Knapp, George Kasson, American
Description
Donor of the Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection to the Cornell Library. This portrait is part of the Sumner M. Kirby room dedicated and furnished by Allan P. Kirby as a memorial to his brother for the undergraduate library of Cornell University, now Uris Library.Reverend Samuel Joseph May is a graduate from Harvard (1817) and studied theology in Cambridge, MA. He was one of twelve children and uncle to Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women [Unitarian Congregational Society (Syracuse, N.Y.). 1871. In memorial: Samuel Joseph May. Syracuse, N.Y.: The Journal, http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/maysamuel/maysamuel.html. As an ordained minister, he was pastor for churches in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In 1845, he settled in Syracuse, New York and became the minister for the Church of the Messiah, later renamed the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society in his honor. "Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection: Samuel J. May Biography." Cornell University Library Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, accessed May 22, 2012, http://digital.library.cornell.edu/m/mayantislavery/biography.htm]l. May was an active Pacifist, Abolitionist, educational reformist and advocate of equal rights for women. He supported the temperance movement, penal reform and better treatment for Native Americans. ["May, Samuel Joseph" The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart, ed., rev. Phillip W. Leininger. Oxford University Press 1995. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxfordreference.com]. As an abolitionist May served as general agent and secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and his house was a station for the Underground Railroad. Notable writings include The Rights and Condition of Women (1846), A Brief...
Oil
Ca. 1853 1910