By Dani Elle Brissette

WOONSOCKET — In the most recent installment of the John H. Chaffee Blackstone River National Heritage Corridor’s Ranger Days program, hosted by the Museum of Work and Culture, Woonsocket native Elizabeth Vangel delivered a presentation on Sunday afternoon entitled “Champions of Freedom,” which highlighted the city’s anti-slavery activists.

“For the last year and a half I’ve been more and more interested in what I see as a major influence of anti-slavery in Woonsocket,” said Vangel. “Woonsocket was so avant-garde before it’s’ time with the voices of anti-slavery.”
Vangel, the founder of Oak and Foss Media, began researching the anti-slavery movement throughout Woonsocket and prepared a video display and discussion surrounding the extreme actions of abolitionists and the fact that much of the impact that Woonsocket has had on abolitionism has been “glossed over” as years have passed.
“What fascinates me more and more are the buried histories and more than that, what I call the inner definition; what the greater legacy of Woonsocket is,” Vangel said.
Putting emphasis on historical Woonsocket activists such as Edward Harris, a radical abolitionist and wealthy manufacturer and German Foss, a Civil War correspondent and silk manufacturer, Vangel expressed her beliefs the audacity of the Woonsocket-based activists was a rarity during the 1800’s and their endeavors were something to be celebrated and admired.
“Basically, how [the abolitionists] came across this thing about color not being relevant in the 1830’s, I think it’s one of the wildest stories in the American experience and it happened right here in Woonsocket,” Vangel said.
Other local icons that were touched upon during Vangel’s talk were Abby Metcalf Harris, the wife of Edward Harris who Vangel says was more radical than her husband and Christopher Robinson, a local lawyer who delivered a fundamental anti-slavery speech in Washington. These activists, according to Vangel, are the forgotten legacies of Woonsocket’s anti-slavery movement and the city has become so well known for its manufacturing trade that much of the abolitionist history has been overshadowed.
“As great of manufacturers as they became, Woonsocketers were even greater abolitionists and they have nothing to apologize for,” Vangel said. “This abolitionist movement started against the odds; it wasn’t an overnight sensation, but it became their life’s work.”
The Ranger Day talks are sponsored by the John H. Chaffee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. All of the Ranger Day programs are free and open to the public. For more information, call (401) 769-9675.