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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. InThe 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.

This dissertation recovers and critically interprets the history of the wife and daughters of abolitionist John Brown, tracing their early antislavery efforts and ideology, their participation in a militant antislavery movement that culminated in Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, and their attempts to make meaning of the raid in the post–Civil War world. Despite the recent explosion of scholarly interest in John Brown, few scholarly works have examined the Brown women beyond their role as sources about and kin to the fiery abolitionist. And yet examining them closely reveals their unique profile as historical actors. The Brown women were both ordinary and extraordinary: while the conditions in which they lived were quite typical for poor, rural, reform-minded nineteenth-century women, they also led extraordinary lives, crossing paths with such figures as Frederick Douglass and Lydia Maria Child and embracing an abolitionist moral code that sanctioned antislavery violence as well as the more typical female world of petitioning and pamphleteering. Using letters, periodicals, and other archival and print sources, this dissertation examines how Brown's wife Mary Ann Day Brown and his daughters Ruth Brown Thompson, Annie Brown Adams, Sarah Brown, and Ellen Brown Fablinger experienced, participated in, and remembered their family's antislavery work in the Civil War era and beyond. Their involvement with Brown's violence separated them from many other female abolitionists, and they devoted much of their lives to a spirited justification of the morality of his choice. In their role as what daughter Annie called \"relics\" of Brown's raid, the Brown women tested the limits to American memory of the Civil War, especially the war's most radical aim: securing racial equality. Brown's wife Mary and daughters Ruth, Annie, Sarah, and Ellen served as lightning rods for memory of militant abolitionism well into the twentieth century. The Brown women, upholding what historian David Blight has termed an \"emancipationist\" narrative of the Civil War, sustained and defended Brown's choices and legacy in an increasingly hostile postwar America. Because of their ties to the famous (or infamous) Brown, they experienced a particular kind of celebrity with abolitionists and the American public. In its focus on these relationships to the broader antislavery community as well as the nation at large, this dissertation connects the story of the Brown women to the broader history of Reconstruction and race relations in the decades following the Civil War. Additionally, through an analysis of the Brown women's dealings with abolitionists in the 1850s and decades beyond, it offers insight into how abolitionists understood and memorialized their own movement. Because of their longevity (the daughters lived well into the twentieth century) and their position as symbols of the most radical form of abolitionist agitation, the Brown women offer a unique window into the changing nature of American memory of Brown's raid, the antislavery movement, and the Civil War.