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About the
Gerrit Smith
Broadside Collection
By Dr. Milton C. Sernett
Professor of African American Studies and History,
Adjunct Professor of Religion, Syracuse University.
CONTENTS
ABOUT GERRIT SMITH:
 "There
are yet two places where slave holders cannot come," the Rev. Henry
H. Garnet declared in 1848, "Heaven and Peterboro." (North Star,
December 8, 1848). Garnet, an activist Presbyterian clergyman who as a
child had escaped with his parents from slavery in Maryland, knew the
village of Peterboro well, for he had taken up residence there at the
invitation of Gerrit Smith, one of New York State's most notable abolitionists
and social reformers. Garnet was not the only African American drawn to
Peterboro by the presence of Gerrit Smith. Many others, including Frederick
Douglass and Harriet Tubman, visited Smith at his home during the fourscore
decades Smith participated in social reform movements of one kind or another.
Abolitionists, women's rights crusaders, educational reformers, anti-tobacco
proponents, temperance advocates, Sabbatarians, anti-land monopolists,
politicians, fugitives seeking help along the Underground Railroad, religious
leaders, international peace supporters and a host of others made a pilgrimage
to Peterboro during the half century Gerrit Smith dominated this Madison
County Community. In short, Peterboro became a haven for social reformers
because of the presence of "the great philanthropist," as Garnet
termed Smith.
Gerrit Smith (1797-1874) is surely one of the most under-chronicled figures
in American social reform, despite the fact that at the time of his death,
the New York Times could say: "The history of the most important
half century of our national life will be imperfectly written if it fails
to place [Smith] in the front rank of the men whose influence was most
felt in the accomplishments of its results." Ralph Harlow's Gerrit
Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1939) is the most recent scholarly biography. Why there has been so little
attention to Smith and his reform career in the academic establishment
during the past half century is difficult to explain. A wealth of archival
material exists, much of it incorporated in the Gerrit Smith Papers, a
collection given to Syracuse University by Gerrit Smith Miller, grandson
of "the great philanthropist," in 1928. The manuscripts and
published material found in the Gerrit Smith Papers provide contemporary
students of the American culture and social reform with access to almost
every important issue troubling the public mind in the half century from
c. 1820-1870.
Gerrit Smith attempted to influence the citizens of Peterboro, Madison
County, New York State, the United States, and the World, in every widening
concentric circles, through a variety of means. He spoke, he wrote, and
he gave money. Smith felt it his duty to leverage others in the direction
of the causes he advocated, and he had the means to do so. As a young
man (age 22) he had assumed responsibility for administering the large
land holdings amassed by his father Peter Smith, and in the ensuing decades
he profited from other business ventures, including canals and railroads.
Smith's wealth enabled him to indulge his real passion-efforts to make
the world a better place by influencing others to better themselves. Contemporaries
favorably commented on Gerrit Smith's oratorical powers, and Smith himself
once avowed that as a public speaker he warmed with his subject "especially
if opposed, until at the climax, his heavy voice rolling forth in ponderous
volume and his large frame quivering in every muscle, he stands, like
Jupiter, thundering, and shaking with his thunderbolts, his throne itself."
(Jupiter, appropriately enough, was the Greek god who protected the poor
and the oppressed.)
Smith was less self-congratulatory on his power and skills as a writer,
admitting that although he always strove to express himself "with
clearness and simplicity," his writing did not rank high in rhetorical
beauty and lacked "almost entirely the element of poetry." ["Autobiographical
Sketch of the Life of Gerrit Smith," in John R. McKivigan and Madeleine
L. McKivigan, "'He Stands Like Jupiter': The Autobiography of Gerrit
Smith," New York History (April 1984): 199] Despite Smith's reservations
about the power of his pen, he flooded his reform allies and the general
public with a stream of correspondence, constantly urging them to higher
ground on the moral issues of the day. As most researchers who have used
the manuscript letters quickly discover, Smith's penmanship is nearly
undecipherable at times. At the very least, comprehension of the letters
requires a trained and disciplined eye.
Fortunately, we have another avenue of access to Gerrit Smith's reform
career, and thereby, to the history of American social reform in the 19th
century, especially as it played out in New York State's so-called "Burned-over
District," those parts of central and western New York which after
the revivals sparked by the Rev. Charles G. Finney in the 1820s became
fertile soil for so many important movements aimed at redeeming America.
The Gerrit Smith Papers at Syracuse University contain 300+ broadsides,
printing documents meant for public consumption, akin to the open letters
or extended editorials one finds in newspapers today.
THE BROADSIDE | TOP
Although the broadside is traditionally thought of as a single leaf or
folio format, other formats such as pamphlets are also included in SUL's
collection. As a form of public expression, the broadside is at least
as old as Tudor times, when writers distributed penny flysheets to ordinary
citizens in the hope of winning them over to a point of view or as a means
of promoting one cause or another. The Cambridge History of English and
American Literature (Vol. III, Chap. V., p. 107) goes so far as to say,
"The history of this mental awakening [the advent of modern thought]
is the history of the broadside." The popularity of the broadside
carried over to America, and partisans of American independence used broadsides
to great effect. Gerrit Smith was, therefore, drawing on a well-known
means of influencing public opinion when he authored a broadside "to
the Electors of the County of Madison" in 1823-24 using the pseudonym
Juvenis. During the next half century, he would authorize the printing
of nearly six hundred more. The last one in the Gerrit Smith collection
carries the date of December 12, 1874, and the title, "Will the American
People Never Cease to Oppress and Torture the Helpless Poor." It
demonstrates not only the unwavering passion Smith had for championing
social reform but also his lifelong use of the broadside as a means to
influence public opinion. Smith died December 28, 1874. Lewis Tappan,
the wealthy New York City abolitionist and reformer, received most of
Smith's printed letters, as it was Smith's custom to distribute his broadsides
in reform circles widely and hope for their re-publication in the local
and regional press. Tappan wrote his friend and ally on October 14, 1843,
expressing some bemusement over the torrent of paper coming his way from
Peterboro: "Do you keep a press in your house? Are your family all
printers? Do you sleep nights? To be serious, I rejoice that you have
the power-intellectual and physical-to do so much, and that in general
you do so well." (Tappan to Smith, 14 October 1843, Smith Papers)
GERRIT SMITH'S BROADSIDES | TOP
The broadsides and pamplets in the Gerrit Smith Papers at Syracuse University
provide many access points to the long and multi-faceted reform career
of Gerrit Smith. Some are open letters, addressed to the general public
on issues contested at the time. Others are directed to specific individuals
with whom Smith differed or with whom Smith sympathized. All were meant
for the public's edification. Even a cursory review of the titles will
suggest the wide range of Smith's interests Smith and the extent to which
he was in communication (via the broadside) with so many prominent figures.
Each broadside is a kind of primer on American reform. By parsing out
the contents and reconstructing the historical context of, for example,
Smith's famous broadside "The Crime of the Abolitionists" (1835),
today's student of American social reform will re-cover whole chapters
of American history. These broadsides can serve as portals allowing to
other access historical materials. For example, a student might read and
analyze Smith's speech on black suffrage (Albany, 1856) in conjunction
with the study of the crusade for voting rights in New York State. This
might lead the student to consideration of Smith's effort in the late
1840s to distribute thousands of acres of land in the Adirondacks to African
Americans as a means of having them meet the then discriminatory property
requirement for voting. A high school social studies class might then
visit a showing of the museum exhibit on "Timbuctoo"-the colony
of Smith land grantees who settled near North Elba. Then they could engage
the question of Smith's relationship to John Brown as one of the so-called
"Secret Six,"for Brown purchased land from Smith in close proximity
to the black farmers who took up Smith's offer to move to farms of their
own.
Gerrit Smith's broadsides are frequently jeremiads calling upon his fellow
citizens to repent of their ways and restore America to her greatness
as the "chosen people of God." Individual broadsides, therefore,
have an absolutist, almost hectoring, tone. Some of Smith's contemporaries,
especially those who held contrary opinions, resented the ability of this
man of wealth to so readily broadcast his point of view. One suspects
that they felt as does today's so-called "average citizen" who
cannot afford full page editorials/ads in prominent newspapers, television
and radio time, or well-paid lobbyists. Student commentary on Smith's
use of the broadside might well lead to discussion of the impact of the
Internet and other forms of electronic communication in our digital age.
Though the tone of an individual broadside may be absolutist (propaganda
in the technical sense), the larger corpus of Smith's writings reveal
a great deal of evolution of thought. Some critics charged Smith with
inconsistency, but his seeming inconsistency, as he himself once said,
was the result of engaging issues with an inquiring mind over long periods
of time and was not the byproduct of shallow reasoning or the fear of
political consequences. Thus it is important to have the entire set of
broadsides digitized in a searchable format. This will enable students
and scholarly researchers to see the varying contours of Smiths reform
career. After or, in conjunction with an examination thematically of the
broadside collection, students and researchers could consult the microform
collection of Smith letters and other writings.
SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE REGION | TOP
With this project, we have made available a resource of immense value
in educational settings ranging from the social studies classroom to the
university research seminar. Given the high level of public interest currently
shown in studying the reform movements with which Smith identified, this
digitized collection will find a place in local libraries and historical
societies as well. The New York Freedom Trail endeavor (focusing on the
Underground Railroad) and the resurgence of interest in the Women's Rights
movement are two examples of ways to integrate the Gerrit Smith collection.
The Gerrit Smith estate in Peterboro is now a designated National Historic
Landmark. This recognition will stimulate greater interest in his life
and reform work. The Gerrit Smith broadside collection is rich in educational
potential. By publishing it in this format, we hope that it will receive
the wide distribution it deserves.
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