"Poets, Prophets, And Reformers" Frederick Douglass Journal

Celebrate the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's special exhibition Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform (June 20--September 15, 2019) with this hardcover journal featuring an image of 19th century social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman Frederick Douglass (c. February 1818–February 20, 1895) on the front cover and an excerpt from a well-known essay of Douglass's on the back cover. The journal is printed with a velvet laminate finish that lends a high quality suede-like feel. 

The lecture, known to the public as "Pictures and Progress," was delivered on December 3, 1861 at Boston's Tremont Temple. He wrote:

Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture-makers — and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements. They see what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction.

The Museum's exhibition examines the impact of images on social reform advocacy in the development of Boston, New York, and Chicago in the late 1800s and early 1900s. 

Frederick Douglass, "Pictures and Progress" (1864-65)
Cover Image courtesy of National Archives, Photo No. 558770

Measures 8.25 x 6 inches
100 unlined pages