Photo credit: from the “Lincoln Broadsides” collection
Like many of those born into slavery, Frederick Douglass had no idea of the date of his birth. He knew neither his age nor the day on which to commemorate each new year that was added to it. Escaping slavery in Maryland for freedom in the North, Douglass thus had to select a day on which to celebrate his birthday. He chose St. Valentine’s Day, after recalling that his mother had so often called him her “Little Valentine.”
Photo credit: Taken from a 1845 volume of “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”—http://josiah.brown.edu/record=b1928785~S5
Douglass began his life as a free man in Southeastern New England, establishing residence in New Bedford. Once William Lloyd Garrison had recruited him to work for the Abolitionist movement, however, Douglass travelled throughout the region as a speaker and activist, recruiting others to the cause. He spoke often in Rhode Island, particularly in the northern part of the state where Abolitionist sentiment was strongest, and served on the executive board of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society, which had been founded in 1836.
Douglass’s writings and his activities in the Abolition movement are documented across the collections in the John Hay Library, but can be found principally in the McLellan Lincoln Collection, the general collection of rare books (Hay Star), and the Harris Collection of American Poetry & Plays, which include broadsides, pamphlets and newspapers of the period. The John Hay Library has strong holdings on African American history, with a particular focus on African American poets of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as on African American alumni of Brown University, the anti-slavery movement, and the struggle to achieve civil rights.