Petitioning against a congressional gag rule on slavery before the Civil War spurred generations of activists

Decades before the Civil War, girls as young as 11 helped gather signatures on anti-slavery petitions sent on to a recalcitrant U.S. Congress. That simple act of canvassing became a crucible of activism that transformed the American political landscape, propelling generations of women into social causes after the war.

So argues a new paper co-written at Harvard. The “skills and contacts” that canvassing conferred on women who opposed slaver, wrote Harvard political scientist Daniel Carpenter in the American Political Science Review, “empowered their later activism.” In great numbers, he said, these former canvassers went on to use their new mastery of networking, persuasion, and organization in other movements, including campaigning for women’s right to vote.

Carpenter is the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government, director of Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies, and director of social sciences at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.