Resources for Studying the Lane Debates and
the Oberlin Commitment to Racial Egalitarianism

Lane Seminary	Oberlin Collegiate Institute

Note: Many of the links below lead to resources on other websites. Use your browser's "back" button to return to this site.

• Overviews
  • Abolitionism in Ohio History Central
  • "Abolitionist Movement" by James Brewer Stewart, in The Reader's Companion to American History (1991)
  • African-American Mosaic: Colonization and Abolition (Library of Congress)
  • Africans in America: American Colonization Society and Abolitionism (PBS)
• Primary Documents
  • Extracts from William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization (1832)
  • Lyman Beecher's Address to a Colonization meeting in Cincinnati (1834)
• Timeline
  • A Chronology of Antislavery in Digital History by Steve Mintz

• Overview
  • "The Test of Academic Freedom," chapter 13 in Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through the Civil War, vol. 1 (1943) [Note: This file is in pdf and requires Adobe Reader to open.]
• Primary Documents from 1834-35
  • Debate at the Lane Seminary, Cincinnnati—Speech of James A. Thome, of Kentucky Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, May 6, 1834 (1834)
  • "Lane Seminary—Defence of the Students," statement by the Lane Rebels published in The Liberator (Jan. 10, 1835)
• Memoirs
  • Extract from The Life of Arthur Tappan by Lewis Tappan (1871)
  • "Lane Seminary Rebels" by Huntington Lyman, one of the Lane Rebels, in The Oberlin Jubilee, edited by W. G. Ballantine (1883) [Note: This file is in pdf and requires Adobe Reader to open.]
• Reenactment
  • "Bringing the 'Lane Debates' to a New Generation," by Karen Schaefer, WCPN (Feb. 12, 2004) [Note: This broadcast can be downloaded in either RealAudio or WindowsMedia format.]

Individuals Involved in the Lane Controversy Lyman Beecher, President of Lane Seminary James Bradley, former slave and Lane Rebel Asa Mahan, dissenting Lane trustee who became Oberlin's first president Arthur and Lewis Tappan, antislavery philanthropists Theodore Dwight Weld, leader of the Lane Rebels Lane Rebels who went to the Oberlin Collegiate Institute

Theodore Dwight Weld

The Oberlin Debate over the Admission of Black Students, 1835

• Overview
  • "The Guarantee of Academic Freedom," chapter 14 in Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through the Civil War, vol. 1 (1943) [Note: This file is in pdf and requires Adobe Reader to open.]
• Members of the Board of Trustees of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, early 1835
• Primary Documents
  • Petition of Oberlin students regarding admission of students of color (Dec. 31, 1834)
  • Petition of Oberlin colonists regarding admission of students of color
  • Minutes of the Oberlin College Board of Trustees (Jan.-Feb. 1835)
  • John Jay Shipherd's Appeal to the Oberlin Board of Trustees (Jan. 27, 1835)
  • Constitution of the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society (founded June 1835)
  • "Labours in New York, in 1832, and Onward" and "Early Labours in Oberlin," chapters 23 and 24 in An Autobiography by Charles Grandison Finney (1876)

Other Websites of Interest

• African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture
• Africans in America, PBS
• American Abolitionist Project by John R. McKivigan
• An American Family: The Beecher Tradition, William and Anita Newman Library
• Digital History by Steve Mintz
• Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
• "I will be heard!": Abolitionism in America, Cornell University Library
• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
• Oberlin College Archives
• Ohio History Central, created by the Ohio Historical Society
• Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection at Cornell University
• Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture, directed by Stephen Railton
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1775-2000, SUNY Binghamton (includes section on antebellum Oberlin women)

Material for this website has been compiled by Alison Dennis, Elizabeth Harrison, Gary Kornblith, Carol Lasser, Juliet Libes, Braden Paynter, and Rebecca Schlichtig. We thank Roland Baumann of the Oberlin College Archives and Ed Vermue of Special Collections at the Oberlin College Library for their expert assistance.