Two entries are by William Lloyd Garrison, an original poem ("Sonnet")
and a three-page essay "The
Abolition Cause." Both are signed and dated April 18,
1833. Garrison was in Philadelphia conferring with Joseph Cassey and
other black supporters of the newspaper, The Liberator. Garrison noted
that in his early years, Northern blacks comprised about three-fourths
of his supporters.
Sarah Mapps Douglass is well-known as an African American abolitionist
and a long-time educator of black Philadelphians. Her career spanned
nearly sixty years. However, her
artistic work is less well-known. She was actively involved
with her brother, Robert Douglass, Jr., in producing such commercial
art works as signs, banners, advertisements and fire company regalia.
Her artistry is displayed in the album in three floral watercolors
with elegantly caligraphed poems in Amy Casey's album. Margaretta,
Mary, and Sarah Forten also display their artistry in calligraphed
poems and watercolors.
"I never felt more entirely out of my sphere than when presuming
to write in an Album," Frederick Douglass noted in his 1850 contribution.
His business-like, self-taught handwriting fills the page withan apology
for his rougher contribution to an album filled with "beauty,
elegance and refinement." Douglass was becoming one of the most
famous American orators of the 19th century but in his career to date
had been a plantation slave laborer, a fugitive slave shipyard worker,
and printer of his own newspaper, The North Star. He was in Philadelphia
to attend a fundraising fair that Amy Cassey and her colleagues of
the Women's Association of Philadelphia sponsored to help support
Douglass's newspaper.
William Whipper was another successful black businessman who helped
underwrite the antislavery movement and a host of local black improvement
efforts. In 1834, he contributed to Cassey's album a two-page essay
"Moral Reform." Within a couple of years, Whipper
and Cassey organized the Moral Reform Society to promote temperance
and education among northern blacks.
Patrick Henry Reason was one of the few commercially active black
engravers of the 1830's and 40's. He was the brother of Charles Reason
, teacher and principal for a time at the Institute of Colored Youth.
Patrick contributed a stunningly calligraphed version of Washington
Irving's poem, "The Wife", elegantly curved and shaded to appear
as an elaborate engraving. Brother Charles contributed a poem on "True
Happiness
