Month: August 2014

Patrick Henry Reason was one of the few commercially active black engravers of the 1830’s and 40’s. He was the brother of Charles Reason , teacher and principal for a time at the Institute of Colored Youth. Patrick contributed a

William Whipper was another successful black businessman who helped underwrite the antislavery movement and a host of local black improvement efforts. In 1834, he contributed to Cassey’s album a two-page essay “Moral Reform.” Within a couple of years, Whipper and Cassey organized

“I never felt more entirely out of my sphere than when presuming to write in an Album,” Frederick Douglass noted in his 1850 contribution. His business-like, self-taught handwriting fills the page withan apology for his rougher contribution to an album