author

Marion Gleason McDougall

Best known for a pioneering 1891 study of fugitive slave law, this early historian wrote with a clear eye for legal detail and the human cost behind it. Her work grew out of academic research connected to the Harvard Annex, later known as Radcliffe College.

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Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865)

Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865)

by Marion Gleason McDougall

About the author

Marion Gleason McDougall is known for Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865), published in 1891. The book traces the legal history of fugitive slavery in the United States and was prepared under the direction of historian Albert Bushnell Hart.

The work began as student research at the Harvard Annex, the program for women that later became Radcliffe College. It was issued as part of the Publications of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, which places McDougall among the early generation of women doing serious historical scholarship in that academic circle.

Reliable biographical details about her life outside this publication are hard to confirm from the sources found here, so much of her public legacy rests on this book itself. Even so, the study remains notable for its careful documentation and for tackling the history of slavery, escape, and law in a focused, scholarly way.