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Product Description
The son of a black slave and an unknown white father, Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) experienced first-hand the privations and brutality of America's "peculiar institution". Following his second, successful, attempt to escape, he went on to become a leading abolitionist and militant spokesman for African-American rights. A friend to Abraham Lincoln and other presidents, he held three major government offices and became a writer, orator and editor. This biography moves beyond Douglass' three autobiographies to explore his impact on the anti-slavery movement, the Civil War Reconstruction, women's suffrage, and the Republican Party during its first 40 years, and to look at his personal and family life.
Amazon.com Review
Originally published in 1948, this was one of the first modern biographies of Frederick Douglass, and according to noted historian James M. McPherson, it is still a model of "fairness and readability." Douglass himself wrote three autobiographies, so Benjamin Quarles offers only a brief account of the abolitionist's early life, dealing with his childhood in slavery and his escape from the peculiar institution in just a few pages. He devotes more time to Douglass's travels in Britain, which were undertaken after publication of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass because he feared capture and re-enslavement. Douglass's is a remarkable life, a trajectory from illiterate slave to world-renowned lecturer for abolition and women's rights, newspaper editor, friend of presidents, and the holder of three prominent government positions.
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