson, the daughter of an abolitionist. The couple had two girls and five sons. Two of their children, a daughter and a son, died in childhood. Upon the death of his wife, Garrison grieved extensively and even sought methods to maintain communication with her through spiritualism. 

CAREER

• The book Letters on Slavery by Presbyterian Reverend John Rankin inspired Garrison to join the anti-slavery movement when he was 25. Garrison was involved in the anti-slavery movement throughout the 1820s and subsequently repudiated both the American Colonisation Society and the gradualist perspectives of the majority of movement participants. In 1831, together with his friend Isaac Knapp, an American abolitionist printer, Garrison co-founded The Liberator to advocate for his abolitionist beliefs. 
• Paid subscriptions to The Liberator consistently numbered fewer than its circulation. In 1834, it had two thousand subscribers, three-quarters of whom were African American. Benefactors financed the complementary distribution of the newspaper to state lawmakers, gubernatorial residences, Congress and the White House. Despite Garrison’s repudiation of violence as a method for abolishing slavery, his detractors perceived him as a perilous zealot because of his insistence on quick and complete liberation without recompense to enslavers.
• Knapp severed ties with The Liberator in 1840. The Liberator progressively gained a following in the Northern states. It published several reports, letters and news articles, functioning as a communal bulletin board for the abolitionist movement. By 1861, it had subscribers throughout the North, as well as in England, Scotland and Canada. Following the conclusion of the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved people through the Thirteenth Amendment, Garrison released the final edition on 29 December 1865, featuring a Valedictory editorial. Besides publishing The Liberator, Garrison led the formation of a new movement advocating for the complete eradication of slavery in the United States.
• By January 1832, he had garnered sufficient adherents to establish the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which, by the subsequent summer, had numerous affiliates and several thousand members. In December 1833, abolitionists from ten states established the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). 
• In 1839, the AASS was fractured due to fundamental disagreements in methodology: Garrison and his adherents were more radical than the other members. They condemned the United States Constitution for endorsing slavery, opposed established religion, and advocated for shared organisational responsibility with women. 
• Numerous affiliates were established by women who heeded Garrison’s calls for female involvement in the abolitionist cause. The most prominent among these was the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, which generated finances to support The Liberator, disseminate anti-slavery publications, and organise anti-slavery petition campaigns. 
• On 21 October 1835, an assemblage of respectable men from different fields encircled the edifice containing Boston’s anti-slavery offices, where Garrison had consented to speak at a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society following the inability of the fervent British abolitionist George Thompson to fulfil his commitment to them. Mayor Theodore Lyman convinced the women to exit the building, but upon seeing that Thompson was absent, the mob commenced shouting for Garrison. Lyman, a fervent anti-abolitionist, sought to prevent violence and proposed that Garrison flee through a rear window while he informed the throng that Garrison had departed. 
• The mob identified and captured Garrison, secured a rope around his waist, and dragged him through the streets towards Boston Common, demanding tar and feathers. The mayor intervened, and Garrison was sent to the Leverett Street Jail for his protection.

CONTROVERSIES

• Garrison’s call for women’s collective petitioning against slavery ignited debate on women’s entitlement to political expression. In 1837, female abolitionists from seven states gathered in New York to strengthen their petitioning initiatives and challenge the societal norms that limited their involvement in public affairs. In 1840, Garrison’s advocacy for women’s rights within the anti-slavery movement prompted certain abolitionists, including New York siblings Arthur Tappan and Lewis Tappan, to depart from the American Anti-Slavery Society and establish the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which excluded women from membership.
• In June 1840, when the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London declined to seat American women representatives, Garrison, Charles Lenox Remond, Nathaniel P. Rogers and William Adams also refused their delegate seats and joined the women in the spectators’ gallery. The dispute brought the issue of women’s rights to England and to future women’s rights pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an American writer and activist who attended the conference as a spectator with her delegate husband, Henry B. Stanton.