Archives and Special Collections has unique manuscript materials and rare printed materials about the history of slavery and abolition in the United States. Additional information about these materials is listed below by format. If you have questions or need assistance, please ask an archivist, and we will be glad to help.
Beecher family papers, 1822-1903 (Bulk: 1822-1865).
Papers of Lyman Beecher and several of his children consisting of correspondence, sermons, and other materials principally pertaining to family matters, women's education, and theological issues.
2 boxes (5 linear in.)
Collection guide: MS 0509, LD 7093.37 B43
Goodale Papers, ca. 1832-1841 (Bulk: 1838-1840).
Lucy Goodale attended Mount Holyoke from 1838-1840. Her papers contain correspondence, notebooks, and writings documenting her experience at Mount Holyoke, including references to slavery and other contemporary issues.
1 box (2.5 linear in.)
Collection guide:: MS 0640, LD 7096.6 x1841
Hardy papers, 1851-1858.
Josephine M. Kingsley Hardy was an 1857 graduate of Mount Holyoke. Her papers include a composition entitled "Slavery" (written circa March 1855).
1 box (2.5 linear in.)
Collection guide: MS 0778, LD 7096.6 1857
[Hawks], Marion [A.], Class of 1842. Letter, 20 July, 1840.
Letter from Hawks in Yanceyville, NC, to Nancy S. Everett in Wrentham, Mass. Describes her work as a teacher; comments on differences between New England and North Carolina and her feelings about slavery.
1 item (4 pages)
Collection identifier: LD 7096.6 1842 Hawks
Knowles, John Power. Letter to Stephen R. Weeden, 1837 June.
Knowles graduated Brown University in 1836. He comments on the recent meeting of the United Brothers Society, a debating society at Brown University, and on its debate about abolition in particular. He notes his own opinions in the matter and which abolitionists were present (Mrs. Lydia Childs among them).
1 item, 26 cm.
Collection identifier: MS 0044
Mead, Hiram. Occasions for gratitude in the present national crisis : a sermon preached in the meeting-house of the First Congregational Church, of South Hadley on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 21, 1861.
[South Hadley, Mass.?] : G. Morgan Smith ... [et. al.], 1861.
21 p. , 23 cm.
Collection identifier: LD 7082.18
Morgan, John A. Letter, October 30, 1834.
Morgan was a Professor at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio until he was dismissed in 1834 for siding with students in a debate over the Seminary's position on slavery. Letter is to students remaining at the Seminary offering advice and asking them to pay his debts and dispose of his belongings.
1 item, 25 cm.
Collection guide: MS 0036
Morris Papers, 1839-1841.
Letters by a member of the Mount Holyoke Class of 1841 which contains discussions of her views on the Whig party, the racial composition of South Hadley, and conversations about abolition.
3 folders
Collection guide: MS 0635, LD 7096.6 1841 Le Conte Archives
Receipt for purchase of a Negro slave, Lynchburg, Virginia, 7 March 1863.
Neptune, slave. Receipt for his purchase in Lynchburg, Virginia in March 1863 by Nathan C. Taliaferro from John H. Fuqua.
1 item, 10 x 20 cm.
Collection guide: MS 0040
[Welch], [Cora] Antoinette, Class of 1859. Letter, June 6, 1856.
Student at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary tells her family about her daily schedule and expresses her satisfaction with the school, despite homesickness. Also mentions a lecture about the slavery crisis in Kansas and describes an effigy of Senator Preston S. Brooks, found hanging from a tree in South Hadley. With typed transcript.
1 item (4 pages)
Collection identification: LD 7096.6 1859 Welch
Weld, Theodore Dwight. Letter, August 13, 1834.
Letter to his brother Lewis Weld about conditions at Lane Seminary in Aug. 1834, includes comments on sickness and abolitionist activities.
1 item, 25 cm
Collection guide: MS 0037
Whittier, John Greenleaf. Letter, August 11, [between 1884 and 1892].
Letter by Whittier, a writer and political consultant, to his friend and fellow writer Lucy Larcom containing general greetings concerning health, the matters of acquaintances, and travels.
1 item
Collection guide: MS 0007 Archives
Adams, Charles Francis. What makes slavery a question of national concern? A lecture, delivered, by invitation, at New York, January 30, at Syracuse, February 1, 1855. Boston : Little, Brown, and Co., 1855.
Call number: E449 .A29 1855
American Colonization Society. Annual report of the American Colonization Society, with minutes of the annual meeting and of the Board of Directors. Washington : American Colonization Society, 1818-1910
Note: 93 volumes; library has 1818-1834,1841-2,1844-5,1849,1853-4,1866,1869,1871-3,1881-3,1886-7 in three volumes.
Call number: E 448 .A51
Bowditch, William I. Cass and Taylor on the slavery question. Boston : Damrell & Moore, 1848.
Call number: F83CT C27 Rare Books Cutter
Channing, William Ellery. Slavery. Boston : J. Munroe and company, 1835.
Call number: F83CT C36 Rare Books Cutter
Chapman, Maria Weston. Right and wrong in Massachusetts. Boston : Dow & Jackson's anti-slavery press, 1839.
Call number: E449 .C46
Child, Lydia Maria. An appeal in favor of that class of Americans called Africans. New-York : John S. Taylor, 1836.
Call number: E449 .C532
Child, Lydia Maria. The right way the safe way : proved by emancipation in the British West Indies, and elsewhere. New York : [s.n.], 1860.
Call number: E449 .C537
Child, Lydia Maria, compiled by. The patriarchal institution, as described by members of its own family. New York : American Anti-Slavery Society, 1860.
Call number: E449 .C536
Clarkson, Thomas. The history of the rise, progress, and accomplishment of the abolition of the African Slave-trade by the British parliament. London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1808.
Call number: HT1162 .C6 1808
Gilbert, Olive. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a northern slave, emancipated from bodily servitude by the state of New York, in 1828.Boston : Printed for the author, 1850.
Call number: E185.97 .T87
Grayson, William J. (William John). The hireling and the slave, Chicora, and other poems. Charleston, S. C. : McCarter & co., 1856.
Call number: F83A 9G797 Rare Books Cutter
Greeley, Horace. Recollections of a busy life: including reminiscences of American politics and politicians, from the opening of the Missouri contest to the downfall of slavery;… New York : J.B. Ford and co., ; Boston, H. A. Brown & co.; [c1869].
Call number: F83A 9G81 Rare Books Cutter
Greeley, Horace, and John F. Cleveland, compiled by. A political text-book for 1860: comprising a brief view of presidential nominations and elections including all the national platforms ever yet adopted: also a history of the struggle respecting slavery in the territories, and of the action of Congress as to the freedom of the public lands…. New York : Tribune Association, 1860.
Call number: E440 .G79
Grimké, Angelina Emily. Appeal to the Christian women of the South, by A. E. Grimké. [New York : American Anti-slavery Society], 1836.
Call number: E449 .G86 1836b
Grimké, Angelina Emily. Letters to Catherine E. Beecher, in reply to An essay on slavery and abolitionism, addressed to A. E. Grimke. Rev. by The author. Boston : Printed by I. Knapp, 1838.
Call number: E449 .B419
Grimké, Sarah Moore. An epistle to the clergy of the southern states. [New York : s.n., 1836]
Call number: F83CT G88 Rare Books Cutter
Jay, William. An inquiry into the character and tendency of the American colonization, and American anti-slavery societies. New York : Leavitt, Lord & co.; Boston, Crocker & Brewster, 1835.
Call number: F83CT J33 Rare Books Cutter
Johnston, Harry Hamilton. The Negro in the New world. London : Methuen & co., ltd., [1910].
Call number: E29.N39 J7
Kemble, Fanny. Journal of a residence on a Georgian plantation in 1838-1839. New York : Harper & Brothers, 1863.
Call number: F83A 9K31j Rare Books Cutter
Lester, C. Edwards. Chains and freedom: or, The life and adventures of Peter Wheeler, a colored man yet living. By the author of the "Mountain wild flower." New York : E.S. Arnold & co., 1839.
Call number: F83CTB W56z Rare Books Cutter
Liberty or slavery; the great national question. Three prize essays on American slavery. Boston : Congregational Board of Publications, 1857.
Call number: F83CT L61 Rare Books Cutter
Martineau, Harriet, 1802-1876. The martyr age of the United States of America, with an appeal on behalf of the Oberlin institute in aid of the abolition of slavery. Re-published from the London and Westminster review, by the Newcastle upon Tyne emancipation and aborigines protection society. Newcastle upon Tyne : Finlay and Charlton; [etc.,etc.], 1840.
Call number: F83A 9M338m Rare Books Cutter
Montgomery, James. The West-Indies, by James Montgomery and other poems on the abolition of the slave-trade, by James Grahame and E. Benger. New York : Published by Prior & Dunning, 1810.
Call number: YG M76w 1810 Rare Books Cutter
Olmsted, Frederick Law. The cotton kingdom: a traveler's observations on cotton and slavery in the American slave states. New York : Mason brothers,1862 [c1861].
Call number: F213 .O53 vol. 1-2
Parsons, Charles Grandison. An inside view of slavery; or, A tour among the planters. Introductory note by Mrs. H.B. Stowe. Boston : J.P. Jewett and company ; Cleveland, O., Jewett, Proctor and Worthington, 1855.
Call number: E449 .P26 1855
Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave-Trade. Constitution of a society for abolishing the slave-trade. With several acts of the legislatures of the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, for that purpose. Providence : Printed by J. Carter, 1789.
Call number: F83A 9P95 Rare Books Cutter
Reese, David Meredith. Humbugs of New-York: being a remonstrance against popular delusion; whether in science, philosophy, or religion. New-York : J.S. Taylor; Boston, Weeks, Jordan & co., 1838
Contents: Introductory observations.--Animal magnetism.--Phrenology.-- Homoeopathia.--Quackery in general.--Ultra-temperance.--Ultra-abolitionism.--Ultra-protestantism.--Ultra-sectarianism.
Call number: AZ999 .R4
Reese, David Meredith. Letters to the Hon. William Jay, being a reply to his "Inquiry into the American Colonization and American anti-slavery societies." New-York : Leavitt, Lord & Co.; Boston, Crocker & Brewster, 1835.
Call number: F83CT R25 Rare Books Cutter
Serle, Ambrose. Americans against liberty: or, An essay on the nature and principles of true freedom, shewing that the designs and conduct of the Americans tend only to tyranny and slavery. London : Sold by J. Mathews, 1775.
Call number: F83A 9Se6 Rare Books Cutter
Slavery rhymes : addressed to the friends of liberty throughout the United States by a looker on. New York : John S. Taylor, 1837.
Call number: PS991.A6 L65 1837 Miniature
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Dred : a tale of the great Dismal Swamp. Boston : Phillips, Sampson, 1856.
Call number: PS2954 .D7 1856
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. A key to Uncle Tom's cabin; presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded. Together with corroborative statements verifying the truth of the work. Boston : J.P. Jewett; Cleveland, Ohio., Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, 1853.
Call number: E449 .S8959
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's cabin; or, Life among the lowly.Boston : J. P. Jewett; Cleveland, Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, 1852 [c1851].
Call number: PS2954 .U5 1852
Sumner, Charles. Last three speeches on Kansas and freedom. Feb. 7th, March 6th, and May 19th & 20th, 1856. Boston : Higgins and Bradley, 1856.
Call number: F83CT Su6 Rare Books Cutter
Thoreau, Henry David. A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers. Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1866.
Call number: F1052 .T47 1866
Woolman, John, 1720-1772. Some considerations on the keeping of Negroes. Northampton, [Mass.]: Gehenna Press, 1970 (reprint; originally published 1754).
Call number: HT871 .W6 1970
Wright, Joseph A. Remarks of Joseph A. Wright, of Indiana, on the right of petition, delivered in the House of Representatives, January 27, 1844. [Washington D.C. : s.n., 1844]
Call number: KF4780 .W74 1844