Commerce and Conscience: New York, Slavery and the Civil War January 16, 2007

This is the New York Historical Society's second major exhibition on the topic of New York's relationship to slavery and the abolitionist movement. The focus of the second exhibition will be on New York's rise to national and global economic power as the nation itself confronted slavery and racial inequality. The period under investigation will begin about 1815 and continue through the Civil War and its aftermath. Although hundreds of significant works of art, objects and documents will be on display primarily from New York Historical Society's collection, this exhibition will have a special focus on lithography, photography and book illustrations to emphasize that New York City, as the nation's publishing center, had a very special role in the formulating of images on both sides of the sectional dispute in the 1850s.