Maria Weston Chapman, French Salons, and Transatlantic Abolitionism in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Abstract This article examines the idea of anti-slavery sociability as part of a wider analysis of the informal elements of the transatlantic anti-slavery movement. It considers how American abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman drew support for the American anti-slavery cause from French salons during her time spent living in Paris from 1848 to 1855. This case-study highlights how a focus on the informal dimensions of anti-slavery activism illuminates the often underappreciated work of female abolitionists in the transatlantic reform sphere. Through the connections she established with the likes of French writer Victor Hugo and Russian exile Nicholas Tourgueneff at salons in Paris, most notably that of Mary Clarke Mohl on the Rue de Bac, Chapman was able to cultivate European support for abolitionism in myriad ways. This included financial donations, goods to be sold at anti-slavery bazaars, and, perhaps most importantly, testimonies against American slavery from renowned Europeans like Hugo that could be republished in the United States.

running'. 6Lastly, Chapman was involved with the French translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's cabin, the anti-slavery novel taking the literary world by storm, completed by two of her closest friends in Paris -Louise Swanton-Belloc and Adélaïde de Montgolfier.
This article has two primary objectives.The first is to bring France, or more specifically Paris, into the Anglo-American dominated story of transatlantic abolitionism in the mid-nineteenth century.Though institutional anti-slavery in France began to dissipate following the abolition of slavery in 1848, there remained a significant number of abolitionists and anti-slavery sympathizers who continued to support the cause on an international scale. 7It was common for American abolitionists to seek support abroad, but most ventured to the British Isles.The case-study of Chapman highlights the opportunities that were available to anti-slavery activists in France during this period.
The second and most important aim of this study is to highlight how focusing on the informal connections of activists provides insight into the vital yet often overlooked contributions of female abolitionists in the transatlantic antislavery movement. 8The example of Chapman and the salons of Paris allows us to unearth female activism that often took place behind the scenes, activism commonly obscured in both a contemporary and historiographical sense by abolitionists whose activism was more public-facing in nature. 9By illuminating both the opportunities for abolitionists in France and the informal ways in which Chapman agitated for the American anti-slavery cause as she orbited in elite social circles in Paris, this article sheds fresh perspective on the intricacies of the transatlantic anti-slavery movement in the mid-nineteenth century.
Scholars have long acknowledged the transatlantic nature of abolitionism.In the last decade, John Oldfield and Caleb McDaniel, building on the earlier works of scholars such as Richard Blackett, have chronicled the vast transnational exchanges between American and British abolitionists, while Bronwen Everill and Padraic Scanlan have importantly expanded the geographical reach of anti-slavery studies to areas such as West Africa. 10As well as reinforcing the centrality of Black abolitionists to the anti-slavery movement, Manisha Sinha has highlighted its international dimensions, how American abolitionists linked their cause to simultaneously occurring struggles against tyranny and oppression in other parts of the globe. 11otably missing from recent scholarship on transatlantic anti-slavery, however, is France.There may be a few reasons for this.Anti-slavery as a movement did not grip a significant portion of the French public like it did in Britain and, to a lesser extent, the United States. 12Lawrence Jennings recognizes French anti-slavery as more elite in nature than its anglophone counterparts, and notes that abolitionists in France 'had much difficulty bringing themselves to resort to the tactics of popular appeal'. 13The abolition of slavery in France in 1848 also triggered a decline in institutional anti-slavery.When Chapman and her family arrived in Paris in September 1848, the main antislavery society in Francethe Société pour l'Abolition de l'Esclavagewas winding down prior to its eventual dissolution in 1850.Formed in 1834, the Société pour l'Abolition de l'Esclavage was led by French politician Victor de Broglie.Other leading members included politician Victor Schoelcher and politician and poet Alphonse de Lamartine, both of whom Chapman formed connections with during her time in Paris. 14he anti-slavery landscape in France directly contrasted that in Britain, where numerous organizations remained active, or, like the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), were formed after British emancipation in the mid-1830s to combat slavery globally. 15Though factional rifts meant (Baton Rouge, LA 1983); Bronwen Everill, Abolition and empire in Sierra Leone and Liberia (Basingstoke, 2013); Padraic X. Scanlan, Freedom's debtors: British anti-slavery in Sierra Leone in the age of revolution (New Haven, CT, 2017).
11 Manisha Sinha, The slave's cause: a history of abolition (New Haven, CT, 2016). 12John Oldfield estimates that in Britain as many as 400,000 individuals participated in the petition campaigns against the slave trade in the late eighteenth century.J. R. Oldfield, Popular politics and British anti-slavery: the mobilisation of public opinion against the slave trade 1787-1807 (London, 1998), p. 1. 13 Jennings, French anti-slavery, p. 20. 14 Chapman was a big admirer of Schoelcher.She wrote that 'France owes [him] so much for his eminent services…as well as for his previous life of devotedness to the cause.He it was who took the initiative in that noble work of immediate-ism.' Liberator, 18 July 1851.We know that Chapman connected with Lamartine from a few different sources including a letter from George Thompson to his daughter Amelia in which he commented that the Weston Chapmans 'know some of the best literary men, and are very intimate with Lamartine & Victor Hugo'.George Thompson to Amelia Thompson, 14 Nov. 1851, transcriptions of letters of George Thompson, 1975-95, Raymond English Anti-Slavery Collection, University of Manchester Library, GB 133 REAS/3/2.There is also a letter in the BPL from either Lamartine himself, his wife, or perhaps his secretary, to Chapman that has been given the potential date of March 1841.But looking at the contents of the letter sent from Paris, which details that 'M. and Mme Lamartine will be happy to receive the visit of Mrs Weston Chapman any evening between eight and nine and to thank her for the interesting volume of the Liberty Bell', it seems more likely the letter was written between 1848 and 1855 when Chapman was in Paris.Alphonse de Lamartine to Maria Weston Chapman, [March?1841?], ASC, BPL, www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:7s75fg54p. 15For more on abolitionism in Britain, see David Turley, The culture of English anti-slavery, 1780-1860 (London, 1991); Oldfield, Popular politics and British anti-slavery; Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Garrisonian abolitionists travelling to Britain did not often seek support from the BFASS, there were a number of Garrisonian-aligned societies in cities like Darlington and Bristol from which they could seek assistance. 16Most American abolitionists looking across the Atlantic for support chose Britain, with its various anti-slavery organizations and well-established lecture circuits, as their destination.But Chapman saw an underutilized audience in France.
Both the nature of French abolitionism and the state of the movement after 1848 meant that Chapman had to look to informal means of support in Paris.This is where for both Chapman, and the historian seeking to extract what is often obfuscated female activism, salons take on an important role.Though attended by both men and women, salons exemplify the types of informal spaces where female reformers conducted their activism in a more social setting.Surveying the intersection between reform and spaces like salons allows for the examination of an understudied dimension of abolitionismits sociability.This is a crucial dimension of transatlantic abolitionism that, as Oldfield recently noted, 'historians sometimes tend to ignore'. 17The concept of anti-slavery sociability was first explored by Elisa Tamarkin, who questioned 'would it be impolitic to say that, for all their moral seriousness and reforming zeal, these abolitionists are, nonetheless, having fun?' 18 In spaces like salons we can imagine, to quote Tamarkin, that the 'talk of anti-slavery is exactly like the friendly talk of books'. 19While these were not anti-slavery salons, for Chapman, they were spaces filled with influential individuals to whom she could instil the horrors of American slavery.As British lawyer Henry Crabb Robinson recalled when he met her in Paris, Chapman, whom he observed was 'well known in connection with the antislavery movement', was 'an enthusiast…and they will seldom allow themselves to talk on any other than their own special topic'. 20Though salons may appear as a leisurely activity for the elite, we as historians should not let that mask the fact that they had a more serious purpose for activists like Chapman.

II
Maria Weston Chapman was born just outside of Boston in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on 25 July 1806.A Unitarian, she began her education in her capital: foundations of British abolitionism (Chapel Hill, NC, 2006); Richard Huzzey, Freedom burning: anti-slavery and empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca, NY, 2012). 16Though there were crossovers between the two factions, abolitionism in the mid-nineteenth century can largely be characterized by the Garrisonian/non-Garrisonian binary.This factionalism was solidified by the split of the AASS in 1840over issues such as the role of women, politics, and churches in abolitionismand the formation of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS) by the likes of Arthur and Lewis Tappan.The views of the AFASS aligned more closely with the BFASS. 17Oldfield, The ties that bind, p. 177. 18Elisa Tamarkin, Anglophilia: deference, devotion, and antebellum America (Chicago, IL, 2008), p. 215.See also Elisa Tamarkin, 'Black anglophilia; or, the sociability of anti-slavery', American Literary History, 14 (2002), pp.444-78.
19 Tamarkin, Anglophilia, p. 215. 20Thomas Sadler, Diary, reminiscences, and correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, II (Boston, MA, 1869), p. 401.home town, and in 1825 she travelled to London for further education under the auspices of her unclewealthy banker Joshua Bates.She returned to the United States three years later.In 1829, she took up a role in education at Ebenezer Bailey's Young Ladies' High School in Boston.During this time, Chapman became increasingly involved in abolitionism.Considered by her contemporaries as one of the leading abolitionists in their midst, she was a founding member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFAS), formed in October 1833 by both white and African American abolitionists.Chapman was an unwavering Garrisonian, and she helped establish the New England Non-Resistance Society with Garrison and Henry Clarke Wright in 1848. 21hen the BFAS, like the AASS, split in 1840, Chapman helmed the Garrisonian faction.Unlike some New England based female abolitionists, such as Lucretia Mott and the Grimké sisters, Chapman did not speak publicly on slavery.Rather, she, alongside her sisters, worked diligently behind the scenes.Despite the less public nature of her activism, according to Lee Chambers the Weston Chapmans 'occupied a position of unusual visibility, even notoriety'. 22ne of six daughters, Chapman was, unusually for the period, the only sister to ever marry.In 1830, she married businessman Henry Grafton Chapman, with whom she had four childrenone son and three daughters.The marriage fuelled her abolitionism, as Henry, treasurer of the Garrisonian Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, was also a dedicated anti-slavery activist.Following years of illness from tuberculosis, Henry died on 3 October 1842.Chapman never remarried.
Overshadowed by the likes of Garrison, Chapman has largely remained in the historical background. 23Though she does feature in numerous studies of the anti-slavery movement, Chapman, as distinct from her sisters, has not been the focus of a single biography. 24The time she spent in Europe has received even less attention.Her years spent in Paris are completely overlooked in the chapter on her activism in William and Jane Pease's biography of American abolitionists. 25Chapman's work editing the abolitionist giftbook The Liberty Bell during her stay in Paris features in Pia Wiegmink's recently published study on the cosmopolitan nature of anti-slavery literature. 26But much remains to be written about her time in Europe.
Chapman arrived in Paris just months after the abolition of slavery in France in April 1848. 27As Jennings has argued, emancipation in the French colonies was made possible by the events of the February Revolution of 1848, which had seen the overthrow of King Louis Philippe and the installation of the French Second Republic.But it was not long until dissatisfaction with the new government resulted in an uprising of French workers known as the 'bloody' June Days, during which thousands were killed in just four days.The June uprising failed, and a few months later Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, later Napoleon III, became president of the new republic.The occurrences in France were just some of the many revolutionary events that swept across Europe in 1848, shaking the long-standing supremacy of monarchies as the primary ruling structure in Europe.Fervent revolutionaries rose up against the established rule in Italy, Hungary, the German states, and the Austrian empire. 28Though unsuccessful, the revolutions sparked a desire for democratic reform that would be difficult to extinguish.
The abolition of slavery in France meant this was an opportune time for Chapman to relocate to Paris, despite the trepidation of some of her antislavery colleagues, who questioned whether Chapman's efforts might be better spent in Boston.As Garrison told his wife Helen, abolitionist David Lee Child had 'expressed much surprise and wonder at [Chapman's] choice'. 29But when considering the wider ramifications of French abolition for the transatlantic anti-slavery movement, her decision to relocate makes complete sense.Over fifteen years after British emancipation, and with little progress in the United States, the abolition of slavery in France provided a fresh sense of hope for American anti-slavery activists.With leading French abolitionists like Victor Schoelcher securing influential roles in the Second Republic, now was the time to nurture transatlantic connections in Paris.As Caleb McDaniel suggests, in-person continental travels like Chapman's were vital for both the creation and maintenance of the 'European branch' of Garrisonian abolitionists. 30Other Garrisonians travelling to Paris during this period were William Wells Brown, George Thompson, Mary Anne Estlin, Richard D. Webb, William Henry Ashurst, Charles B. Hovey, and Anne Knight. 31hapman's relocation to Paris was also fuelled by a desire to become more cosmopolitan, a quality she believed the French capital embodied.As she wrote to her close friend and British Quaker Elizabeth Pease, Paris would allow her and her family 'to become cosmopolitan…& to be able to say with an experimental feeling, "My Country is the World My Countrymen are all Mankind"', a reference to the masthead of The Liberator, which read 'Our Country is the World -Our Countrymen are all Mankind.' 32 Cosmopolitanism was a defining feature of both Chapman's anti-slavery ideology and Garrisonian abolitionism more broadly. 33Garrisonians saw theirs as one of many ongoing struggles for freedom and democracy throughout the Atlantic world.They circulated in a transatlantic orbit with well-known British liberals like John Bright, John Stuart Mill, and William Henry Ashurst, as well as European reformers like Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini.
Paris was also an attractive destination for American abolitionists, particularly Black abolitionists, some of whom found the city less racially prejudiced than even cities like Boston in the free state of Massachusetts.This was particularly evident for William Wells Brown when he attended the Paris Peace Congress in 1849 alongside James W. C. Pennington and Alexander Crummell, and at which Chapman was also present. 34Writing to Garrison about a speech given by Wells Brown, Chapman marvelled that 'our friend's color and his cause, the two very reasons that would have prevented his obtaining a hearing in the United States, removed all obstacles here'. 35Wells Brown noticed a similar difference in his reception in Paris compared to his voyage across the Atlantic.While talking to British reformer Richard Cobden at the congress, he noticed a man from his ship who had 'not deign[ed] to speak to [him] during the whole passage', 36 The man approached Wells Brown, looking for an introduction to Cobden.He was shocked that 'the man who would not have shaken hands with me in the city of New York or Boston…comes to me in the metropolis of France, and claims that we were "fellow-passengers 32 Maria Weston Chapman to Elizabeth Pease, 25 Dec. 1849, ASC, BPL, www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:7s75dt48f. 33Wiegmink defines abolitionist cosmopolitanism as the 'tension between a patriotic attitude for one's country and the idea of human brotherhood transgressing the confines of nation-states, between the defense of American republican, democratic ideals, and a critique of the national institution of slavery, and ultimately between coalition-building across national confines and national moral suasion that characterized abolitionist cosmopolitanism'.Wiegmink, Abolitionist cosmopolitanism, p. 63.For more on cosmopolitanism as it relates to abolitionism and the Atlantic world, see W. Caleb McDaniel, 'Philadelphia abolitionists and anti-slavery cosmopolitanism', in Richard Newman and James Mueller, eds., Anti-slavery and abolition in Philadelphia: emancipation and the long struggle for racial justice in the city of brotherly love (Baton Rouge, LA, 2011); Benjamin L. Carp, '"Fix'd almost amongst strangers": Charleston's Quaker merchants and the limits of cosmopolitanism', William and Mary Quarterly, 74 (2017), pp.77-108; Carole Lynn Stewart, Temperance and cosmopolitanism: African American reformers in the Atlantic world (University Park, PA, 2018); Edlie Wong, 'Anti-slavery cosmopolitanism in the Black Atlantic', Victorian Literature and Culture, 38 (2010), pp.451-66; Sirpa Salenius, An abolitionist abroad: Sarah Parker Remond in cosmopolitan Europe (Amherst, MA, 2016); Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo, Black cosmopolitanism: racial consciousness and transnational identity in the nineteenth-century Americas (Philadelphia, PA, 2005); Christine Levecq, Black cosmopolitans: race, religion, and republicanism in an age of revolution (Charlottesville, VA, 2019). 34The Paris Peace Congress of 1849 was held in August at the Salle Sainte-Cécile.Presided over by Victor Hugo, the Congress brought together hundreds of reformers from France, the United States, Britain, Germany, and Belgium.Report of the proceedings of the second general peace congress held in Paris, on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th of August, 1849 (London, 1849). 35Liberator, 28 Sept. 1849. 36Ibid., 2 Nov. 1849.
The Historical Journal from America"'. 37Though not a society completely free from racial prejudice, abolitionists felt the atmosphere in Paris to be different from the United States.

III
It was in the salons of Paris that Chapman could most deeply immerse herself into this cosmopolitan world.She became enamoured with these spaces and the opportunities they presented for her anti-slavery activism.Unlike antislavery societies, however, salons were not formal organizations.There were no membership lists, which makes their examination difficult.However, by pulling together a variety of sources, it is possible to paint a picture of who was in attendance.Chapman herself described the diverse range of individuals that one could find at a salon in Paris: those whose honoured names stand high in the ranks of Literature…those whose families are the leaders in Science and Art…[a] range of representatives of that social charm which has made the salons of Paris admired of every land.The organization of Artistic genius, the nature of feminine grace, the model of domestic devotedness, the type of noblest exaltation of good, the conscientious and devoted Catholic, the equally conscientious and devoted Protestant, all are here. 38st importantly for her activism, Chapman noted that these attendees were asking 'with one voice how they may best promote our cause'. 39She was more than happy to provide the answers.Salons were a staple of French society from the seventeenth century onwards.Though they shifted in appearance and meaning over the years, K. Steven Vincent notes that, at its core, 'a salon was an intimate society of men and women of the leisure class meeting for elegant conversation under the presidency of a skilled salonnière'. 40The centrality of salons to French politics declined in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of modern political parties and mass-media.However, Steven Kale maintains that salons were a robust institution, and though there were less of them when Chapman arrived in Paris in 1848, they remained a stalwart dimension of upper-class French life. 41The importance of salons for the study of transatlantic abolitionism stems from the fact that, as Kale has argued, salons 'filled some sort of 37 Ibid. 38Maria Weston Chapman to the National Anti-Slavery Standard as quoted in the Liberator, 18 July 1851. 39Ibid. 40K. Steven Vincent, 'Elite culture in early nineteenth century France: salons, sociability, and the self ', Modern Intellectual History, 4 (2007), pp.327-51, at p. 329.For more on salons, see Antoine Lilti, The world of the salons: sociability and worldliness in eighteenth-century Paris, trans.Lydia G. Cochrane (New York, NY, 2005); Steven Kale, French salons: high society and political sociability from the old regime to the revolution of 1848 (Baltimore, MD, 2004). 41Kale, French salons, p. 3.
institutional vacuum at the intersection between public and private life'. 42hese were meetings of like-minded, more often than not wealthy men and women, discussing art, literature, and, most importantly for this article, politics and social issues.
The most important salon for Chapman in Paris in terms of cultivating relationships with members of the French elite was that of Mohl on the Rue de Bac. 43Born in England in 1793, Mohl moved to France and married German Orientalist Julius von Mohl in 1847.In hosting her salon, Mohl succeeded earlier salonnières, including her close friend Madame Juliette Récamier, as well as her idoland early abolitionist sympathizer -Madame Germaine de Staël. 44Just like Récamier and de Staël before her, Mohl's salons were frequented by members of the French elite, including politicians, writers, poets, and artists.In her study of Mohl's salon, Kathleen O'Meara described how, 'by the sole magnet of her esprit, [Mohl] drew around her the most remarkable personalities, not only of France, but of the world.Celebrities from every capital in Europe gave one another rendezvous at Madame Mohl's Friday evenings and Wednesday afternoons.' 45 While salons were inherently record-less, we know that Chapman attended Mohl's salon because of various sources.American physician Orlando Williams Wight recalled meeting Chapman, whom he described as 'a very amiable lady', at Mohl's salon. 46Mohl wrote a number of letters to Chapman's daughter Emma Weston, and she also mentioned the Weston Chapman family in letters sent to the likes of British reformer Elizabeth Jesser Reid. 47There are also instances where others noted in their correspondence the connection between Mohl and Chapman.While visiting Paris in late 1851, British abolitionist George Thompson wrote to his daughter Amelia that he had 'just received a note from Madame Mohl, telling me to squire her & the Americans to the theatre this evening'. 48The 'Americans' were of course the Weston Chapmans.
It is unclear how exactly Chapman met Mohl, and thus was welcomed into her salon.It is possible they connected through their mutual friend Harriet Martineau.British writer Martineau was a friend of many abolitionists, and she first met Chapman during a visit to the United States in 1834-5.That meeting was the start of a decades-long friendship which involved Chapman visiting Martineau in England a number of times, one of which was following her Atlantic voyage in the weeks before she settled in Paris. 49It is possible that Martineau advised her friend on who to seek out when she arrived on the continent.
Where we do not have records, it is still possible to hypothesize about who Chapman may have interacted with based on who were regular attendees at Mohl's salon.This account from Eustace Reynolds-Ball gives us an idea as to the attendees at Mohl's salon: 'At their informal Friday evenings might be met Thiers, Prosper Mérimée, Cousin, Guizot, Ampère, De Tocqueville, Benjamin Constant, and many other well-known men…of English authors, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, Dean Stanley, and George Eliot were frequently guests here.' 50As this account suggests, one of the main types of guests that frequented Mohl's salon were members of the international literary elite.Elisabeth Jay has noted that Mohl's salon in particular 'played a leading part in introducing English writers to Parisian cultural life'. 51These writers included the likes of Elizabeth Gaskell and Elizabeth Browning, the latter of whom met Chapman at Madame Mohl's in 1851. 52Browning described Chapman as 'the female mover of the American abolitionist movement'. 53Another important guest from the literary world was Harriet Beecher Stowe, renowned for her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's cabin.While visiting Paris in June 1853 Stowe stayed with Chapman, describing her American host as a 'perfect Parisienne'. 54Like Chapman, Stowe treasured the salons of Paris, describing them as 'a fashion of receiving one's friends on a particular night, that one wishes could be transplanted to American soil'. 55When Stowe returned to Paris in 1856, she visited Mohl's salon once a week, where she would 'meet all sorts of agreeable people'. 56The renowned writers one could find in Mohl's salon would become particularly important supporters for Chapman.

IV
One of the most important ways that Chapman drew support for American anti-slavery from her Parisian social circle was by soliciting contributions for the annual abolitionist giftbook The Liberty Bell.As editor, Chapman functioned as an important conduit through which the anti-slavery testimonies of European liberals, many of whom were well known in the United States, could be transmitted to a wider American public.As Wiegmink suggests, The Liberty Bell became an important centre of exchange between prominent Atlantic intellectuals in the debate surrounding the continuation of slavery. 57ublished from 1839 until 1858, The Liberty Bell contained works such as poetry, short essays, and letters.It was released annually to coincide with the Boston Anti-Slavery Bazaar. 58The giftbook had always been cosmopolitan in nature, with numerous works from British writers such as Martineau and prominent abolitionist Thomas Clarkson.However, before Chapman arrived in Paris, there were few non-British European contributors. 59his changed after 1850, as the Europeans Chapman encountered at salons like Mohl's began contributing to The Liberty Bell.The 1851 edition included contributions from writers Louise Swanton-Belloc and Émile Souvestre, as well as Souvestre's wife. 60For the 1852 edition, Chapman solicited contributions from Schoelcher, Alexis de Tocqueville's travel companion and magistrate Gustave de Beaumont, politician and physicist Dominique François Arago, and Protestant minister Joseph Martin-Paschoud. 61Contributors for the 1853 issue included Russian exile Nicholas Tourgueneff, French politician and Lafayette's grandson Oscar du Motier de La Fayette, French dramatist Ernest Legouvé, French politician Charles de Rémusat, and Haitian abolitionist J. F. Dorvelas Dorval. 62Tourgueneff in particular remained an important European anti-slavery ally in later years.Born in 1789, Tourgueneff was, according to Mohl, 'a distant relation of Ivan, the author'. 63He had been exiled from Russia for his support of the serfs, described by Mohl as 'the great object of his life'. 64Chapman described him as 'one of those truly wise and good men whose opinions cannot fail to have great influence wherever they are known'. 65he 1856 issue included a collection of testimonies against slavery from well-known French liberals such as historian Jules Michelet, publicist and historian Charles Forbes René de Montalembert, renowned diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville, Frédéric de Passy, and politician and journalist Émile de Girardin. 66Tourgueneff, as well as Adolphe Monod, also contributed in 1856 in separate letters.The final edition of The Liberty Bell, published in 1858, included an essay from French writer Jean-Jacques Ampère. 67Of these European contributors, we know that at least Belloc, Souvestre and his wife, Ampère, Montalembert, Tourgueneff, and Tocqueville attended Mohl's salon. 68It is likely that Legouvé did so too, but, as is the inherent elusiveness of the salon, we cannot know for sure. 69Though he did not contribute to The Liberty Bell, Victor de Broglie, president of the Société pour l'Abolition de l'Esclavage, was another visitor of Mohl's salon. 70hapman was well aware of the weight of these European testimonies against slavery for the anti-slavery cause.Many of these Europeans had a certain 'star-power' to American audiences.Teresa Goddu has expressed that, in naming the authors of the included works, The Liberty Bell differed from mainstream giftbooks of the time in which contributors were often kept anonymous and were mostly of the same nationality.As Goddu argues, 'anti-slavery giftbooks advertised their authors' name and thereby associated anti-slavery with the aura of celebrity'. 71Being in Paris allowed Chapman to solicit 'celebrities' for the cause.She wrote to Bristol abolitionist John Bishop Estlin in January 1850 of her plan, which involved 'obtaining the testimony of the celeb-rities…against slavery, De Tocqueville, De Beaumont, Victor Schoelcher, Lamartine & many others have a name & fame in the United States'. 72She was convinced of their importance in swaying the American public on the issue of slavery.We see this in a letter she sent to Alexis de Tocqueville in 1857, in which Chapman encouraged him to continue to speak out against American slavery as 'our statesmen and men of literature can only be reached by those whom they look up to, in other countries…every word against slavery, uttered by European celebrities, hastens the time when the atrocious system shall be abolished'. 73ne of the most important testimonies Chapman was able to gather was that of Victor Hugo.Born on 26 February 1802 in Besançon, Hugo was a writer and politician.He was elected to the French National Assembly in 1848 as a conservative.However, he soon embraced more liberal views, and when he spoke out against the autocratic rule of Louis Napoleon he was exiled from France.Again, though it is impossible to know for sure, it is likely that Chapman came into contact with Hugo at a salon like Mohl's.It is clear that Mohl knew Hugo, reflecting in 1868 on her time spent at Madame Récamier's where she met the likes of 'Victor Hugo, Ampère, and many others [who] were glad to come to talk politics with my mother and nonsense with me'. 74s French newspaper L'Événement detailed, Hugo gladly provided his testimony against American slavery in 1851 after he received a letter from 'a generous and courageous woman, Mme Chapman, who undertook, in America, the holy crusade of total emancipation'. 75He wrote to Chapman: You are pleased to believe and assure me that my voice, in this august cause of Slavery, will be listened to by the great American people, whom I love so profoundly, and whose destinies, I am fain?To think, are closely linked with the mission of France.You desire me to lift up my voice.I will do it once, and on all occasions.I agree with you in thinking that within a definite time; that, within a time not distant, the United States will repudiate Slavery with horror.Slavery in such a country!Can there be an incongruity more monstrous? 76ostly by female abolitionists.The Boston fair was first organized in 1834.It was initially led by Lydia Maria Child until Chapman took over in its second year.The main goal of the bazaar, held every year at Christmas, was to raise funds for the cause, or, more specifically, for the activities of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which included paying itinerant lecturers.Lee Chambers has noted that the Boston bazaar was 'the most successful of all abolitionist fund-raisers'; that it was a 'lucrative moneymaker that raised up to five thousand dollars a year'. 86Though they were an important element of the antislavery movement, it is important to note that, as Teresa Goddu has argued, though abolition was an inter-racial movement, these fairs were noticeably white and middle class. 87inancial contributors to the fair from Chapman's Parisian social circle included Mohl, Montgolfier, Tourgueneff, Martin-Paschoud, Floreska Leconte, Arago, Belloc, zoologist Isidore Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, and Hilary Bonham Carter, the last of whom was a friend of Harriet Martineau.The earliest contributors were Leconte and Mohl, with the former subscribing to the National Anti-Slavery Standard in 1851 and donating 10 francs for the 1852 fair, and the latter donating 25 francs for the 1852 fair. 88Both women donated again in 1853 -Leconte 15 francs and Mohl 25 francs. 89hey were joined by Bonham Carter, who contributed 15 francs that year. 90In 1853, a number of individuals from Chapman's Paris social circle joined together to fund the purchase of a bronze statue -Charles Cumberworth's Negro Womanto be sold at the fair that year.Contributors to this purchase included Leconte (5 francs on top of her separate donation), Mohl (also 5 francs on top of her separate donation), Tourgueneff (20 francs), Tourgueneff 's wife (20 francs), Arago (5 francs), Martin-Paschoud (10 francs), and the Bellocs (5 francs). 91Financial contributors to the 1854 fair included Mohl (10 francs) and Montgolfier (5 francs). 92n 1855, Leconte, now Madame Guépin, contributed 40 francs. 93he donation of the Cumberworth statue in particular speaks to Goddu's larger argument about the centrality of whiteness to the Boston fair.That a statue of a Black woman was placed on a white marble table in the centre of the bazaar reflects what she describes as a larger theme of the fair -'the production of white identity through the purchase of black freedom'. 94We also see this with the European goods that Chapman organized to be sent to Boston to be sold at the fair. 95These were a vast assortment of goods including books, ornaments, embroidery, and so on.In preparing to send materials from Paris to Boston, Chapman described 'a vast collection of rich and valuable things; beautiful objects of art; the charming ebenisterie of Paris; embroidery in muslin, very costly and valuable; lace, application d'Angleterre et de Bruxelles, in scarfs, veils, collars…glass and porcelain; embroidery in Berlin wools'. 96A report following the bazaar in 1854 noted that the French goods on display that December had 'attracted universal admiration'. 97Goddu describes this 'reverence for European (and specifically Anglo-Saxon) culture' as reflective of how the fairs portrayed 'refinement as white'. 98hapman's European contacts who donated goods to the bazaar included Souvestre, Saint-Hilaire, and Hannah Monod, wife of Protestant minister Adolphe Monod.Souvestre sent six signed copies of one of his works for the 1853 bazaar. 99Saint-Hilaire, who was associated with the Museum of Natural History in Paris, sent goods to Chapman with the accompanying note that 'these specimens I now have the honour of presenting to you…they are at the same time one offering more to a most sacred cause'. 100Many goods were procured by French women sympathetic to the cause, such as Hannah Monod.According to Chapman, 'the Monods…have always helped our efforts'. 101Despite this, when collecting items for the bazaar, Monod was unsure that she would be able to acquire many items.However, Chapman recalled that 'it turned out better than our most earnest wishes could have anticipated', and Madame Monod was able to contribute four boxes of goods to be sold in Boston for the 1854 bazaar. 102In 1854, The Liberator notes a number of contributions from France, but it is unclear whether or not they were in the form of donations or goods.Nevertheless, these contributors included Tourgueneff and his wife, Arago, Martin-Paschoud, Swanton-Belloc, Monod, and Saint-Hilaire. 103impact in France.As Roy describes, 'the publication of Vie de Frédéric Douglass was an abysmal failure'. 109He attributes this to the political climate in France at the time, suggesting that, as popular as it was in Britain and the United States, Douglass's memoir could not pierce the tumultuous political climate that was capturing the attention of Parisian residents in 1848. 110Estlin decided to send the unsold copies to Chapman with the hope that she would share them with her influential social circle.Chapman was happy to oblige, responding to Estlin that she 'hope [d] to be able to do a good work for the cause here with a part of the life of Douglass'. 111It is important to note here that while Chapman was happy to distribute copies of Douglass's autobiography for the benefit of the anti-slavery cause, historians like Hannah-Rose Murray have identified moments of racially fuelled paternalism when surveying the relationships of Black and white abolitionists.Murray suggests that Chapman was known for trying to 'exert her control' over Black abolitionists such as Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet. 112Though her anti-slavery efforts cannot be understated, it is important to be aware of the racial dynamics at play within the wider contours of transatlantic abolitionism.

VII
Maria Weston Chapman arrived home from Europe on 24 November 1855.But her departure from Paris did not stop her European friends from continuing to support the anti-slavery cause.Nicholas Tourgueneff continued to donate until at least 1862, when he donated 100 francs for the twenty-eighth National Anti-Slavery Subscription Anniversary. 113He clearly stayed involved in the anti-slavery movement, as when William Lloyd Garrison travelled to Paris in 1867 he 'dined with Monsieur Tourgueneff', whom he labelled his 'Russian admirer'. 114During the American Civil War, Mary Mohl donated 20 francs in support of enslaved Americans, and she remained in touch with the Weston Chapmans. 115Once the war concluded in 1865, Chapman took a step back from her activism.According to Lee Chambers, she believed that the passage of the thirteenth amendment that abolished slavery in the United States meant that the work of abolitionists was done. 116Chapman died in her hometown of Weymouth on 12 July 1885.
Upon her return to the United States, Garrison reflected on the fruits of her labours for their cause in France.According to Garrison, Chapman's residence in Paris had 'not only improved, but created opportunities to aid us, on British and French soil by speech, testimony, personal influence, the press, the preparation of circulars and tracts, a generous pecuniary co-operation, multitudinous letters, and well-directed blows, struck at the right time, and with irresistible force'. 117Garrison's words reinforce the significance of Chapman's activism in France.At its core, both Garrisonian abolitionism and American abolitionism more broadly were transatlantic movements which required the continued establishment and maintenance of relationships with distant allies.Chapman believed that in Paris she could contribute to the cause in a way that was not possible in Boston or London by spreading awareness of American slavery to a different audience.Looking at the growing list of Europeans in the pages of The Liberty Bell and in the reports of the Boston fair published in The Liberator, it seems plausible to say that she was correct.
For the study of transatlantic anti-slavery more broadly, Maria Weston Chapman's years in Paris highlight how we must look to the informal elements of abolitionism to uncover the essential contributions of women.By tracing her movements through the social scene of Paris, we can see that Chapman formed close bonds with leading European reformers who made, both in a tangible and intangible sense, important contributions.Though we as historians cannot see behind the doors of salons like Mohl's, by piecing together disparate material we can picture Chapman inside, conversing with guests like Hugo and Tocqueville about the evils of slavery, sharing American newspapers and copies of The Liberty Bell, and explaining to them how they could contribute to this important cause.