Women and Abolitionism in the United States: Recent Historiography

Abstract

The past 20 years have seen substantial developments in the historiography on women and abolitionism in the United States. These include a focus on the experience of African American women both as activists and as objects of the abolitionist movement. Recent studies explore the ways in which religion inspired and shaped American women's commitment to ending slavery. Important work has been done on the ways in which antislavery women functioned as political actors and the ways in which their efforts influenced antebellum American politics. Abolition historiography has benefitted from the Atlantic perspective as studies have explored the transnational networks created by British and American women and comparisons highlight new aspects of American women's experience in abolitionism. Lastly, studies of women and abolition from each of these perspectives have complicated and problematized the grand narrative of 19th‐century American women's history which enshrined a “path from antislavery to feminism” as a critical consciousness‐raising experience which inspired American women to take up the quest for their own rights.