{"id":4793,"date":"2013-05-14T15:34:15","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T19:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=4793"},"modified":"2014-05-13T10:28:43","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T14:28:43","slug":"the-wedding-that-ignited-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2013\/05\/the-wedding-that-ignited-philadelphia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wedding that Ignited Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Burning of Pennsylvania Hall on May 17th 1838. (The Library Company of Philadelphia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Advocates of peace and freedom gathered in Philadelphia 175 years ago today. They had come to dedicate Pennsylvania Hall, \u201cthe first and only one of its kind in the republic,\u201d according to abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld.<\/p>\n

Three days later, this new building \u201cconsecrated to Free Discussion and Equal Rights\u201d was reduced to ruins, burnt by an angry, rioting mob.<\/p>\n

How could such a thing happen in the City of Brotherly Love?<\/p>\n

It’s a question that has puzzled historians ever since\u2014and plagued a few Philadelphians at the time. Days after the riot, the reverend William Henry Furness, agonized<\/a> from the pulpit of his church<\/a>: \u201cSimilar outrages have been perpetrated\u2026 in other parts of our country\u2026 but now the evil has come close to us\u2014to our very doors. The whole city has been illuminated by the glare of the incendiary’s torch.\u201d Furness feared Philadelphia was becoming a place where \u201csavage delusions\u2026will rule us with a rod of iron, destroying every feeling of security, and extinguishing among us the last spark of personal freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, the burned-out shell of Pennsylvania Hall remained on 6th Street, south of Race Street, in view of Independence Hall.\u00a0 How could such a thing happen here, in Philadelphia? What, exactly, riled the crowd to respond with violence?\u00a0 What, or who, would have been the catalyst for this catastrophe?<\/p>\n

We look to Angelina Grimk\u00e9<\/a>. The most famous radical woman in America in 1838 was in town to address a packed Pennsylvania Hall. And when she spoke on May 16, the growing anti-abolitionist mob outside the hall reacted. \u201cAs the tumult from without increased, and the brickbats fell thick and fast,\u201d recalled William Lloyd Garrison, her \u201celoquence kindled, her eyes flashed and her cheeks glowed.\u201d This privileged woman of Southern society, who, with her sister Sarah had left behind plantation life and wealth to go on a speaking tour about the evils of slavery, had been energized and eloquent before large audiences throughout Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, the mob outside the new Pennsylvania Hall interrupted Grimk\u00e9 \u2019s speech<\/a>. She acknowledged their presence and challenged them: \u201cWhat is a mob? What would the breaking of every window be? What would the levelling of this Hall be? \u2026What if the mob should now burst in upon us, break up our meeting and commit violence upon our persons — would this be anything compared with what the slaves endure?\u201d<\/p>\n

Grimk\u00e9 \u2019s reputation as someone willing to question, to speak and to break society\u2019s rules on behalf of her cause came to a head in Philadelphia that week. The very same day the Hall was dedicated, Grimk\u00e9 \u00a0and Theodore Dwight Weld, the man who encouraged and trained her to work the abolition lecture circuit, got married in Philadelphia. And because they Grimk\u00e9 \u00a0and Weld were both so public, so key to The Movement, the \u201cwedding of the most mobbed-man<\/a> and the most notorious woman in America\u201d would be anything but a private matter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The remains of Belmont Row (left) in 1929, 1300 block of Spruce Street. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Detail of 3 Belmont Row, later 1330 Spruce Street, May 11, 1930. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI am told that my abolition friends here are almost offended that I should do such a thing as get married,\u201d Grimk\u00e9 wrote Weld<\/a> a few weeks earlier. \u201cSome say we were both public property and had no right to enter into such an engagement. Others say that I will now be good for nothing henceforth and forever to the cause…\u201d<\/p>\n

Grimk\u00e9 and Weld had sent invitations to more than 80 friends and acquaintances, about half of whom would be in Philadelphia for Pennsylvania Hall’s opening week. The wedding list, a Who\u2019s Who of American Abolitionism, Feminism and Social Progressivism, took place in the home of Angelina\u2019s recently widowed sister, Anna Frost, at 3 Belmont Row, later renumbered 1330 Spruce Street.<\/p>\n

William Lloyd Garrison, the \u201cworst of men,\u201d according to Angelina Grimk\u00e9 ‘s mother (who remained in South Carolina) was out of New England, but in his element. His posse: Gerrit Smith, James G. Birney, Henry B. Stanton, and Alvan Stewart, all attended. So did the Chapmans, Fullers, Westons, Philbricks and Tappans. Weld\u2019s former classmates from seminary, known as the Lane Rebels, showed up. No one made more of an impression walking up Spruce Street to the wedding as did Charles C. Burleigh<\/a>, who grew his beard as long as slavery lasted.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Practical Amalgamation. (The Wedding.) Caricature by Edward Williams Clay, ca. 1839. (American Antiquarian Society)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The wedding<\/a> was designed to demonstrate, challenge and irritate. Grimk\u00e9 \u00a0\u201cwas getting married in a manner calculated to shock and dismay the pillars of Charleston society, among whom she had been raised,\u201d wrote Gerda Lerner<\/a>. She meant<\/em> for it to be \u201ca motley assembly of white and black, high and low.\u201d (Sarah Grimk\u00e9 noted that among the guests were “several colored persons\u2026among them two liberated slaves, who formerly belonged to our father.\u201d) After a brief, homemade, and ad hoc<\/em> ceremony, during which Weld denounced traditional marriage vows and Grimk\u00e9 refused to include the word “obey,” \u201ca colored Presbyterian minister then prayed…followed by a white one,” possibly Rev. Furness, who lived at 11 Belmont Row. The “certificate was then read by William Lloyd Garrison, and was signed by the company.\u201d Guests then shared good wishes and a wedding cake baked with \u201cfree sugar\u201d\u2013grown, harvested and manufactured without slave labor.<\/p>\n

Accounts of the iconoclastic wedding spread throughout the streets of Philadelphia and then further, in the nation\u2019s newspapers. Accounts morphed from fact to fiction. Grimk\u00e9’s commitment to \u201cwhite and black, high and low\u201d led to rumors that this had been an interracial wedding. And in 1838, even in the city of Brotherly Love, that was enough to spark, and justify, a riot.<\/p>\n

The experiment of Pennsylvania Hall failed, but the Grimk\u00e9 -Weld wedding turned out exactly<\/em> as intended: a spiritual, social bond based on equality and respect\u2014far different than traditional marriage. Those who witnessed the wedding at 1330 Spruce Street on May 14, 1838 were in a culture war, the first of many redefining the meaning of marriage in America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Advocates of peace and freedom gathered in Philadelphia 175 years ago today. They had come to dedicate Pennsylvania Hall, \u201cthe first and only one of its kind in the republic,\u201d according to abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld. Three days later, this new building \u201cconsecrated to Free Discussion and Equal Rights\u201d was reduced to ruins, burnt by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}