William Lloyd Garrison House

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William Lloyd Garrison House
National Register of Historic Places
National Historic Landmark
Historic District Contributing Property
The house in 2012

The house in 2012

William Lloyd Garrison House (Massachusetts)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location Boston , Massachusetts , United States
Coordinates 42 ° 19 '33 "  N , 71 ° 5' 38.9"  W Coordinates: 42 ° 19 '33 "  N , 71 ° 5' 38.9"  W.
Built 19th century
architect Unknown
NRHP number 66000653
Data
The NRHP added October 15, 1966
Declared as an  NHL June 23, 1965
Declared as  CP February 22, 1989

The William Lloyd Garrison House (also Rockledge or St. Monica's Home ) is a historic residential building in Boston in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . It was built in the mid-19th century and named after its owner, William Lloyd Garrison , who lived there until his death in 1879. In 1989 it was classified as a Contributing Property of the Roxbury Highlands Historic District , after it had been registered as a National Historic Landmark in the National Register of Historic Places in 1965 . Today the building is part of Emmanuel College .

architecture

The William Lloyd Garrison House stands on a rocky ledge ( English rock ledge ) on the west side of Highland Street in Boston's Roxbury . The exact construction date is not known, but it was dated to the middle of the 19th century. Photos from the time when Garrison lived in the house show the original appearance of the house and document some significant structural changes that were carried out over time. The corner stones were removed, the inverted formwork was largely clad with a wooden facade and a second bay was added on the north side. A fire escape was built on the south side. The inside of the building was also significantly changed, especially in the time after Garrison's death, but these only concerned changes to the room layout and furnishings, without modifying the basic structure of the building.

history

Garrison lived in this house from 1864 to 1879. The "Rockledge Association" took over the property after his death and took care of the maintenance until they passed it on in 1904 to the "Episcopal Sisters of the Society of St. Margaret", which became one Nursing and geriatric care center for women named “St. Monica's Home “. In 2012 the building was bought by Emmanuel College in Boston and attached to the “Notre Dame” campus .

Born in Newburyport in 1805 , Garrison began training as a printer at the age of 14 , which he successfully completed in 1825. By this point he had already written several articles for the newspaper his employer was publishing. In 1826 he bought a local newspaper and called it The Free Press , for which he wrote an anti- slavery editorial and in which he was the first publisher to publish the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier . However, the newspaper was not commercially successful, so Garrison moved to Boston and worked there as a printer.

In 1828 he became co-editor of the National Philanthropist newspaper , which had joined the abstinence movement . At this time he met the Quaker and abolitionist Benjamin Lundy , who was already involved in the anti-slavery movement and convinced Garrison to join it too. After a brief stint as editor of a Vermont newspaper , he returned to Boston in March 1829 and published his first of countless anti-slavery articles on Independence Day that year.

In the late summer of 1829 he moved to Baltimore to help Lundy publish the abolitionist newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation . He was one of the first to demand the "immediate and complete emancipation" of the slaves. The more moderate Lundy soon distanced himself from the increasingly violent views of Garrison and was relieved when he moved back to Boston after serving a prison sentence to which he had been sentenced on the basis of an article.

In 1830 Garrison founded The Liberator , which was conceived as a periodical , the first edition of which appeared on January 1, 1831. Although the newspaper barely covered its expenses and never had more than 3,000 subscribers, it attracted the interest of the American population like no other. Garrison unequivocally called for the immediate end of slavery and did not stop publication until the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution came into force ; on December 29, 1865 the last edition of Liberator appeared .

In addition to the Liberator , Garrison was involved in many other places for the abolition of slavery. He founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, the forerunner of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society , wrote the book "Thoughts on African Colonization" and visited abolitionists in England in 1833 , whereupon he found a gallows on his doorstep on his return . In 1833 he was co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia and married Helen Benson in 1834, with whom he had seven children and who always supported him in his work.

Because of his published views, Garrison had many influential enemies; for example, wealthy Boston citizens sponsored a major anti-abolitionist meeting at Faneuil Hall in August 1835 , and in October of that year Garrison narrowly escaped a mob who stormed a meeting of the Female Anti-Slavery Society and chased him through the streets of Boston. Because of his very liberal religious views, he also turned the clergy against him.

In 1842, when he could still see no progress in the abolition of slavery, he began promoting the division of the United States. On July 4, 1854, in a radical action, he burned copies of the United States Constitution , the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and some court decisions in favor of slavery. Garrison's views were growing in popularity in the northern states, and with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 he had contributed more than anyone to the moral core of the conflict.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 10, 2019.
  2. cf. Rettig / Bradford, p. 2.
  3. a b c d cf. Rettig / Bradford, p. 3.
  4. a b c d cf. Rettig / Bradford, p. 5.
  5. ^ William Lloyd Garrison: Thoughts on African colonization . Arno Press, New York 1968, OCLC 427203 .