Abstract:This article argues that white abolitionist rhetoric about families, patriarchy, and sex roles changed significantly in the late 1850s. From 1830 to about 1855, white abolitionists critiqued slavery for failing to live up to the generous patriarchal standards that southern planters claimed for themselves. Slavery, abolitionists argued, entailed sexual assault, slave breeding, and the division of families, not kindness and sympathy. In the 1850s, three new reform movements influenced abolitionist rhetoric. The … Show more
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.