The life-size bronze figures Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) that stand at either entrance to the New-York Historical Society bring to life the story of freedom that is deeply embedded in American history and is a primary focus of New-York Historical’s programs. Throughout his candidacy and presidency,
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, born a slave in 1818 on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, became a free man in New York in 1838 after boarding a train for the north with the borrowed identity papers of a free black man. In his autobiography, Douglass vividly described his first experience of freedom: “After an anxious and most perilous but safe journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a free man—one more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of the troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway.”