I’ll be at #SHEAR2026 in Philadelphia this Saturday to chair a hybrid roundtable session honoring the late James Brewer Stewart. In preparation, I have had the pleasant task of going back through some of Jim’s scholarship, to which I and so many other historians of abolitionism have been indebted over the years.

I had forgotten that my copy of his great biography of William Lloyd Garrison, purchased online when I was just getting started in the profession, turned out to be a withdrawn library copy from Macalester College, Jim’s academic home base for more than fifty years.

I can still hear his voice and miss him terribly today.