Scott Gac. Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth- Century Culture of Reform. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. xiv + 312 pp. $45.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-300-11198-9.

Reviewed by Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz

Published on H-SHEAR (July, 2008)

In this thoroughly researched and engaging much of its cultural relevance. Despite their short work, Scott Gac vividly portrays not only the time in the limelight, Singing for Freedom makes Hutchinson Family Singers but, as his subtitle sug‐ a compelling argument that the story of the gests, the broader nineteenth century culture of Hutchinson family sheds much light on antislav‐ reform. Ofering what might best be described as ery history--as well as rural New England history, "cultural biography," Gac describes the rise (and family history, music history, and the broader fall) of the Hutchinson Family Singers against a nineteenth century. backdrop of the broad transformations occurring Gac carefully situates the Hutchinson singers' in the frst half of the nineteenth century in the entrance into music against the backdrop of the northeast and broader United States. The story of broad changes sweeping across New England Judson (1817-59), John (1821-1908), Asa (1823-84), (and the country) in the early nineteenth century, and Abby (1829-92) Hutchinson, Gac argues, "de‐ especially those of the Second Great Awakening, tails a vibrant cultural space created by waves of the rise of reform culture writ large, technological reform pulsating through the United States in the innovations, and the market revolution. The frst half of the nineteenth century" (p. 4). With Hutchinson Family Singers came from the small their creation of a new kind of music directed community of Milford, New Hampshire, and Gac frst at temperance and then at antislavery reform demonstrates the broad efects of the market rev‐ eforts, the Hutchinsons rose to popularity as a olution by focusing on the changes it brought to family quartet in the 1840s and performed over large farm families such as theirs. (Polly Hutchin‐ 12,000 shows. By 1843, their popularity was such son, their mother, had sixteen children over a that Asa observed that "the people of New York twenty-nine year span.) It seems no coincidence are crazy after 'The Hutchinsons'" (p. 65). By the that Judson, John, Asa, and Abby were four of the 1850s, however, the Hutchinson Family Singers youngest members of this large Baptist family: could no longer make such claims: the group had while most of the older Hutchinson siblings went partially disbanded and, Gac argues, had lost H-Net Reviews into farming, at least for a time, of the younger time, their innovative approach to reform music Hutchinson siblings, only one of eight spent his/ and careful attention to publicity catapulted them her life as a farmer. Confronted by industrializa‐ to national fame. Gac contends that the musical tion and the accompanying changes made to form that the Hutchinsons adopted--one original farming across New England, their parents, Jesse and new--also played a critical role in their rise to and Polly Hutchinson, could no longer "guarantee fame. They wrote their own lyrics to "well-liked a farming life" for each of their sixteen children melodies of blackface minstrelsy and of church (pp. 86, 77). Gac notes, too, that the younger hymns," adding new, catchy refrains to create Hutchinsons were educated diferently than their what Gac describes as a new form of "sacred" mu‐ parents and even older siblings; for example, sic (p. 5). By the end of 1842, they were touted as Abby, one of the youngest Hutchinsons, attended entertainers at temperance meetings, and their the Milford Female Seminary as a young girl, an song "King Alcohol" had grown quite popular. opportunity that never would have been aforded With another song, "Old Granite State," they to her mother Polly. Following the lead of Joshua moved beyond being Rainer family knock-ofs Hutchinson, who broke from farming to take on and paid homage to their New England origins. work as a choirmaster and then instructor of a Especially with their adoption of this tune, Gac re‐ singing school, the youngest fve Hutchinsons, veals them to be astute self-marketers as well as with the exception of Rhoda (too shy for the stage, performers, participating in a "full-fedged com‐ Gac asserts), turned to public performance of mu‐ mercialization of antislavery" (p. 5). sic. Though they had attended antislavery meet‐ Though John, Judson, and Asa Hutchinson ings in Milford as early as 1840 and were fervent were drawn towards music, Gac notes that, initial‐ in their commitment to temperance reform, it was ly, the odds that they would succeed as public per‐ not until 1843, at the urgings of abolitionist lead‐ formers were slim to none, partly due to their ers such as , that the provincial origins and lack of connections but Hutchinson Family Singers came out as antislav‐ even more due to an American predisposition for ery singers. With this transition, Gac contends, European performers. The brothers moved from they "came into their own as musical activists" (p. Milford to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1841, where 173). In 1844, they released "Get Of the Track," a they worked for their older brothers in their gro‐ song in which they changed the lyrics of a popu‐ cery and hardware stores and tried to make head‐ lar minstrel tune "Old Dan Tucker" into "a medi‐ way with their music. A pivotal moment came in um for emancipation" (p. 177). Its opening lines December of 1841, when the famous Swiss family announced their antislavery mission: "Ho! the Car singers, the Rainers, visited Lynn; their visit, Gac Emancipation / Rides majestic thro' our nation / notes, "awakened" the Hutchinsons to the idea of Bearing on its train the story, / LIBERTY! a nation's a family singing group (p. 137). By the following glory" (p. 249). Though there was some backlash month, John, Judson, and Asa transformed them‐ against the song (especially for its distaste for the selves from a vocal trio into the Hutchinson Fami‐ popular compromiser Henry Clay), the song was ly Singers. Now a quartet, they were joined by also widely popular in the North. their young sister Abby, aged eleven. By the end of the 1840s, however, the It took the Hutchinsons some time to carve Hutchinsons were no longer central fgures in the out a niche that was more than just imitative of antislavery struggle, and Gac carefully portrays the model ofered by the Rainers. (For a while them as fgures of 1840s rather than 1850s anti‐ they even appeared in Swiss-like gear!) But over slavery. Though he contends that they had once

2 H-Net Reviews functioned to unite antislavery factions, by the where John appeared and sang many old end of the 1840s this was impossible. Amidst the Hutchinson favorites while abolitionists such as backdrop of the Mexican War controversy, the Lucy Stone and others "remembered, recollected, Hutchinson Family Singers appeared at a tribute and reshaped the past" (p. 37). Though Frederick to Henry Clay; for this, they were seen as selling Douglass did send a letter that referred to the re‐ out for popularity and were (temporarily, it union as featuring "the recollections of deeds well seems) banned from the American Anti-Slavery done, of lives well spent, of wrongs successfully Society, once a prominent backer. In addition to combated and of a race redeemed from slavery," growing sectionalism and the fact that--with the he did not attend.[2] Gac speculates that this was rise of the free soil movement and its broadening because he "understood that his old friends, by of the antislavery constituency--their pleas for and large, were not the reformers they once had racial tolerance and encouragement of racially in‐ been" (p. 240). tegrated audiences were no longer popular, there John Hutchinson was no bystander to this re‐ were also personal reasons behind their decline shaping of the abolitionist past. He gave a speech in popularity. One reason was the loss of, perhaps, at the Danvers meeting and performed numerous the most recognizable and marketable of the Hutchinson family songs, apparently by popular Hutchinsons, Abby. Abby married Ludlow Patton demand. Additionally, three years later, in 1896, in 1849, and the day after, newspaper headlines he penned The Story of the Hutchinson Family announced "Abby Hutchinson no more." Indeed, Singers, which Gac notes blended fact with fction Patton informed Frederick Douglass that he pre‐ in John's attempt to claim a meaningful and prom‐ ferred Abby as "my private companion and not as inent role in the abolitionist movement. While an amusement for the crowds," and she subse‐ Douglass penned the introduction to Hutchinson's quently retired from the stage (p. 225). Through‐ memoir, Gac notes that the two allies had difer‐ out his work, Gac notes that Judson, John, and Asa ent needs in the present: while John found some had distinct (and at times clashing) personalities, "solace in being a relic from days past, … Douglass and after Abby's retirement, the trio moved fur‐ battled against being an 'antique abolitionist'" (p. ther and further away from being a family group 246). known for its harmony--literal and fgurative--and The value of such consideration of abolition‐ devolved into "a band of bickering brothers" (p. ism in the decades after the Civil War cannot be 228). In his discussion of their internal dynamics, overstated. Gac's consideration and careful dis‐ Gac adds to a small body of literature that exam‐ cussion of abolitionist commemorations of their ines abolitionist family internal dynamics.[1] movement--as well as their blind spots and ideal‐ One of the best elements of Gac's work is that izing of the past--stands as an important contribu‐ he does not end his story in the 1850s or with the tion to antislavery historiography. As recently Civil War; instead, early in the work and then demonstrated in Julie Roy Jefrey's treatment of again at its conclusion, Gac leaps forward to the abolitionist memoirs--one of the frst works to do 1890s and looks at how the remaining Hutchin‐ so in recent years--there remains much to know sons, especially John, participated in an "antislav‐ about what abolitionists thought after the war's ery vanguard" working to commemorate the abo‐ end, how they commemorated their own move‐ litionist movement and, to some degree, uphold ment, and what they made of the world that the its aims in an American increasingly hostile to the demise of federal Reconstruction had brought. one-time Hutchinson ideal of racial tolerance and, Both Gac and Jefrey demonstrate that the sources even, equality (p. 22). Gac describes an abolition‐ ist reunion in 1893 at Danvers, Massachusetts,

3 H-Net Reviews for such consideration are rich and will yield wanted to know more about the Hutchinsons's much to scholars.[3] commitment to racial equality and tolerance, par‐ In the end, though the Hutchinson Family ticularly vis-à-vis the recent scholarship that has Singers rose to great heights, their story--and that commented on and celebrated abolitionist John of the 1890s--appears as a sad one, even a tragedy. Brown's commitment to egalitarianism.[4] The Against a backdrop of backlash against any egali‐ Hutchinsons, Gac notes, welcomed and even tarian aims and the advent of Jim Crow, the clamored for interracial audiences for their per‐ Hutchinson Family Singers experienced their own formances. What created their extraordinary personal tragedies. Each member of the family mindset? Was it rooted in their family, their reli‐ quartet, Gac notes, "seemingly paid a price for gious upbringing, or in something else entirely? their early and fantastic rise to fame" (p. 236). Af‐ However, the fact that all of my questions were ter the 1840s, the Hutchinson brothers pined for not answered by Gac's treatment is no critique: in‐ their previous fame. Judson, long prone to melan‐ stead, it stands as testimony to the vibrancy of his choly, committed suicide in 1859, while Asa died account. This is a book that will be of much use to relatively poor in the 1880s. John, too, may have historians of antislavery, the family, the broader died at his own hand in 1908. And their sister was nineteenth century, and to anyone looking for an not spared: Abby, Gac adds, "died after more than intriguing family biography. forty years under Ludlow's wealth and authority" Notes (p. 236). [1]. In addition to biographical treatments of So much goes on in Gac's treatment of the various abolitionists, recent works on abolitionist Hutchinsons that in a few instances, the reader family dynamics include Harriet Hyman Alonso, may be left wanting more. Historians of music Growing Up Abolitionist: The Story of the Garri‐ and nineteenth-century culture, for instance, son Children (Amherst: University of Massachu‐ might want more discussion of the ways in which setts Press, 2002); Chris Dixon, Perfecting the Fam‐ the Hutchinsons turned minstrel tunes to their ad‐ ily: Antislavery Marriages in Nineteenth-Century vantage and what the implications of this for min‐ America (Amherst: University of Massachusetts strelsy were. Additionally, two other examples in‐ Press, 1997); Mark Perry, Lift Up Thy Voice: The volve Abby Hutchinson. Gac portrays her as cen‐ Grimke Family's Journey from Slaveholders to tral to the Hutchinsons's initial success, noting Civil Rights Leaders (New York: Viking, 2003); and that her portrayal as utterly candid was savvy Ronald Salomon, "Being Good: An Abolitionist and appealing to Americans. I wanted to know Family Attempts to Live Up to its Own Standards," more about how the Hutchinsons, including Abby, Vermont History 69 (2001): 32-47. In her biogra‐ actively constructed their image. I was also in‐ phy of Parker Pillsbury, Stacey Robertson also trigued by Abby Hutchinson's retirement. Gac al‐ pays careful attention to abolitionist family dy‐ most teasingly notes that "by the start of the Civil namics as well as gender. Stacey M. Robertson, War, Abby wasn't really allowed to appear on Parker Pillsbury: Radical Abolitionist, Male Femi‐ stage (though her actions reveal a yearning to do nist (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000). so)," but he does not ofer much more information [2]. Old Anti-Slavery Days, Proceedings of the or consideration beyond this, and I wanted to Commemorative Meeting, Held by the Danvers hear more about her chafng against the confnes Historical Society, at the Town Hall, Danvers, of her marriage and to see how this might have April 26, 1893, with Introduction, Letters, and correlated with struggles other antislavery ac‐ Sketches (Danvers: Danvers Historical Society, tivist women had after marriage (p. 238). Finally, I 1893), 63.

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[3]. Julie Roy Jefrey, Abolitionists Remember: Antislavery Autobiographies and the Unfnished Work of Emancipation (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008). Another helpful con‐ sideration of abolitionist memory is W. Scott Poole, "Memory and the Abolitionist Heritage: Thomas Wentworth Higginson and the Uncertain Meaning of the Civil War," Civil War History 51 (June 2005): 202-217. Early works on the abolition‐ ists considered abolitionist commitment to equali‐ ty and appraisal of post-Civil War America. See Richard O. Curry, "The Abolitionists and Recon‐ struction: A Critical Appraisal," Journal of South‐ ern History 34 (November 1968): 527-545; James McPherson, The Abolitionist Legacy: From Recon‐ struction to the NAACP (Princeton: Princeton Uni‐ versity Press, 1975); James McPherson, The Strug‐ gle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Princeton: Prince‐ ton University Press, 1964); and Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Ex‐ periment (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1964). [4]. See Evan Carton, Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006); Louis DeCaro Jr., John Brown: The Cost of Freedom (New York: International Publishers, 2007); David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005); and, perhaps most notably, John Staufer, The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transforma‐ tion of Race (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).

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Citation: Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz. Review of Gac, Scott. Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-Century Culture of Reform. H-SHEAR, H-Net Reviews. July, 2008.

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URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14787

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