Causes and Tangents

Pennsylvania Hall

Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia. Intended to be the headquarters for the Abolition movement and the host of Benevolent Empire causes, before it was burned to the ground by a mob in 1838. Charles Calistus Burleigh was present and played a major role in the Abolitionist response to this vigilante attack.

The major causes that motivated the Burleigh siblings were

1. Abolition

2. Equal Civil Rights across all races (including suffrage for Black men)

3. Women's Rights (including suffrage for women)

4. Temperance

5. Peace/Non-Violence/Non-Resistance

The "Benevolent Empire" of 19th-century America did not stop at these causes alone! Others for which there is evidence of support or interest from the Burleigh family include:

1. Humane Treatment of Children
2. Humane Treatment of the Mentally Ill
3. Humane Treatment of Animals
4. Opposition to Capital Punishment
5. Opposition to Masons (Anti-Masonry)
6. Orthographic Reform/Phonography
7. Labor Rights
8. Opposition to Gambling
9. Opposition to Tobacco Use
10. Opposition to the War with Mexico and the Annexation of Texas
11. Opposition to Dueling
12. Native American Rights

The latter half of the 19th century brought out some new causes, including

1. Aid to Freedmen in the South
2. Support for immigration and the civil rights of immigrants, especially from Asia
3. Single Tax/Henry George-ism
4. Anti-imperialism

New England Scenery, 1851

Frederick Church's early masterpiece, New England Scenery (1851), would have delighted the Burleigh family. William Burleigh noticed Church's excellence early on in the pages of The Charter Oak, an outstanding example of his attempts to weld aesthetic dimensions and reform causes. 

In addition to these specific moral and political causes, the Burleigh family saga touches on some noted cultural developments of the time, and anticipates some of concern to our own time.

1. Transcendentalism
2. The History of Technology
3. Developments in Print Technology and Visual Arts
4. Religious Tolerance and Co-Existence
5. Utopian Communal Living Experiments (Northampton; Vineland)
6. LGBTQ Lives in an Era of Silence (Mary Grew, Margaret Jones [Burleigh] and Cyrus Burleigh)