The role of Scottish women in the United States’s anti-slavery movement will be the subject of a seminar in Edinburgh later this month.

“Women on the Platform” looks at their role in a network of radical opponents to black slavery in the 1840s. This will include campaigning against the Free Church of Scotland taking money from slave-owning presbyteries; inviting prominent abolitionists to Scotland, such as fugitive slave Frederick Douglass and the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe; and exposing the clandestine activities of Confederate agents in Scotland.

After slavery was abolished, the network threw itself into overcoming other social injustices affecting women, including campaigns for the right to vote.

The seminar, organised by the National Library of Scotland, takes place at its Causewayside building in Salisbury Place, on October 31 from 9.30am- 3.30pm. Lunch is included and places are free but should be booked in advance.

T: 0131 623 4675; E: events@nls.uk.