Isaac Knapp (January 11, 1804 – September 14, 1843) was an American
abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
printer, publisher, and bookseller in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
. He is remembered primarily for his collaboration with
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he found ...
in printing and publishing
''The Liberator'' newspaper.
Biography
Knapp was born in
Newburyport, Massachusetts
Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mo ...
, to Philip Coombs Knapp and Abigail Remmick; siblings included Abigail Knapp. In 1825 he was proprietor of the ''
Essex Courant'' newspaper, published there.
With his friend
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he found ...
he printed the anti-slavery ''
Liberator'' newspaper, from 1831 to 1839. He also co-founded the
New England Anti-Slavery Society
The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, headquartered in Boston, was organized as an auxiliary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1835. Its roots were in the New England Anti-Slavery Society, organized by William Lloyd Garrison, editor of ...
.
His printing office was located on
Congress Street (circa 1831) and then on
Cornhill. In 1837, the address of the Boston office of the
American Anti-Slavery Society
The American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS; 1833–1870) was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this society ...
was Knapp's address. (See sidebar.) In later years of the 1830s he ceased printing books, used other printers, and turned his printing office into a bookstore. He frequently used blank pages at the end of the books he published to advertise a large and ever-changing list of abolitionist publications available from him.
Knapp's name disappears from the masthead as printer of ''The Liberator'' as of January 1840. In the July 24, 1840, issue, there is an advertisement for the abolitionist printers Dow and Jackson "successors to Isaac Knapp".
We do not have Knapp's story of how and why this happened. Garrison described him as "a most loving, faithful, devoted friend and brother.... He was naturally amiable, kind, and obliging even to excess.... He deserves pity rather than censure, and never can I find it in my breast to say a bitter word of him.... I am not sure that I could have commenced the printing of the ''Liberator'', had it not been for his uniting with me in partnership, and participating in the labors and necessities of my lone situation." However, according to Garrison, "he was altogether too generous...and having no business adaptation, be consequently involved himself deeply in debt while attempting to carry on business. It was thus he became depressed in spirit, and, instead of calmly submitting to the stroke of adversity, vainly sought to find relief from his sorrows (as millions have done before) in the intoxicating bowl." "
s disconnexion with the ''Liberator'' ...
asabsolutely essential to the existence of the paper."
In 1841 Knapp complained that "he has been deprived of his interest in the Liberator unjustly—that Mr. Garrison and 'a certain rich man' have treated him badly—therefore he intends to print a paper to be called 'Knapp's Liberator'." Only one issue of this paper is known to have been published, on January 8, 1842 (only known copy at the
Massachusetts Historical Society
The Massachusetts Historical Society is a major historical archive specializing in early American, Massachusetts, and New England history. The Massachusetts Historical Society was established in 1791 and is located at 1154 Boylston Street in Bost ...
).
Works issued by Knapp
Knapp as bookseller
* A catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, published at end of ''Narrative of Joanna; An Emancipated Slave, of Surinam'', 1838.
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 1.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 1
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 2.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 2
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 3.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 3
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 4.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 4
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 5.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 5
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 6.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 6
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 7.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 7
File:Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 8.jpg, Catalog of anti-slavery publications sold by Isaac Knapp, p. 8
*
** Titles listed:
Abolition of the Slave Trade, Adams' Letters, Adams' Oration, Adin Ballou's Discourse, Anti-Slavery Catechism, Anti-Slavery Manual, Anti-Slavery Record, Archy Moore, Authentic Anecdotes of American Slavery, Barrows on the Slave Question, Birney's Second Letter, Bourne's Picture, British Apprenticeships, Channing on Slavery, Channing on Texas, Charles Ball, Chloe Spear, Crandall's Trial, Discussion, Dissertation on Servitude, Dresser, Stones' Letters, &c., Enemies of the Constitution Discovered, Evils and Cure, Godwin on Slavery, Granville Sharp, Gustavus Vassa, Important Pamphlet, James Jackson, Jay's Inquiry, Juvenile Poems, Kentucky Address, Lemuel Haynes, Liberty, Memoir of Phillis Wheatley, Miss Beecher Reviewed, Miss Grimke's Appeal, Miss Grimke's Epistle, Mott's Sketches, Mrs. Child's Appeal, Mrs. Stewart's Productions, Objections Answered, Our Liberties in Danger, Phillis Wheatley, Rankin's Letters, Right and Wrong in Boston, Slave Produce, Slave's Friend, Smith's Bible Argument, Songs of the Free, Stanton's Remarks, Stewart's West India Question, Testimony of God Against Slavery, The Fountain, The Generous Planter, The Negro Pew, The Oasis, Thompson at Manchester, Thompson in America, Thompson in G. Britain, Thompson's Lectures and Debates, Valuable Documents, Vigilance Committee, Whittier's Poems, Wilberforce.
*
* Another listing of anti-slavery books, pamphlets, and newspapers appeared in ''The Rochester Freeman'' in 1839.
References
Further reading
* (mentions Knapp)
External links
*
* (digitized letters)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knapp, Isaac
American publishers (people)
19th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
American abolitionists
American newspaper founders
People from Newburyport, Massachusetts
19th century in Boston
1804 births
1843 deaths
19th-century American journalists
American male journalists
19th-century American male writers
American booksellers