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Podcast: New Books in African American Studies
Episode: Beverly C. Tomek, "Slavery and Abolition in Pennsylvania" (Temple UP, 2021)
Description: In her concise history Slavery and Abolition in Pennsylvania (Temple UP, 2021), Beverly Tomek corrects the long-held notion that slavery in the North was “not so bad” as, or somehow “more humane” than, in the South due to the presence of abolitionists. While the Quaker presence focused on moral and practical opposition to bondage, slavery was ubiquitous. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania was the first state to pass an abolition law in the United States.Slavery and Abolition in Pennsylvania traces this movement from its beginning to the years immediately following the American Civil War. Discussions of the complexities of the state’s ant...