African Americans have made extraordinary contributions to the history and culture of the United States as part of the nation and apart from it. This month, Auction Finds present s “28 days (Plus 1)” of this collaborative history. The additional day is intended to break Black history out of the stricture of a month into its rightful place as an equal partner in the history of America. Each day, I will offer artifacts culled from the auction tables and my research, along with the stories they hold.
Feb. 7, 2022
Robert Purvis, a Black abolitionist you may have never heard of
Robert Purvis was an African American abolitionist who lived in Philadelphia and was active in anti-slavery work a decade before William Still arrived in the 1840s. Purvis was one of the 64 male founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society (no women allowed) in 1833. He used his home in the city and his farm just outside it to hide enslaved Africans before spiriting them to Canada and other cities via the Underground Railroad.
A newspaper article noted on his 80th birthday in 1890:
“A number of friends called on Mr. Purvis and congratulated him, and he received good wishes by letters and telegrams from others. But very many who knew him and worked with him before slavery was wiped out have passed into the Great Beyond. …”
William Lloyd Garrison of the anti-slavery newspaper “The Liberator” wrote in a letter to Purvis: “To ordinary mortals four-score years seem long, but measuring by the events which the last eighty years have covered several lifetimes have been yours. What a panorama unfolds itself as you look backward!” Read the full story.
