ABSTRACT
Abolition became the reform of reforms, it took its shape from its particular relations with other reforms. The fact is that abolitionism was not confined to particular sects or particular social groups. The reform period recognized the existence of a "woman problem" and was to have stormy occasion to discover its connection with abolitionism. A celebrated case was that of the Reverend George Barrell Gheever, who later became a prominent New York minister, and still later an abolitionist. The concept of education as bringing light into darkness and exposing sin and error was basic to the program of reform in general and abolition in particular. Abolitionists, feminists, and others among reformers preferred more conventionally organized schools. As important were the many forms of education which bridged the gap between convinced abolitionists and the unresolved public. With abolition Horace Greeley would have no traffic; the mildest antislavery perturbed him, until the issue of free soil became unavoidable.
