Devereux St. and the Abolitionist Press

Devereux St. and the Abolitionist Press. The Oneida County Freedom Trail Walking Tour - Stop 3. [Main body] “… newspapers, by and large, played the most critical role in the effort to change public opinion in favor of emancipation.” ,
Abolitionist literature faced strong resistance. Congress refused to acknowledge thousands of anti-slavery petitions because of the opposition of southern congressmen, resulting in the infamous Gag Rule. Angry crowds destroyed Abolitionist newspaper presses. In the slave-holding Southern states, federal postal officials were allowed to destroy Abolitionist literature. , Individual agents, the Erie Canal, railroads and the telegraph made it possible for literature published in Oneida County to reach a large readership. Widespread black and white literacy meant that abolitionists could keep in touch with sympathizers nearby and across the North. , [Top left] After 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison of Boston published The Liberator, Abolitionist literature exploded across the North. In 1836 William Goodell began publishing The Friend of Man, the official newspaper of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, in Oneida County. In 1842 The Friend of Man merged with The Abolitionist of Cazenovia to form the liberty Press, published by Wesley Bailey, printer and Underground Railroad activist, from his office on Devereux Street in Utica. At least 9 antislavery newspapers were published in Oneida County before the Civil War, including 3 in Welsh. , [Bottom left] This depiction of a mob in Charleston, SC destroying Abolitionist literature in the US Post Office represents a common act by anti-abolitionists. In 1835 after the Utica Riot, a mob in Utica attacked the office of the anti-slavery Standard and Democrat. , [Top center] The Standard and Democrat, published here in Utica. , [Bottom center] Caroline Storum Loguen was the well-educated daughter of the noted African American Abolitionist Storum family of New Hartford and Busti, NY. She and many Oneida County women were in the forefront in the education and literacy of African Americans. The Sunday Evening School for People of Color was one of the earliest, begun in Utica in 1815 by Eunice Camp and teachers Alida Marie Van Rensselaer, Mary E. Walker, and Sarah Malcolm. It was followed by others, including Mrs. Maxon's School for Colored Children in 1837, The School for Colored Children run by Harriet Hall in 1848, and the Sunday School for Colored People started by Caroline's husband, Jermaine Loguen. , [Top right] Oneida County Anti-Slavery Petition. Often ignored by history, women were heavily involved in the Abolitionist Movement, as evidenced by the thousands of Oneida County women who signed anti-slavery petitions. , [Center right] William Goodell, published The Friend of Man.