Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States.
Lucy Stone was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer of promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery. Stone was known for using her birth name after marriage, contrary to the custom of women taking their husband's surname.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an American abolitionist, suffragist, poet, temperance activist, teacher, public speaker, and writer. Beginning in 1845, she was one of the first African American women to be published in the United States.
"My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!", typically shortened to "My Old Kentucky Home", is a sentimental ballad written by Stephen Foster, probably composed in 1852. It was published in January 1853 by Firth, Pond, & Co. of New York. Foster was likely inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, as evidenced by the title of a sketch in Foster's sketchbook, "Poor Uncle Tom, Good-Night!"
Joshua Reed Giddings was an American attorney, politician and a prominent opponent of slavery. He represented Northeast Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1838 to 1859. He was at first a member of the Whig Party and was later a Republican, helping found the party.
The Oberlin–Wellington Rescue of 1858 in was a key event in the history of abolitionism in the United States. A cause celèbre and widely publicized, thanks in part to the new telegraph, it is one of the series of events leading up to Civil War.
Lewis Woodson was an educator, minister, writer, and abolitionist. He was an early leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Woodson started and helped to build other institutions within the free African-American communities in Ohio and western Pennsylvania prior to the American Civil War.
Sarah Jane Woodson Early, born Sarah Jane Woodson, was an American educator, black nationalist, temperance activist and author. A graduate of Oberlin College, where she majored in classics, she was hired at Wilberforce University in 1858 as the first black woman college instructor, and also the first black American to teach at a historically black college or university (HBCU).
Betsy Mix Cowles was an early leader in the United States abolitionist movement. She was an active and influential Ohio-based reformer, and was a noted feminist and an educator. She counted among her friends and acquaintances people such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry C. Wright, and Abby Kelley Foster.
"Kingdom Coming", or "The Year of Jubilo", is an American Civil War-era song written and composed by Henry Clay Work (1832–1884) in 1861. It was published by Root & Cady in 1862 and first advertised in April by the popular minstrel group Christy's Minstrels.
"Lorena" is an American antebellum song with Ohio origins. The lyrics were written in 1856 by Rev. Henry D. L. Webster, after a broken engagement. He wrote a long poem about his fiancée Ella Blocksom, but changed her name at first to "Bertha" and later to "Lorena", perhaps an adaptation of "Lenore" from Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven." Henry Webster's friend Joseph Philbrick Webster wrote the music, and the song was first published in Chicago in 1857. It became a favorite of soldiers of both sides during the American Civil War. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"Darling Nelly Gray" is a 19th century anti-slavery ballad written and composed by Benjamin Hanby in 1856. It is written as from the point of view of an African-American male slave in Kentucky whose sweetheart has been taken away by slave-owners. The man mourns his beloved, who has been sold South to Georgia. He eventually dies and joins her in heaven. The song became popular in the years preceding the Civil War and helped promote support for the abolitionist cause.
Sherlock James Andrews, was an American lawyer and abolitionist Congressman from Ohio. He became the 1st President of the Cleveland Bar Association and was one of the lawyers who defended the abolitionists in the Oberlin–Wellington Rescue Case with John Mercer Langston.
"Gentle Annie" is a popular American song written by Stephen Foster in 1856. Tradition says that it was written in honor of Annie Jenkins, the daughter of a grocer in Federal Street, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, named Morgan Jenkins. However, Foster's biographer and niece, Evelyn Foster Morneweck, disputes this and states that it is probably written in honor of his cousin, Annie Evans, who died shortly before it was composed. Some sources say it is Foster's farewell to his maternal grandmother, Annie Pratt McGinnis Hart. His paternal grandmother was Ann Barclay.
"Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! " was one of the most popular songs of the American Civil War. George F. Root wrote both the words and music and published it in 1864 to give hope to the Union prisoners of war. The song is written from the prisoner's point of view. The chorus tells his fellow prisoners that hope is coming. A Confederate version and various other versions have been made.
Massa's in De Cold Ground (1852) is a song by Stephen Foster.
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Oberlin Academy Preparatory School, originally Oberlin Institute and then Preparatory Department of Oberlin College, was a private preparatory school in Oberlin, Ohio which operated from 1833 until 1916. It opened as Oberlin Institute which became Oberlin College in 1850. The secondary school serving local and boarding students continued as a department of the college. The school and college admitted African Americans and women. This was very unusual and controversial. It was located on the Oberlin College campus for much of its history and many of its students continued on to study at Oberlin College. Various alumni and staff went on to notable careers.
Amos Dresser was an abolitionist and pacifist minister, and one of the founders of Olivet College. His name was well-known in the Antebellum period due to a well-publicized incident: in 1835 he was arrested, tried, convicted, and publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee for the crime of possession of abolitionist publications. The incident was widely reported and became well-known. Dresser published an account of it, and spoke of it frequently.
The Aliened American was a newspaper in Cleveland. It was the city's first black newspaper and is believed to have been the third newspaper for African Americans in the United States. Its first edition was published on April 9, 1853. William H. Day was the editor-in-residence and was assisted by Samuel Ringgold Ward, a former slave living in Toronto, and Rev. James W. C. Pennington of New York. Day moved to Buxton, Ontario, in 1855. It was printed on a monthly basis for one more year as the People's Exposition.
