When People Were Things

During the decades leading up to the Civil War, Southern slaveholders intensified efforts to suppress the anti-slavery movement through censorship, violence, and harsh laws, while also targeting Northern free Blacks. As the threat of spreading slavery grew, many Northerners began to resist these oppressive tactics and stand against the expanding "Slave Power." When People Were Things offers a humanizing perspective on this turbulent period, highlighting well-known Americans in new ways and revealing the complexities of race during that era.