Hearts Beating for Liberty: Women Abolitionists in the Old Northwest

4. Antislavery Fairs, Cooperation, and Community Building

c hap t er 4 Antislavery Fairs, Cooperation, and Community Building They sent the box to Cincinnati. This infuriated the Salem, Ohio, Garrisonians . Sarah MacMillan made every effort to remain polite in her letter to Anne Warren Weston, but the exasperation behind her words burst through. Why, MacMillan inquired, had Weston’s powerful Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society failed to send the Salem abolitionists the promised box of goods for their annual fair? Initially, MacMillan explained, the Salem organizers had assumed that the unpredictability of winter had prevented the box from arriving. However, she fumed, “we have now learned that a box of Boston goods has been forwarded to Cincinnati to the Society there.” MacMillan rather sarcastically demanded confirmation of her assumption that the box had been intended for Salem but had gone to Cincinnati by mistake. After all, the Salem women had faithfully responded to Weston’s letter inquiring “what use would be made of the money, if a box of goods should be forwarded for their disposal,”despite finding the tone of the missive patronizing. Salem had a long history of “Old Organization” abolition, and slavery opponents there had worked closely with Weston and her Garrisonian colleagues for years. Why, they wondered, did they need to prove their worth to Weston? MacMillan’s frustration involved a regional competition between the two Ohio antislavery fairs and a complicated politics of abolitionist legitimacy in 92 . antislavery fairs the Old Northwest.The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society’s famous winter fair provided the Garrisonians with thousands of necessary dollars every year. In distributing their much-coveted fair leftovers to various smaller bazaars , the Boston women made sure that the proceeds would benefit only Garrisonian auxiliaries. MacMillan understood that the Boston women’s decision to send the box of fair goods to Cincinnati meant that their sisters there had somehow been deemed superior in their Garrisonian legitimacy. This determination galled MacMillan, a passionate young woman who had honed her political skills at various radical antislavery and woman’s rights conventions since the late 1840s. “They are freesoilers!,” she exclaimed with disgust. And she was right. Although Sarah Otis Ernst, the leader of the Cincinnati group, was a Garrisonian, the majority of the Cincinnati women were moderate political abolitionists. Weston may also have favored the Cincinnati women because of Ernst’s elite Boston roots.The Boston women saw the movement from an eastern perspective. In 1846, their annual Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair had become the National Anti-Slavery Bazaar, with the new name signifying an inflated sense of importance. Unlike the rural western fair hosted by the Salem women, the Boston bazaar boasted “a large assortment of fancy articles, imported from Paris,” suggesting that class as well as region informed the arrogance of the eastern women. The Cincinnati and Salem antislavery fairs illuminate the ways in which women such as MacMillan and Ernst negotiated the adaptable lines between different brands of abolitionism in the West to build a dynamic reform community. Except for a few small pockets of radicals, Garrisonians in the 1840s and 1850s were isolated from one another in the Old Northwest.They needed to establish contacts with each other and with non-Garrisonians to maintain their effectiveness and sustain their enthusiasm.The annual fair became a tool for becoming a viable influence in the state. But they did not surrender their radical identity. Ohio women used their fairs and the money they raised to sustain western unity even as they worked to maintain their relationship to eastern radicals. Western women also used their fairs to bring respectability to abolitionism . Ernst carefully employed her wealth and connections to attract Cincinnati ’s leading ladies and gentlemen to her bazaar, thus reaching out to an unlikely audience. But she also ensured that the fair carried goods produced by local artisans and farmers, thus consciously creating a marketplace that adhered to her values. As Cincinnati became increasingly linked to the burgeoning market and consumer economy, Ernst highlighted and eulogized the declining production-based economy grounded in the honest, hard antislavery fairs . 93 labor of good republican men and women. Unlike the famed and successful Boston fair, which was linked to opulent consumption, Ernst ensured that the Cincinnati bazaar remained deeply connected to the heartland. Ernst recognized that the city’s elite could bring abolitionism power and influence, but she was not willing to sacri...