RARE WARTIME TICKET FOR ABOLITIONIST LECTURES FEATURING FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

Emancipation League. Course of Lectures, 1862. Letterpress ticket. [Boston, Massachusetts]: N.p., 1862. 4 x 2 15/16 in.

A printed admission card for the Emancipation League Course of Lectures, 1862, issued in Boston for a series of lectures at Tremont Temple, one of the nation’s most important abolitionist venues. Printed on yellow card stock within an ornamental border, it admits the bearer “and lady” to the full course of lectures. The schedule lists a distinguished group of speakers: George B. Cheever on January 15, Orestes A. Brownson on January 21, Moncure D. Conway on January 29, and Frederick Douglass on February 5, followed by later dates marked “to be announced.” At the foot appears the name of organist John S. Wright, and across the center is the handwritten name of the person allowed admittance to the event. 

The Emancipation League, founded in 1859, played a crucial role in pressing for immediate abolition and equal rights at a time when national policy still lagged behind the moral demands of reformers. Tremont Temple, itself an interracial Baptist church, was a key site for anti-slavery conventions and lectures. The presence of Douglass alongside leading radical intellectuals such as Brownson and Conway reflects the wide coalition of voices that shaped public opinion in the months leading up to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Few (if any) such tickets survive, as they were generally discarded after use, making this an exceedingly scarce piece of abolitionist ephemera.

[Ephemera, Pamphlets, Publications, Booklets] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation]