Making Men and Women Blush: Masculinity, Femininity, and Reform in Nineteenth-Century Central New York

Abstract

On a clear June day in 1844, thousands of social reformers gathered in an upstate New York cemetery to commemorate the death of Myron Holley, one of the founders of the abolitionist Liberty Party. Prayers were said, hymns were sung, and a monument was erected before the New York reformer, businessman, and philanthropist Gerrit Smith (1797–1874; Fig. 13.1) addressed the crowd gathered under the trees and around Holley’s new grave marker. In his speech, he touted Holley’s achievements and lamented the costs that accrued once one took on the abolitionist label. For, devotion to the enslaved prompted accusations of fanaticism, stirred the deep hatred of abolition’s many opponents, and required abolitionists to submit “to all the sacrifices of ease and respectability…” (Smith 1844: 10).