Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia)
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Pennsylvania Hall, "one of the most commodious and splendid buildings in the city," was an abolitionist venue in Philadelphia, built in 1837–38. It was a "Temple of Free Discussion", where antislavery, women's rights, and other reform lecturers could be heard. Four days after it opened it was destroyed by arson, the work of an anti-abolitionist mob.
An illustration of Pennsylvania Hall at its opening in 1838
An engraving by John Sartain, an eyewitness. Note water directed toward adjacent building.
Pennsylvania Hall post-burning. Engraved by Reuben S. Gilbert after work by John Archibald Woodside, Jr.
Abolitionism in the United States
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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.
Collection box for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, c. 1850
Thones Kunders's house at 5109 Germantown Avenue, where the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery was written
Samuel Sewall (1652–1730), judge who wrote The Selling of Joseph (1700) which denounced the spread of slavery in the American colonies
Grave of Benjamin Kent, lawyer who freed a slave in America (1766)