Anti-Slavery and Abolitionism in the United States

Eric Saul has been working on the subject of anti-slavery and abolitionism in America before and during the Civil War. For the last 3 years, he has been compiling a database of more than 2,500 abolitionists and numerous anti-slavery organizations and individuals. This list is comprised of some of the key abolitionist leaders and organizers in the United States. Each has a brief biography, along with bibliographic references. In addition, he has added historic bibliographic entries from works such as Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, published in 1884, Encyclopaedia Americana, published in 1845, and The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 1835-1839.

Mr. Saul has been working on a proposal to bring wider recognition for members of the anti-slavery movements and their representative organizations. He is presently working on a proposal to have a Congressional Gold Medal awarded to these courageous individuals.

This document is a work in progress and material will be added often. We invite organizations and individuals who wish to contribute to the program to contact us.

Please visit the website www.AmericanAbolitionists.com.  Saul has recently completed the Encyclopedia of Civil War Biography, which can be viewed at this website. It is a comprehensive list of notable Americans from the mid-19th Century. This constitutes a who's who of America in politics, science, industry, and the arts. These individuals represented both sides of the argument over slavery in the United States. Also included is an extensive list of military and naval officers on both sides of the conflict. For those interested in military and naval officers, we have compiled an edited version with just entries of those military personnel involved in the Civil War: Encyclopedia of Civil War Military Biography. These entries were drawn from the 1886-1889 edition of Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (6 volumes). There are more than 3,000 individuals in these Encyclopedias.

To view these documents, please click the links:


Eric Saul has also organized a number of historic programs to honor these courageous individuals, including events at the African Burial Ground National Monument historic site in New York City in 2013, the Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland in September 2012, and at West Virginia University, also in 2012.

We encourage individuals and organizations to organize readings of the names of abolitionists and anti-slavery activists at commemorative and memorial events.  We would be happy to supply a reading list upon request

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