Baltimore and the Early Radicalization of William Lloyd Garrison

For many Americans living in the antebellum period, William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79) was a leading voice of abolition. Garrison’s newspaper, the Liberator, reached thousands, and the commitment to ending slavery he articulated in the paper made him loved and hated by many of his contemporaries. The American Anti-Slavery Society, which Garrison led, became the training ground for numerous young reformers. Whereas scholars have written much about those facts, the scholarship on Baltimore’s significant role in helping to shape Garrison’s early ideas and activities is scant. Not only did Baltimore serve as the place where Garrison moved from a gradual emancipationist to an immediate emancipationist, but the city also provided him with his first national and international recognition.