8. Jan 1848.

My Dear GayGay, Sydney Howard

Born in Hingham, Massachusetts, Sydney Howard Gay (1814-88) abandoned the study of law in his father's office to embrace the non-violent principles of Garrisonian abolitionists. After lecturing for the American Anti-Slavery Society in the early 1840s, Gay edited its official New York City-based newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard, from 1844 to 1858. From there he went to work for the New York Tribune, serving as that Republican party paper's managing editor during the Civil War. Gay held the same position at the Chicago Tribune (1868-71) and then devoted most of his energies to writing popular histories and biographies. Raimund Erhard Goerler, "Family, Self, and Anti-Slavery: Sydney Howard Gay and the Abolitionist Commitment" (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1975); ACAB, 2:618; NCAB, 2:494; DAB, 7:195. ,

I thank you for the Several Subscribers you have sent me—and the interest you take in my hazardous enterprize. Your good wishes are highly appreciated. One of the most discourageing forms of opposition which I meet is the fears of my friends—Some of whom draw gaunt pictures of Starvation—and predict that I am soon to be victimisd. It may be even so.

Yours Ever, Frederick Douglass