2-833-200 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The front page of Harper’s Weekly: Journal of Civilization, Vol. XXVII, No. 1405 with a full-page portrait of African-American diplomat, abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) who escaped from slavery in Maryland aged 21. He became a national leader of the abolitionist movement. Famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings, he was described by abolitionists as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Typed below the image is "FREDERICK DOUGLASS - [See Page 743]."