Thomas Slaughter (now of the University of Rochester) is one of my favorite historians. I have never met him, but I have been hooked on his work ever since I read The Whiskey Rebellion, a work I use when I teach the early republic. His latest book is The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition. Woolman was an eighteenth-century tailor, Quaker and abolitionist from Mt. Holly, New Jersey. (See Paul Harvey's recent post over at Religion and American History).
This weekend C-Span's Book TV aired a great lecture Slaughter recently delivered at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Slaughter compares John Woolman to an Old Testament prophet who graciously and lovingly challenged the people he encounters to consider their materialism, their consumer habits, and their ownership of slaves.
It is about an hour long, so if you do not have the time to watch the entire thing at least commit to the first ten minutes or so. I bet you will be hooked. I know that I was. I ordered the book today and hope to blog on it soon.
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