Radical Demands for Land and Freedom in New York, 1829–1848

This class will focus on the politically significant yet seldom acknowledged common ground between a section of labor reformers and political abolitionists in New York on questions of land and freedom for all citizens, regardless of race.

Through an investigation of personal papers, public lectures, and newspapers of the period leading up to the Mexican-American War, this class will trace the transformation of radical reform traditions from practices divided along racial lines, to movements with shared goals and priorities. We will see how in the lead-up to this conflict, Northern reformers were pushed to develop innovative political and social organizations in an effort to break the pattern of compromise with the slave South, and how Paineite (after Thomas Paine) circles of agrarian radicals and abolitionist networks organized—sometimes in tandem—to form a Northern cross-class opposition to slavery.

Sessions:

February 4, week 1: Why land? And what kind of freedom?

February 11,  week 2: The abolitionists

February 18, week 3: The labor reformers

February 25, week 4: Black settlements: John Brown and Timbuctoo

March 4, week 5: Epilogue: Reconstruction and the return of the land problem

Presented in the third floor Mae West Community Room

THE PROFESSOR: 

Pamela C. Nogales  is a doctoral candidate in American History at New York University. Her dissertation “Reform in the Age of Capital: The Transatlantic Roots of Radical Political Thought in the United States, 1828-1877” focuses on the intellectual and social history of American reform, specifically on the political contributions made by European immigrants in the nineteenth century.  Nogales is an adjunct instructor at the Pratt Institute and has led two lecture series at the Jefferson Market branch of The New York Public Library, “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 150 Years Later,” and “Reform in the Age of Capital: Radical Political Thought in the United States, 1828-1877.”











When: Sat., Feb. 25, 2017 at 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Where: Jefferson Market Library
425 Ave. of the Americas
212-243-4334
Price: Free
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This class will focus on the politically significant yet seldom acknowledged common ground between a section of labor reformers and political abolitionists in New York on questions of land and freedom for all citizens, regardless of race.

Through an investigation of personal papers, public lectures, and newspapers of the period leading up to the Mexican-American War, this class will trace the transformation of radical reform traditions from practices divided along racial lines, to movements with shared goals and priorities. We will see how in the lead-up to this conflict, Northern reformers were pushed to develop innovative political and social organizations in an effort to break the pattern of compromise with the slave South, and how Paineite (after Thomas Paine) circles of agrarian radicals and abolitionist networks organized—sometimes in tandem—to form a Northern cross-class opposition to slavery.

Sessions:

February 4, week 1: Why land? And what kind of freedom?

February 11,  week 2: The abolitionists

February 18, week 3: The labor reformers

February 25, week 4: Black settlements: John Brown and Timbuctoo

March 4, week 5: Epilogue: Reconstruction and the return of the land problem

Presented in the third floor Mae West Community Room

THE PROFESSOR: 

Pamela C. Nogales  is a doctoral candidate in American History at New York University. Her dissertation “Reform in the Age of Capital: The Transatlantic Roots of Radical Political Thought in the United States, 1828-1877” focuses on the intellectual and social history of American reform, specifically on the political contributions made by European immigrants in the nineteenth century.  Nogales is an adjunct instructor at the Pratt Institute and has led two lecture series at the Jefferson Market branch of The New York Public Library, “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 150 Years Later,” and “Reform in the Age of Capital: Radical Political Thought in the United States, 1828-1877.”

Buy tickets/get more info now