The Free Produce Movement: A Quaker Protest Against Slavery (review)

BOOK REVIEW The Free Produce Movement: A Quaker Protest Against Slavery (Historical Papers of the Trinity College Historical Society, Series xxv), by Ruth Ketring Nuermberger. Durham, N. C, Duke University Press, 1942. ix+147 pp. ; $1.00. TN this well documented monograph the author follows up her earlier study of Charles Osborn with the results of extended research into the organized movement among Friends to avoid the use of slave-grown products, especially sugar and cotton, by securing products raised with free labor. From about 1817 to the Civil War in various parts of America local free-produce societies were founded, stores for the sale of such products were established, and newspapers or special periodicals were used to promote the campaign. There was a similar movement even earlier in England and there was much spontaneous individual abstention. On both sides of the Atlantic Friends were a major part of those so concerned. It would be possible to name other English pamphlets besides those that Mrs. Nuermberger mentions, and to point to other individuals in America who early abstained beside Woolman and Hicks. As an example of the former I would suggest the early English editions of An Address to the People of Great Britain, whose author was William Fox ; among the latter Joshua Evans of New Jersey (1731-1798). But Mrs. Nuermberger's purpose is to trace the organized movement and in doing so she has succeeded in uncovering an unexpected amount of data, and in presenting it with all the skill and accuracy that one would associate with the best elements of her profession as a librarian. The most conspicuous single figure in the movement, probably the most important and certainly the best known, is George W. Taylor, who promoted the campaign as editor, as field agent, and as store director in Philadelphia. His papers and letterbooks are the principal manuscript source used. The story told raises various questions. Why, for example, did so many of the more conspicuous antislavery and abolition leaders' pay to this movement so little serious attention? Why did it appeal so much to Friends? It is a rather unique feature of Quaker social technique, perhaps the nearest approach that Friends ever made to the method of boycott, just as the Underground Railroad is almost unique in Quaker history in its use of deception in breaking the law. It may be doubted however whether the Free Produce movement had either as its aim or as its result an appreciable interference with slave industries. It was to satisfy the conscience that wished to be consistently free from complicity with the iniquitous institution. In promoting it men and women were able to implement their objection to slavery in a personal way not unlikß the conscientious objector's way of dealing with war. Henry J. Cadbury 41 ...