2018/10/17 by Paul J. Polgar · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment
paper · doi:10.1093/jahist/jay310
openalex publication_date 2018/10/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
When picturing early abolitionists, a small number of individuals immediately pop to mind—such as John Woolman and Anthony Benezet on the American side of the Atlantic Ocean; Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and Olaudah Equiano on the British. With the publication of this painstakingly researched and carefully argued biography, scholars will need to add Warner Mifflin's name to the list. Gary B. Nash's latest book in a long and illustrious line of works he has penned on slavery, race, and revolutionary America is part of a new wave of scholarship on early abolitionism that has attempted to restore trailblazing activists such as Mifflin to their rightful place within the pantheon of abolitionists. An indefatigable force for early antislavery, Mifflin's activist-oriented Quakerism drove him to foster several key elements of what would come to define later American abolitionism, especially his political lobbying techniques and his unswerving commitment to guarding and expanding the rights of black Americans.