Poetry was a staple in nineteenth-century periodicals in the English-speaking world. The Burleigh family understood the value of poetry – both co-editor William and the youngest sibling, George Sheperd Burleigh, would have notable careers as minor poets in the nineteenth-century. The Liberator, The Genius of Emancipation, and The Genius of Temperance all had strong poetry columns; the excellent poetry editor of The Genius of Emancipation, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler (1807-1834), became the co-editor of that noted paper and also a pioneering Abolitionist in Michigan. Her career illustrates how poetry opened an avenue for women to publish in the Abolitionist movement. Numerous Black women published poetic excerpts in The Liberator, for instance. But it is often difficult to discern authorship of poetry, for much of it (especially by women) was published anonymously or with only a first name. For instance, in the September 5, 1833 edition, there are poems by “Gertrude” and “Agnes.” The most prominent poet who is frequently mentioned in the pages of The Unionist was John Greenleaf Whitter, the great Quaker Abolitionist bard of the movement. While much of the poetry of the period strikes us now as saccharin in its sentimentality, the poetry in The Unionist served the salutary purpose of reinforcing Abolitionist (and often Temperance) values in a crystallized, memorable form. Included here as a picture is Chandler’s brief poem in support of Prudence Crandall; it seems quite likely this was reprinted in one of the many lost issues of The Unionist.

For Further Reference

• Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret. The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler. Philadelphia: Lemuel Howell, 1836
• Laurie, Bruce. Beyond Garrison: Antislavery and Social Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• DeSimone, Erika and Fidel Louis, editors. Voices Beyond Bondage: An Anthology of Verse by African Americans of the 19th Century. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2014.