Russel B. Nye (1913–1993)
Author of The Cultural Life of the New Nation, 1776-1830
About the Author
Image credit: Findagrave
Series
Works by Russel B. Nye
Midwestern progressive politics; a historical study of its origins and development, 1870-1958 (1951) 22 copies
American Thought and Writing, Volume Two: The Revolution and the Early Republic (1965) — Editor — 6 copies
Associated Works
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Other Writings (1758) — Editor, some editions — 2,426 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Nye, Russel B.
- Legal name
- Nye, Russel Blaine
- Other names
- Nye, R. B.
- Birthdate
- 1913-02-17
- Date of death
- 1993-09-02
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Viola, Wisconsin, USA
- Place of death
- Lansing, Michigan, USA
- Education
- Oberlin College
University of Wisconsin - Occupations
- scholar of English and American Culture
English professor - Organizations
- Michigan State University
Popular Culture Association - Awards and honors
- Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1945)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 24
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 428
- Popularity
- #57,056
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 5
- ISBNs
- 22
As Nye explains, Garrison's rise to prominence required him to overcome considerable personal adversity. The son of a shipping master who abandoned his family, Garrison entered the newspaper profession at a young age through his apprenticeship as a printer. Garrison's religious convictions soon led him to the editorship of a Boston newspaper promoting temperance, and though the journal soon failed, it set Garrison on a cause of lifelong activism. While Nye notes that Garrison promoted a range of reform issues, it was at this point when he embraced the cause that would define his career: the abolition of slavery.
Garrison's embrace of abolition came at an especially unpromising time. By the late 1820s the initial belief that slavery would die out on its own had faded with the expansion of cotton cultivation. Though many advocated for its end, their emphasis was on a gradual phasing out of the "peculiar institution," coupled with recolonization of the freed slaves. By contrast, Garrison's passionate advocacy of immediate and total abolition marked him out as an unfashionable extremist. Initially a marginal figure, the outbreak of Nat Turner's rebellion soon after the launching of Garrison's newspaper The Liberator in 1831 led many Southerners to identify his extremist writings as its cause, giving Garrison a sudden prominence out of all proportion to the limited subscribership of his newspaper. Nye charts this odd duality over the next three decades of his life, showing how Garrison's uncompromising positions often traded broader support for a visibility that ensured him a leading role in the national discourse, one that he would maintain until the final abolition of slavery in 1865.
By situating Garrison within the often complex and ever-shifting politics of the antislavery cause, Nye defines clearly the scope of Garrison's achievements. Though he makes it clear that Garrison was just one voice in the abolition movement, Nye credits his subject with helping to define slavery as a moral issue in a way that contributed to its ultimate demise. It is this combination of detail and nuance that makes Nye's book an excellent introduction Garrison's life, one that still can be read profitably for the insights it provides into the labors of a committed advocate who never lost sight of his goal.… (more)