Women abolitionists in the 19th century did everything they could to end slavery in the U.S., including holding annual Christmas bazaars to raise money for the cause; these fairs sold everything from needlework to books to Parisian dresses.
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In its December 20, 1844, issue, the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator announced the upcoming Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair. "The Eleventh Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair will open on Tuesday, December 24...affording an unequalled opportunity for the selection of unique and elsewhere unattainable things for Christmas and New Year's Gifts." The event was one of the largest annual fundraising campaigns for abolitionists in the region, and it was the brainchild of a woman named Maria Weston Chapman.
Chapman had one goal: to end slavery in the United States. She had not always been an abolitionist, but she came of age in a time and place where a growing number of Americans were questioning the existence of slavery. Chapman was born in Massachusetts in 1806, more than two decades after the state eliminated slavery. She was educated in England and spent two years as the principal of Boston's Young Ladies' High School. In 1830, she married Henry Grafton Chapman, and her abolitionist education began. Henry Chapman was part of a growing network of abolitionists; his family used their position as merchants to take an active stance against slavery, refusing to sell goods produced by enslaved labor.
Just two years after marrying Henry, Maria and her sisters joined the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, an organization dedicated to women's efforts to end slavery. The group grew from its initial size of twelve to include Black, white, rich, and working-class women. Their Constitution began, "Believing slavery to be a direct violation of the laws of God, and productive of a vast amount of misery and crime; and convinced that its abolition can only be effected by an acknowledgement of the justice and necessity of immediate emancipation, we hereby agree to form ourselves into a Society to aid and assist in this righteous cause as far as lies within our power."
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Any woman who agreed with that goal could join the group for fifty cents a year (about $19 today). All money raised by the organization would go to spreading its message and providing support for "the improvement of the moral and intellectual character of the colored populations."
The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society scheduled and sponsored lectures of abolitionist speakers, wrote and distributed pamphlets, and encouraged women in other communities to form abolitionist organizations. They opened a school for Black girls and a separate institution to support orphaned Black children. In 1836, the organization also helped hire a lawyer to secure freedom for Med, a six-year-old enslaved girl who had been brought to Boston by the woman who enslaved her. In this case, Commonwealth v. Aves, the Massachusetts Supreme Court decided that any enslaved person brought into the state of Massachusetts could be set free.
In 1834, Maria Chapman had an idea: Why not raise funds for their society by selling handmade goods - guaranteed free of slave labor - to the local population? Thus was born the first Anti-Slavery Fair. The first fair was held at Maria Chapman's parlor, and brought in just $300, reflecting the size of the venue as well as the relatively small reach of the organization.
It was the first fair in the region dedicated to the anti-slavery cause. In 1830, fundraising fairs were few, but in 1833, places like Salem and Springfield, Massachusetts, reported that similar fairs had brought in thousands of dollars for organizations like the Institute for the Blind. At first, goods for the Anti-Slavery Fair came mostly from local women in the area, responding to calls to donate handmade items to sell, such as clothing and quilts. Organized by women, featuring wares made by women, the fairs were seen as something appropriately feminine.
Events like the Anti-Slavery Fair were a socially acceptable way for women to raise money for causes they believed were important. Women were not normally supposed to be in public, hawking goods for sale, but selling handmade crafts in the name of charity was viewed as something in service of a higher cause.
Beginning in 1839, Chapman created an annual publication to be sold only at the fair - The Liberty Bell, a book that offered a selection of texts, including poems, essays, and stories, all with a connection to abolitionism. Authors who contributed to The Liberty Bell included poet Henry Longfellow, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
In the next two decades, the fair grew dramatically. Although the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society disbanded in 1840, the fair continued. The 1845 event, held in Boston's Faneuil Hall, garnered nearly $4,000 in proceeds. Items that went unsold were held over to be used in smaller, local fairs across the state during the year.
The Boston Anti-Slavery Fair, sometimes referred to as the Bazaar, was held around Christmas, because it was a time of year when organizers could count on people needing to purchase gifts for family and friends. It also coincided with the anniversary of the Mayflower's arrival in Massachusetts on December 22, 1620; Chapman believed this date was important because the Pilgrims, too, were interested in freedom.
Purchasing gifts and other items at the Anti-Slavery Fair became a unique opportunity to support an important social justice cause, while also finding items that might not be available anywhere else. The fair gave consumers the opportunity to spend their money -- but not at a place that might also support Southerners engaged in slavery. While local shops might carry Southern-grown or produced materials, the Anti-Slavery Fair offered items that didn't enrich the Southern purse.
As the event grew in size and renown, it also helped bring together women activists across Boston, New England, the United States, and in Great Britain and Ireland. By the mid-1840s, abolitionist societies in Ireland and England were preparing boxes of handmade goods to send to the fair. They sent items like water-color drawings and pencil sketches, writing materials, and furniture and clothing produced in Europe. The 1846 announcement for the event noted that visitors would find "Exquisite Drawings, Paintings, Works of Art of various kinds, Autographs, Curiosities, Articles of ladies' and children's Dress, and, in fine, specimens of the rare and beautiful in every species of manufacture, particularly those of London and Paris...Persons who do not visit the Bazaar on the opening day, early, will probably lose the opportunity of inspecting the most beautiful objects."
On Christmas Day in 1843, the Tenth Annual Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, held that year at Armory Hall, offered Bostonians something entirely new. On Christmas evening, organizers brought in a Christmas tree, the first of its kind seen in a public space in the city. At that time, Christmas trees were not yet common in American homes and communities, but it seemed a fitting contribution to the event. By then, the fair had become known not just for its shopping opportunities, but also for expanding abolitionist networks.
By the mid-1840s, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair became known as the National Anti-Slavery Bazaar, the largest and longest-running in the nation. The fair continued until the late 1850s, when sales began to dwindle compared with the amount of work it took to make the event happen. Chapman herself moved to Europe in 1848; while she maintained an active role in managing the fairs, she ultimately decided that it was time to take a new approach. The fair was abandoned after 1857 and replaced with the "National Anti-Slavery Subscription Anniversary," which began to bring in more funds than the fair. The Subscription Anniversary was an annual event, similar to a black-tie fundraiser today. It featured speakers and entertainment, but did not sell goods like the fair had. Instead, funds were raised through subscriptions - promises of funds that attendees would contribute to the anti-slavery cause.
Even though the event had run its course by then, for two decades, the National Anti-Slavery Bazaar gave Americans a way to think of Christmas with new meaning: a time not just for gift-giving, but to learn of and speak out against the worst violation of American principles, the institution of slavery.
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