What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tie That Bound Us: The Women of John Brown's Family and the Legacy of Radical Abolitionism
John Brown was fiercely committed to the militant abolitionist cause, a crusade that culminated in Brown s raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and his subsequent execution. Less well known is his devotion to his family, and they to him. Two of Brown s sons were killed at Harpers Ferry, but the commitment of his wife and daughters often goes unacknowledged. In The Tie That Bound Us, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz reveals for the first time the depth of the Brown women s involvement in his cause and their crucial roles in preserving and transforming his legacy after his death.
As detailed by Laughlin-Schultz, Brown s second wife Mary Ann Day Brown and his daughters Ruth Brown Thompson, Annie Brown Adams, Sarah Brown, and Ellen Brown Fablinger were in many ways the most ordinary of women, contending with chronic poverty and lives that were quite typical for poor, rural nineteenth-century women. However, they also lived extraordinary lives, crossing paths with such figures as Frederick Douglass and Lydia Maria Child and embracing an abolitionist moral code that sanctioned antislavery violence in place of the more typical female world of petitioning and pamphleteering.
In the aftermath of John Brown s raid at Harpers Ferry, the women of his family experienced a particular kind of celebrity among abolitionists and the American public. In their roles as what daughter Annie called relics of Brown s raid, they tested the limits of American memory of the Civil War, especially the war s most radical aim: securing racial equality. Because of their longevity (Annie, the last of Brown s daughters, died in 1926) and their position as symbols of the most radical form of abolitionist agitation, the story of the Brown women illuminates the changing nature of how Americans remembered Brown s raid, radical antislavery, and the causes and consequences of the Civil War.
As detailed by Laughlin-Schultz, Brown s second wife Mary Ann Day Brown and his daughters Ruth Brown Thompson, Annie Brown Adams, Sarah Brown, and Ellen Brown Fablinger were in many ways the most ordinary of women, contending with chronic poverty and lives that were quite typical for poor, rural nineteenth-century women. However, they also lived extraordinary lives, crossing paths with such figures as Frederick Douglass and Lydia Maria Child and embracing an abolitionist moral code that sanctioned antislavery violence in place of the more typical female world of petitioning and pamphleteering.
In the aftermath of John Brown s raid at Harpers Ferry, the women of his family experienced a particular kind of celebrity among abolitionists and the American public. In their roles as what daughter Annie called relics of Brown s raid, they tested the limits of American memory of the Civil War, especially the war s most radical aim: securing racial equality. Because of their longevity (Annie, the last of Brown s daughters, died in 1926) and their position as symbols of the most radical form of abolitionist agitation, the story of the Brown women illuminates the changing nature of how Americans remembered Brown s raid, radical antislavery, and the causes and consequences of the Civil War.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published July 12, 2013
3 people are currently reading
94 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 13, 2013
John Brown's violent battle against slavery in the US, his 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, and his subsequent execution are well-documented in American history texts, although he remains a complicated figure, whose considerable mythology threatens to overshadow the man. Some of his sons are referenced in survey history texts because of their role in the Harper's Ferry raid. However, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz noted that his second wife, Mary, and his daughters and daughters-in-law got little recognition from historians. In this collective biography, The Tie That Bound Us , she combs the historical record, reading letters and news accounts, and poring over photographs in the attempt to understand these women. Did they share John Brown's beliefs? How did they cope with his execution and the unwanted fame that followed? Is it possible to restore them to the historical record?
Unfortunately, primary source challenges pose some serious difficulties for Laughlin-Schultz, especially as she tries to discover Mary Brown's beliefs about abolition, and about her husband's decision to turn to violence in support of abolition. She was a quiet, stoic figure, who, with only a handful of exceptions, kept her beliefs and views to herself in the letters that she wrote, both to her husband and children, and later to abolitionists who vied for her agreeing to let them use her husband's memory, and her surviving children, to further their cause. What to do with John Brown's body, how their daughters should be educated, how to disburse the funds donated to the family -- abolitionists fought each other to gain influence over Mary, and were frustrated when she did not accede to their will. Laughlin-Schulz does her due diligence, and is especially adept at describing the celebrity that attached itself to Mary Brown and her family after the Harper's Ferry executions. She tells a story that is reminiscent of contemporary media feeding frenzies. In some cases, though, she is forced to speculate about what Mary Brown must have felt, or might have believed, without having real evidence for her suppositions.
Laughlin-Schulz also faces some difficulty in understanding Browns' daughters beliefs, also due to primary source challenges. Brown's daughter Annie, who kept house for her father and his raiders, in part to try to keep neighbors from becoming suspicious, lived a complicated life. She was proud of her role in the raid, but frustrated that she never seemed to get her due from journalists, abolitionists, and politicians writing about it later. According to Laughlin-Schulz, Annie showed some signs of trauma after the raid from the pain of hearing about the execution of the raiders with whom she lived for weeks. Throughout her life, Annie lived in extreme poverty, and her later writings and comments about the raid and her beliefs are difficult sources to interpret, both because of their retrospective nature and because of her bitterness after a lifetime of being overlooked. To her credit, Laughlin-Schulz describes the uncertainties about Annie, and the pressures on her life. The portrait of her that emerges is obscured by time, but reflects some of the intense pressures she faced throughout her life as a result of her relationship with her father.
In spite of the source challenges that Laughlin-Schultz faces, The Tie That Bound Us kept my attention. Laughlin-Schultz writes with sympathy for the Brown women, and her ability to recreate the political and cultural context surrounding the Browns makes this a good book to read to learn more about the complicated atmosphere around abolition in the US in the mid to late 19th century.
Unfortunately, primary source challenges pose some serious difficulties for Laughlin-Schultz, especially as she tries to discover Mary Brown's beliefs about abolition, and about her husband's decision to turn to violence in support of abolition. She was a quiet, stoic figure, who, with only a handful of exceptions, kept her beliefs and views to herself in the letters that she wrote, both to her husband and children, and later to abolitionists who vied for her agreeing to let them use her husband's memory, and her surviving children, to further their cause. What to do with John Brown's body, how their daughters should be educated, how to disburse the funds donated to the family -- abolitionists fought each other to gain influence over Mary, and were frustrated when she did not accede to their will. Laughlin-Schulz does her due diligence, and is especially adept at describing the celebrity that attached itself to Mary Brown and her family after the Harper's Ferry executions. She tells a story that is reminiscent of contemporary media feeding frenzies. In some cases, though, she is forced to speculate about what Mary Brown must have felt, or might have believed, without having real evidence for her suppositions.
Laughlin-Schulz also faces some difficulty in understanding Browns' daughters beliefs, also due to primary source challenges. Brown's daughter Annie, who kept house for her father and his raiders, in part to try to keep neighbors from becoming suspicious, lived a complicated life. She was proud of her role in the raid, but frustrated that she never seemed to get her due from journalists, abolitionists, and politicians writing about it later. According to Laughlin-Schulz, Annie showed some signs of trauma after the raid from the pain of hearing about the execution of the raiders with whom she lived for weeks. Throughout her life, Annie lived in extreme poverty, and her later writings and comments about the raid and her beliefs are difficult sources to interpret, both because of their retrospective nature and because of her bitterness after a lifetime of being overlooked. To her credit, Laughlin-Schulz describes the uncertainties about Annie, and the pressures on her life. The portrait of her that emerges is obscured by time, but reflects some of the intense pressures she faced throughout her life as a result of her relationship with her father.
In spite of the source challenges that Laughlin-Schultz faces, The Tie That Bound Us kept my attention. Laughlin-Schultz writes with sympathy for the Brown women, and her ability to recreate the political and cultural context surrounding the Browns makes this a good book to read to learn more about the complicated atmosphere around abolition in the US in the mid to late 19th century.
February 7, 2018
Fascinating book about John Brown's widow and daughters and their lives after his ill-fated raid.
March 11, 2022
Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz uses the available records to center the women of John Brown's family in the story of the family's resistance to slavery, and the aftermath. There are some good family tidbits here, but also a lot of conjecture because of the limitations of the scarce source material. Only for serious John Brown enthusiasts.
August 3, 2013
Thanks to Cornell University Press and Netgalley for the advanced copy.
After my summer on the road visiting Civil War sites (not including Harper's Ferry, sadly) I've been gobbling up Civil War related books as I can get my hands on them. So my interest level in the material was high. Even with my high interest taken into consideration, I had trouble working my way through this book. The prose, while clear, tends to be a bit on the dry side. But I do appreciate the obvious lengths to which Laughlin-Schultz has gone to flesh out the post-raid lives of the Brown women, especially considering the dearth of modern-day scholarship regarding the roles they played in national events.
After my summer on the road visiting Civil War sites (not including Harper's Ferry, sadly) I've been gobbling up Civil War related books as I can get my hands on them. So my interest level in the material was high. Even with my high interest taken into consideration, I had trouble working my way through this book. The prose, while clear, tends to be a bit on the dry side. But I do appreciate the obvious lengths to which Laughlin-Schultz has gone to flesh out the post-raid lives of the Brown women, especially considering the dearth of modern-day scholarship regarding the roles they played in national events.
December 30, 2017
This book offers a concise, readable history, focusing mainly on the support work and organizing labor of Mary Ann Day Brown (whose husband was John Brown) and her daughters -- particularly Annie, who participated in the legendary raid on Harper's Ferry. I appreciated the care and detail that the author took in documenting their stories. While historians tend to focus on the white, masculine spectacle that was John Brown (while saying very little, if anything, about the Black people who joined him and suffered far more in the aftermath of the raid), the context Laughlin-Schultz offers in her research is just as important; without the work of Mary and her daughters, John Brown could not have contributed to the anti-slavery movement. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand what it took to agitate for justice during that time, particularly in white abolitionist communities.
My main complaint is that Laughlin-Schultz spends only a few sentences on the Brown family's (specifically, Annie's) anti-Black racism, towards the end of the book. Though the author doesn't overly glorify the Brown women, I think delving into this particular contradiction in the Brown family legacy would have added a powerful authenticity -- not only to their stories, but also to the context of white abolitionist culture as a whole. We can still honor the contributions of white abolitionists, while still holding them accountable to their problematic views.
Anyone who enjoys this book will really appreciate /The "Colored Hero" of Harpers Ferry:
John Anthony Copeland and the War Against Slavery/ by Steven Lubet, a history of the Black people who fought in the raid on Harper's Ferry.
My main complaint is that Laughlin-Schultz spends only a few sentences on the Brown family's (specifically, Annie's) anti-Black racism, towards the end of the book. Though the author doesn't overly glorify the Brown women, I think delving into this particular contradiction in the Brown family legacy would have added a powerful authenticity -- not only to their stories, but also to the context of white abolitionist culture as a whole. We can still honor the contributions of white abolitionists, while still holding them accountable to their problematic views.
Anyone who enjoys this book will really appreciate /The "Colored Hero" of Harpers Ferry:
John Anthony Copeland and the War Against Slavery/ by Steven Lubet, a history of the Black people who fought in the raid on Harper's Ferry.
March 1, 2019
This was an incredibly researched book. I didn't catch on until the second chapter that the numerical notes in the back were more than just notations, but frequently expanded commentary. After that I did a lot of flipping back and forth. The notes section was almost as large as the book.
The author gets props for making the book readable instead of just academic. It was a large subject to tangle with. Mary Brown and Annie Brown get the majority of the focus.
It was interesting that the Brown Family was supported financially as much as they were by charity and other radical abolitionists even while their plight of poverty was a bit extorted. They seemed to have a love/hate relationship with the publicity which is understandable. Today's celebrities act similarly. I was surprised by how much support they did have even though John Brown's actions were clearly illegal. While they accepted the charity, none took similar stands of their own volition. But none of them ever stated anything against John Brown in public or private.
It was sad that Mary and none of the children ever seemed to find good financial standing. Several children specifically hid their family legacy from their children.
One surprise in the book was the radical abolitionist community and how they jockeyed for position among themselves. It was interesting they had reunions years after the Civil War to pat themselves on the back for their place in history and yet did nothing to work towards Civil Rights for African Americans. The 1882 tour Mary went on to be used as a prop in these ceremonies was surreal. Even worse was Kansas got in on it tool and actually invited her to come visit! She came and was paraded here as well.
The author gets props for making the book readable instead of just academic. It was a large subject to tangle with. Mary Brown and Annie Brown get the majority of the focus.
It was interesting that the Brown Family was supported financially as much as they were by charity and other radical abolitionists even while their plight of poverty was a bit extorted. They seemed to have a love/hate relationship with the publicity which is understandable. Today's celebrities act similarly. I was surprised by how much support they did have even though John Brown's actions were clearly illegal. While they accepted the charity, none took similar stands of their own volition. But none of them ever stated anything against John Brown in public or private.
It was sad that Mary and none of the children ever seemed to find good financial standing. Several children specifically hid their family legacy from their children.
One surprise in the book was the radical abolitionist community and how they jockeyed for position among themselves. It was interesting they had reunions years after the Civil War to pat themselves on the back for their place in history and yet did nothing to work towards Civil Rights for African Americans. The 1882 tour Mary went on to be used as a prop in these ceremonies was surreal. Even worse was Kansas got in on it tool and actually invited her to come visit! She came and was paraded here as well.
May 3, 2021
Well documented, well written and informative. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was intrigued by the tenacity and courage of the Brown women, most especially the matriarch, Mary. There is both power and pathos in this story and no little awareness of the vagaries of public opinion, generational memory and classism. Well worth the read.
January 2, 2026
This was a very interesting read. It was deeply saddening to read what all the women went through.
May 22, 2014
From the start of this book, Laughlin-Schultz makes it very clear that there are various obstacles that she had to overcome in writing this book, chiefly of them were primary source problems. With this in mind, I think The Tie That Bound Us is a clear, well written and researched book, and quite interesting on top of all that! Laughlin-Schultz makes the case for these women that have been (as underlined by the lack of sources and other books in a trove of John Brown readers) largely forgotten or glanced over. While reading this, I felt compelled by the plight of the women of John Brown's family: they were impoverished and lived in the shadow of a man who made his mission their lives. I found Annie and Mary Brown fascinating, though I would love to know more about Ruth as well. Laughlin-Schultz also does a fantastic job of keeping the wider John Brown story intertwined with the narrative she lays out, which is a difficult task without many primary source problems. My only caveat here is that this book is more for history buffs, historians, and the like. As a student of history myself, this book was a great read that kept my attention, but for an every day reader that may not have some background that is necessary, I can see some difficulties arising with reading. Overall, I'm more interested in the Browns after reading this, especially the women of his family, and may pick through some of the books referenced in the bibliography.
March 1, 2014
This gives a fascinating new perspective on the John Brown story: that of his female relatives. When I've read about Brown in the past, I've wondered about what kind of family life was possible, what his wife and children thought of his violent anti-slavery work. Here we have that filled in, as best as it can be at this remove in time with much documentation missing. Many additional details that I didn't know were brought to light, such as how the women lived after the Civil War (e.g. Brown's widow and daughters' move to California; daughter Annie's unsuccessful efforts to publish the truth as she saw it). Much more like this, probably not of sufficient interest for a general reader--only for history buffs like me.
May 23, 2015
A sweeping and widely encompassing account of how John Brown's actions and beliefs affected the women closest to him. There is so much information about ore Civil War and post Civil War abolitionism. I feel like I have a handle on societal issues surrounding abolitionism. I also feel like I have seen into the daily lives and struggles of these some that influenced them into becoming complicated people with the heavy weight of their collective past.
I must say that this was a hefty book to get through. I'm glad I kept at it and finished, but it took me awhile.
I must say that this was a hefty book to get through. I'm glad I kept at it and finished, but it took me awhile.
March 30, 2015
Fascinating account of the women of Brown's family.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews