"in a manner that would have delighted the abolitionists..."

8 May 2023: Working on my entry on children's literature today and decided to use "The Boy Who Liked Natural History" by Fanny Fern as my "hook" in the introduction. Six-year-old Hal, engages in a little experiment, determined to find out if his hens can swim. Undaunted by the hens’ resistance, he finally flings one into the creek, only to tumble into it himself. Both the hen and the boy emerge unharmed, rescued by Hal’s older brother, and the boy is humbled enough to “try his experiments from his father’s door-stop” in the future (291). It’s a sweet and silly story, with little lessons about safety and kindness to animals for young readers. One line, though, might stand out to a modern audience: describing the way a black and a white hen interact, the narrator notes the black hen’s refusal to be submissive. She behaves, the narrator writes, “in a manner that would have delighted the abolitionists” (289).

It's such a strange moment for a contemporary reader--a silly story about a boy and chicken with a throwaway reference to the white hot issues of race and abolition. It's extra fascinating to me because it probably wasn't that strange to nineteenth-century readers. It's a reminder that they, too, like Hal and his chickens, were swimming in a societal "creek" where these images, these issues, and these metaphor were the stuff of everyday life. Children's literature was no exception.

Work Cited

Fern, Fanny. Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends. Derby and Miller, 1854.