ABSTRACT
The role of gender in the American antislavery movement was complex and dynamic. Immediate abolitionism during the 1830s was the direct precursor of the women’s rights movement begun at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. With considerable male support, women participated in every phase of abolitionism - organization, moral suasion, political action, and helping slaves escape. Not only did many male abolitionists encourage an expanded social role for women, they often embraced a feminized version of masculinity, which led them to endorse - with various levels of consistency -cooperation over competition, forgiveness over retribution, and nonviolence over violence. Even so, female abolitionists occupied a separate and subordinate position within the antislavery movement through the 1830s. With some notable exceptions among Garrisonians, this continued to be the case during the 1840s and 1850s, although women expanded their involvement among all antislavery factions during those decades.
