• Date: November 15, 2007
• Location: Andover Historical Society
• Time:9AM - 3PM
Address and Directions



Using Kenneth Stampp’s classic work, The Peculiar Institution, November’s seminar will examine the growth and institutionalization of black chattel slavery in the American south. Boston College’s Dr. Cynthia Lyerly will lead teachers through a discussion of the decline of tobacco culture, the invention of the cotton gin, and the growth of the cotton belt. The seminar will also pay close attention to the legal and cultural codes that accompanied the southern economic dependence on slavery.

In order to put this topic in a local perspective, this seminar will meet at the Andover Historical Society. The Andover Historical Society houses extensive records that detail the local abolition movement that grew in response to the expansion of southern slavery. In order to dispel the myth that the northern states were united in opposition to slavery, the seminar will also feature an afternoon discussion of the many ways in which the northern maritime and textile industries benefited from the institution. Museum educator and local historian Juliet Mofford will lead us through an afternoon discussion of the ways that Essex County residents participated in and reacted to the expansion of southern slavery.  This discussion will make use of primary sources and a traveling exhibit at Andover Historical Society.

 

• Dr. Cynthia Lynn Lyerly
• Boston College

Dr. Cynthia Lyerly is an Associate Professor of History at Boston College and specializes in the history of American women with an interest in gender ideology, religion, women and race, and the history of the South. Currently Dr. Lyerly is working on a biography entitled Thomas Dixon, Jr.: Apostle of Hate. Dixon was the popular author of The Clansman, upon which D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was based.

Frameworks

USI.29 DESCRIBE THE RAPID GROWTH OF SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH AFTER 1800 AND ANALYZE SLAVE LIFE AND RESISTANCE ON PLANTATIONS AND FARMS ACROSS THE SOUTH, AS WELL AS THE IMPACT OF THE COTTON GIN ON THE ECONOMICS OF SLAVERY AND SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE.

USI.31 DESCRIBE THE FORMATION OF THE ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT, THE ROLES OF VARIOUS ABOLITIONISTS, AND THE RESPONSE OF SOUTHERNERS AND NORTHERNERS TO ABOLITIONISM

USI.35 DESCRIBE HOW THE DIFFERENT ECONOMIES AND CULTURES OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH CONTRIBUTED TO THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF SECTIONAL POLITICS IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY.

USI.36 SUMMARIZE THE CRITICAL DEVELOPMENTS LEADING TO THE CIVIL WAR

Address and Directions

Andover Historical Society
97 Main Street
Andover, MA
Map

From 93
From Route 93-North: take Exit 41, Route 125 East, to Route 28 North, after the 3rd traffic light, Andover Historical Society will be on the left

From 495
From Route 495 - East or West: take exit 41, Route 28 South, after the 7th traffic light (8th w/ Fire Station blinker), Andover Historical Society will be on the right.

Parking
Parking is available in the Municipal Lot in downtown Andover. The rate is $1 every four hours. Parking is also available at four hour meters along Main Street.